... with a bunch of windows-wunderkids half my age complaining about having to use a mac and how much better it would be if the class room had PCs, yada, yada, yada...
One of the complaints in an online class message board I was reading last night was that the program window would disappear from view if the desktop was accidently clicked. I thought about it briefly and had to admit that in this matter the snot nosed whiners were correct and it was annoying to admit they might have a point so I thought I would ask if there was a work around. Well... I went off half cocked when I posted my question... that is to say that the post pubescent brats were only half right (or would it be "half write" if your arguing via email?) with their complaints.
After I posted, I recreated the problem by opening up both adobe photoshop and macromedia flash on my mac. If either of the programs is open and you click on the desktop then all the tool bars and palettes disappear (which is annoying as heck)! It as if the program never launched and you must go down to the dock to open it again. Do you know how mad you get at yourself when someone convinces you that you are wrong... and then later you realize you were right all along? I opened an existing job in photoshop and then clicked on the desktop. As before, all the tool bars/pallettes disappeared........................ but the job window stayed open. It was then that I realized that for all the griping the windows-wunderkids had done all week long about the unfairness of the world forcing them to work on a mac, the little whiners had never actually had a job open. Light Bulb time! If you just have the program open? Yeah... the menu bar and tools do indeed disappear when you click on the desktop but if you have a job open then the job window stays open but simply grays out like any other window on a mac desktop.
Thus, I answered my own question.
Don't you hate it when someone convinces you there is a problem when there really isn't?
grim