'Applications' and Unity Issues

[twynne]

Decided to get Fusion another try today by building a clean XP Pro VM and I still find the implementation of the Applications menu very confusing.

Issue 1:

One program I use quite regularly in a VM is Digiguide (as they apparently have no plans to release a Mac version). When I start the VM and run Digiguide, I get a new dock icon for the program. The dock icon does nothing. When clicked it runs nothing, brings nothing into focus, and I get a menu titled 'digiguide.exe - Windows XP Pro 2'. If I run Digiguide from within the VM, then minimise, I get a new 'running program' icon on the dock (right side) but the dock icon is just a black square with the Fusion logo overlayed. Testing with a different program (Firefox) I get similar behaviour when minimising, except that the black square shows part of the program window. Again clicking the new dock icon just shows a menu with nothing in it.

I can see this becoming a problem when you multiple Windows apps running and minimised as you've no way to determine which is which without restoring each of them.

Issue 2:

You can't run anything from the Applications menu unless you have focus on one of the programs already running in that VM.

Fair enough if these are just shortcomings of the current beta, but can someone confirm that please?

Thanks all,

Tom

[admin]

The dock icon does nothing. When clicked it runs nothing, brings nothing into focus, and I get a menu titled 'digiguide.exe - Windows XP Pro 2'.

For me, the Windows app icon can bring a background window to the front but doesn't unminimize a window if nothing's open. The developers are aware of this problem.

f I run Digiguide from within the VM, then minimise, I get a new 'running program' icon on the dock (right side) but the dock icon is just a black square with the Fusion logo overlayed

The developers are aware of this problem.

You can't run anything from the Applications menu unless you have focus on one of the programs already running in that VM.

I don't think this is necessarily a bug, what happens if you have two Unity VMs open? How do you decide which one the Applications menu goes to? The obvious choice is whichever has focus.

[twynne]

On the last point, I think this is where the Parallels implementation makes a bit more sense. The Applications menu is accessed by right-clicking the VM icon in the dock (and I believe there's a separate icon for each VM, which avoids the issue you've pointed out.) It's just not intuitive to have to select a running program first in order to launch another program. I suspect most people use only a single VM at a time anyway. Maybe it would be better if:

1) If the machine has more than one running VM, put the VM name in the Applications menu above the programs level. So if you have more one VM, the process to launch an app is:

Applications > VM1 > Programs > Program Name

Applications > VM2 > Programs > Program Name

2) If the machine has only a single VM, exclude the VM name from the app menu as only the programs from the running VM are available to run.

Alternatively, 'borrow' the Parallels approach and move the Applications menu to the dock icon.

[admin]

It's not Parallel's approach, VPC had it before them, but you point is still taken. You should file a bug[/url] about this.

[twynne]

I already had. 😄

SR #189560304