How to open new TextEdit document in front of other application windows?

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Level 1

112 points

How to open new TextEdit document in front of other application windows?

Is there any way to force TextExit to open new windows in front of other windows already present?

This question was already posed by another user in the above discussion years ago and was mistakenly marked as answered, so I thought I'd go ahead and ask the question again in a new thread to hopefully get some help with this.

The fact that TextEdit does not automatically become the active application upon the creation of a new document is weird, and adds an unnecessary swipe and click in between me and getting my thoughts down quickly.

Anyone know how to remedy this? In the old thread, someone suggested restoring the defaults in the TextEdit preferences, but that did not work.

Running Mavericks 10.9.3

Posted on Jul 3, 2014 5:01 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 9, 2017 3:19 PM in response to chinchillas

I have this same aggravation. I found that if I hold down the Shift Key while I click on the TextEdit icon, a box will open and I can click on New Document, and TextEdit will open up a new document on top of all the other programs that I have open at the moment.

Don't know if that is a solution that will last forever. But it seems to be working for me.

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Answer 2

Jul 3, 2014 7:36 PM in response to oregonjoe

Hold down the Command & Option key when clicking on TextEdit in the Dock. This should hide all other open windows.

Note, I'm not seeing the behavior you are describing. Test in the Guest User to see if you see the same behavior.

BTW, OS X 10.9.4 is out.

OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 Update (Combo)

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1755

Post Date: Jun 30, 2014

File Size: 958.2 MB

MORE INFO ON WHY RUNNING COMBO FIXES ISSUES

Apple updates available from the Software Update application are incremental updates. Delta updates are also incremental updates and are available from Apple Downloads (software updates are generally smaller than delta updates). The Combo updates contain all incremental updates and will update files that could have become corrupted.

Combo updaters will install on the same version as they're applying--no need to roll back or do a clean install.

"Delta" updaters can only take you from one version to the next. For example: 10.9.3 to 10.9.4. If somehow the 10.9.3 is missing something it should have, and that something isn't changed between 10.9.3 and 10.9.4 it will still be stale after the delta update.

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Answer 3

oregonjoe Author

Level 1

112 points

Jul 3, 2014 9:14 PM in response to dianeoforegon

Just for everyone's reference, here's what I responded in the original thread:

Thanks, I tried what you suggested. Unfortunately it's not quite what I'm looking for. I don't actually want to hide the other application windows. In fact I want to keep them open so I can take notes in a TextEdit document side by side. Maybe a better option would be to regular click on the TextEdit dock icon, just to activate the application before creating a new document. The only problem with that is if I have another TextEdit document open in another desktop space, when I click on the dock icon it transports me over to that already opened document, which is not what I want.

The problem is any kind of single clicking on the dock icon (holding down cmd/opt or not) transports me to another desktop space that contains an already opened TextEdit document. (I commonly have multiple TextEdit documents open at one time on my various desktop spaces.) When that happens, I have to swipe all the way back to the desktop space I was on, and then I'm back at square one.

You sure you don't get the same behavior? If, say, you're in Chrome and you right click on the TextEdit dock icon and select 'new document', the new document doesn't appear behind the Chrome window (sometimes completely obscured)? I wasn't able to test in my guest account because I couldn't figure out how to add TextEdit to the dock. It wouldn't let me change it. I installed the Mac OS 10.9.4 update but it's the same deal.

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Jul 4, 2014 12:41 PM in response to oregonjoe

Control - click on the Dock icon/Options/Assign to All Desktops.

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Answer 5

Mar 18, 2015 9:11 AM in response to oregonjoe

I have this problem too.

I tried both suggestions (resetting parameters, and control-click Dock icon/Options/Assign to All Desktops), but to no avail: when using another app, if I open a new TextEdit document via the menu that appears when I control-click its Dock icon, the new window always opens behind whatever app I'm working on.

This happens on both of my Macs.

Yes I can switch to the Textedit app, but that's not the expected behaviour present across almost every app, i.e. if I'm in Mail and control-click the Safari dock icon to select 'Open New Window', it will automatically switch to Safari and open a new window.

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Answer 6

Apr 15, 2015 8:44 AM in response to Me me me!

Eric --- thank you, I have been looking for a solution to this for some time. One of my TextEdit docs was "sliding" off the screen when viewing other app windows, while other docs were staying put (as I wanted). "Assign to All Desktops" solved the mystery.

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Answer 7

Nov 25, 2015 7:18 AM in response to oregonjoe

Hi, did you ever find a solution for this? It's incredibly annoying. I noticed this today after connecting and migrating settings and content from my main Mac to another one, last night.

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