I now need to Click twice to open apps in Dock - Previously One Click

[IWT]

@Patrick,

Tried multiple Mouses. Tried Safe Mode. I truly understand the pain of trolling through 40-odd posts in a thread to pick up specific details. No problem there.

@Rod,

I have multiple Desktops. Have had them on all my iMacs since they were introduced.

The first time I open an app, it only takes one click. This applies to all apps whether Apple or third party.
Thereafter, it takes two clicks to "activate" these open-but-dormant apps.

However, on further testing, this seems only to apply to Apple apps. I don't use many third party apps so I hadn't realised this difference until I read your post - bravo, Rod.

What that means? - not sure.

And a very big "thank you" to all of my friends here for taking such an interest.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

Ian, what I suspect is that when you leave one app, the "focus" of the cursor goes to another Desktop, one that does NOT have the Dock. So, when you want to re-open something on the Dock, you have to click once, which gets the focus back to the Desktop with the Dock and then the second click is the one the app sees, as you are now on the proper Desktop. You can experiment, if you want, by getting rid of the multiple Desktops and see if the behavior changes. I don't know how to "fix" the shifting focus, if I am correct, but there may be some way to have the default focus on the default Desktop.

 

[IWT]

Great idea, Jake. It is logical, makes sense, explains the situation, from which I conclude it is highly probable.

I'm pleased because everything else works fine and this scenario has remained through a repeat download of the OS.

As always, I'm extremely grateful to you and all those others who have contributed.

Ian

 

[ferrarr]

Ian, I feel this has something to do with Mission Control. Or probably a plist file for the Dock.

On my setup (Mac Mini), I have two displays. On both displays I have multiple Spaces (Desktops), but one display has more than the other (8 on right, 2 on left). In System Preferences > Mission Control, I have all items selected. I also enabled my Hot Corners to show Mission Control when I go to the bottom corner of the right display.

I haven't experienced this issue you are having. How often do you restart or shut down? I recently began shutting down my Mac because of a discussion on these forums. I only do it about once a month and usually for 15 minutes, when I'm showering or eating.

 

[IWT]

Thanks, Bob.

Given the number of times I've invoked Safe Mode, Recovery Mode, re-downloaded Big Sur, ran Onyx etc - well, it's fair to say I've rebooted on quite a few occasions. On at least two evenings, I've shut the iMac down till the morning.

I'll concede that my usual practice is to keep it running constantly with a reboot about once a month. That changed as a feature of trying to solve this.

As far as I can determine, Mission Control behaves okay. In my case Hot Corners activated MC by going to the top right corner of the screen.

Just writing about what I've done, it occurs to me that the one thing I haven't done and maybe should have - is boot into a second Admin account I set up when I got the iMac. That has never been used.

Worth a try, do you think?

Ian

 

[pm-r]

Great idea, Jake. It is logical, makes sense, explains the situation, from which I conclude it is highly probable.

It certainly makes sense as to the basic way the macOS works, noun, verb... noun, verb... ie: Select (noun) then choose action (verb).

Now I guess I have to go and look up and see what a Mac's multiple Desktops actually are.

PS: I guess if you had a Logitech mouse or one that you could modify, you could make one button a single-click, and another button a double-click. Then all you would have to remember is which one is which and when to use them!!!


- Patrick
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[TonyCr46]

I'm having the same problem. Some further details:

M1MacBook Air on Big Sur 11.4
Open apps in the dock:

• Finder
• Fantastical
• Apple Mail
• Safari
• Obsidian
• Music
• Text Expander

The only apps I am having this problem with are Apple Mail and Safari. All the other apps open with 1 click. On these 2, the problem occurs even if the app is already open. With the first click, the app menu items appear in the menu bar, but it takes the 2nd click to get the app window to appear. I'm using Mission Control. Every app appears in a different space, so it doesn't seem to be a problem with that.

If anybody figures this out, I'd be very interested.

Thanks

Tony

 

[pm-r]

If anybody figures this out, I'd be very interested.

Personally I would try using a decent Mouse such as the Logitech m720, it can use a USB dongle or Bluetooth and buttons etc. are modifiable.
I believe it also has various motions available, but I don't use them.

They were on sale at the local Canadian Staples store a week or so ago for $49 cdn.


- Patrick
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[chscag]

I'm having the same problem. Some further details:

Welcome to our forums.

Read thru the entire thread if you have not already done so.

It appears the problem you're having has to do with the use of Mission Control and is not related to any particular mouse or trackpad. One of our long time members (in this thread) tried everything to alleviate the problem to no avail. He is also using Mission Control.

This is likely not going to be resolved until Apple takes care of it with an update. Big Sur 11.5 is very close to going live, probably within the week. Let's see what happens with that.

 

[TonyCr46]

Personally I would try using a decent Mouse.

=======

Patrick,

I'm using an Apple Magic Mouse that is just a few months old (I bought it at the same time as I got my M1 MBA). Don't know how much more "decent" you can get that that.

 

[TonyCr46]

Read thru the entire thread if you have not already done so.

It appears the problem you're having has to do with the use of Mission Control...

I thought I had read through the thread pretty well, but maybe not.

Mission Control makes sense. I've got it on my todo list for experimenting this weekend. I was a fan of TotalSpaces by BinaryAge before I got my M1 MBA. I really miss it. Don't know if they are going to try to bring TS to Apple Silicon, but I get the feeling maybe not.

 

[TonyCr46]

A follow up:

I deleted all my mission control spaces and everything works as it should. Nice to know what the problem/solution is.

The main reason I used Mission Control to set up spaces was to group apps together. For example, I had email in #1, browsers in #2, utilities in #3, audio editing in #6, and so on (I had 9 spaces). Now I'm thinking that Bunch from Brett Terpstra might accomplish the same thing. I'll have to give it a try.

Thanks, @chscag, for pointing me in the right direction.

Tony

 

[IWT]

Thanks, @chscag, for pointing me in the right direction.

And thank you Tony for confirming what we assumed was the cause of the problem, originally posted by me - and MC suggested by Jake and others.

Ian

 

[TonyCr46]

And thank you Tony for confirming what we assumed was the cause of the problem, originally posted by me - and MC suggested by Jake and others.

Additional info:

BinaryAge blog says:

TotalSpaces3
It’s not all bad news! For a while now we have been working on a new version of TotalSpaces, TotalSpaces3. This version will work without modifying the system, and works with SIP enabled. It is a significant challenge to achieve an equivalent experience without the level of access that code injection provided us, but we believe it will be more than usable.

It is intended for Apple Silicon macs only (at this time), and is currently in private alpha testing. We don’t have any release timetable set at the moment, but we will make announcements at the appropriate time.

TotalSpaces is an app I have used for a very long time (at least until I got an M1) and I love it. It does spaces far better than Mission Control and it will likely not have the quirk that this thread is about.

 

[jj2112]

Thank you! Thas been driving me crazy for a long time!

 

[pm-r]

Thank you! Thas been driving me crazy for a long time!

I'm glad to read you finally found a solution to your long-standing old problem even though we don't know what you actually did to fix things, but I guess even new members can find a solution using some old posts here, so welcome aboard to mac-forums and hopefully you will enjoy your visits here and find more useful Mac hints and solutions to your problems.




- Patrick
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