The panel does not work in fullscreen mode

[nortkeja]

As is supposed to happen, the panel disappears when entering fullscreen mode. This is fine as I can still easily access the panel just by pressing super to open the menu which forces the panel to pop up when the setting Force the panel to be visible when opening the menu is enabled. Well, that is how I think it should work. Annoyingly, although the panel comes visible with the menu, when I try to click any of its icons, the panel just escapes without responding to my click in any other way. It would be incredibly nice if the panel was usable in fullscreen too as it holds many important features such as the sound applet and all my application shortcuts.

So, is there a way to make the panel be interactable in fullscreen too? The panel could perhaps live on top of everything else like I think it does in Windows.

[spamegg]

Welcome to the Forum.

This has been asked before 2-3 times, and I think it was reported to the Cinnamon devs but I can't remember exactly.

It is actually working as intended, but it is confusing.
I remember when the "Force Panel to be visible" feature was not available a few years ago.

The problem is that a lot of users coming from Windows were used to auto-hiding their Taskbar, then forcing the panel visible by opening the Start Menu with the Windows key.
So they demanded that same thing to work in Cinnamon.
But the Cinnamon devs added that without giving it too much thought, so the Panel visibility is just "cosmetic" as a result.

In Cinnamon, the Panel and the Menu actually work "separately" unlike Windows.
More accurately, the Menu is just an "applet" that gets placed on the Panel.
The Menu has its own shortcut, the Panel does not.
Downsides of accommodating Windows users' habits

Anyway you can report it here if you want:
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions
https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/issues/

Personally I think it would be better to just stop copying Windows... because Windows users will keep demanding more and more features to be exactly the same as they are used to

[nortkeja]

I understand your point of not copying the behavior of Windows as the design choices of Windows are often quite bad. I do not, however, see any reason for the panel to not be interactable while it is shown.

This entire complaint may seem insignificant, but for me not being able to easily use the panel leads to extremely awkward situations. For example when I want to adjust the sound volume while playing a video game in fullscreen, I have to: open the menu, run a random application, alt+tab to focus the newly opened app, change the volume using the sound applet, and finally close the random app and return to the game.

To avoid such absurdities as described, it would at least be nice if there was workaround to make the panel usable in fullscreen.

[billyswong]

For example when I want to adjust the sound volume while playing a video game in fullscreen, I have to: open the menu, run a random application, alt+tab to focus the newly opened app, change the volume using the sound applet, and finally close the random app and return to the game.

For this particular case, I suggest using keyboard shortcut to +/- volume. If your keyboard doesn't have that dedicated keys, map another combinations.

p.s. I use MATE and MATE doesn't have the bug/lack-of-feature you are facing.

[all41]

I just use F11 to temporarily exit full-screen to allow live panel operation, then F11 to restore fs.

[nortkeja]

First of all, thank you all for your answers.

For this particular case, I suggest using keyboard shortcut to +/- volume. If your keyboard doesn't have that dedicated keys, map another combinations.

Binding common actions to keyboard shortcuts is probably the best way to go about. The shortcuts tab of the keyboard settings does a really good job in mapping all kinds of shortcuts. And after all it is in many cases just easier to press some keys than it is to use the panel.

I just use F11 to temporarily exit full-screen to allow live panel operation, then F11 to restore fs.

The F11 key quite rarely works in games, so often it is of no use.

p.s. I still think changing the behavior of the panel in fullscreen should be considered

[spamegg]

p.s. I still think changing the behavior of the panel in fullscreen should be considered

You should tell the developers! They won't do it unless they hear from the users.
https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/issues/

Generally speaking, "fullscreen gaming usage" is not something that comes up a lot in the Linux world. Linux users usually don't game that much. The developers are not gamers (unless it's a "gaming distro" like Nobara or Garuda). So they will never run into your use case or your specific issues.

[luccajan]

I'm not sure if you still need this, but for future readers Super+S lets you use the applets on the panel even when full screen. I'm still getting used to mint since I switched from windows in November but overall I'm pleasantly supersized how smooth the experience is.