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How can I prevent my full screen mode AC screen from minimizing upon pressing ESC.

keene kopper
Booster
I've been trying to solve this problem for months now. It might sound like I'm a little clumsy, but I feel pretty strongly that my workflow is good practice:

I press 'ESC' multiple times to clear all tools and selections to prevent mistakenly moving or editing any unknown selections. Pressing ESC once clears selections, pressing it twice de-selects any active tool, but then if I press it three times (or less if nothing is selected, and no tool is selected), it causes my "full-screen mode" to minimize— it is driving me absolutely insane. Sometimes I just like to press Esc to be absolutely sure that nothing is selected outside of the current view.

I've changed the minimize/maximize to full-screen command to 'ctrl + esc.', which at least lets me re-maximize after the window annoyingly minimizes.

I've changed my OS keyboard/shortcuts/app shortcut: 'Exit Full Screen' key combination to 'opt + shift + esc' and that has not stopped AC from minimizing from full screen with just the ESC button pressed. I really really want to stop my Full screen mode from minimizing when I only press ESC.

I've also reinstalled AC and then re-set these key-combos. That has not helped.

Please please help!!!
TV / Film Production: Sr. Set Designer
Art Directors Guild, Local 800
Archicad Latest Version
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018), 2.9 GHz Intel Core i9, >32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro Vega 20 4080 MB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
19 REPLIES 19
PB
Expert
Just for info: this Mac OS ‘behaviour’ also drives me mad...would be delighted if someone has a remedy...
AC27 Apple Silicon. Twinmotion.
16" M1 Max MacBook Pro 32GB, Apple Studio Display, MacOS 15
Solution
Eduardo Rolon
Moderator
Just as a test. In AC assign the ESC key to a tool by editing your work environment. Hopefully this will override the OS since I don’t have that issue.
Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08

Macbook Pro M1 Max 64GB ram, OS X 10.XX latest
another Moderator

keene kopper
Booster
Hello,
So, the issue seemed to stop in a late update of AC 23, and then I upgraded to 24, and it's happening again. It is really driving me crazy. Is there anything notable from the Graphisoft side about this issue seemingly having disappeared, and then reappeared in 24?

Thanks for any help.
TV / Film Production: Sr. Set Designer
Art Directors Guild, Local 800
Archicad Latest Version
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018), 2.9 GHz Intel Core i9, >32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro Vega 20 4080 MB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
keene kopper
Booster
ejrolon wrote:
Just as a test. In AC assign the ESC key to a tool by editing your work environment. Hopefully this will override the OS since I don’t have that issue.
Ok, so, I'm not sure how I missed this suggestion of yours, but I'm almost 100% sure that this has fixed the issue! Brilliant. Thanks so much. Life changer.
TV / Film Production: Sr. Set Designer
Art Directors Guild, Local 800
Archicad Latest Version
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018), 2.9 GHz Intel Core i9, >32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro Vega 20 4080 MB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
keene kopper
Booster
ejrolon wrote:
Just as a test. In AC assign the ESC key to a tool by editing your work environment. Hopefully this will override the OS since I don’t have that issue.
Actually—it just did it again. That didn't work. If I press ESC while the color wheel is spinning, it exits full screen. I know this sounds avoidable, but pressing escape is super important for me, at least, to make sure nothing else is selected during my next command.
TV / Film Production: Sr. Set Designer
Art Directors Guild, Local 800
Archicad Latest Version
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018), 2.9 GHz Intel Core i9, >32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro Vega 20 4080 MB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
Minh Nguyen
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
Dear Keene,

Thank you very much for your report and I am sorry about the experience!

I believe hitting Esc to exit Full-Screen mode is the default behavior of macOS. Even in default apps, like Safari or Mail, Esc will bring everything out of Full-screen mode.

Searching for this issue on the internet, here are some suggestions to help you get around this issue on system level:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/110569/disable-esc-shortcut-to-quit-fullscreen
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47851333/how-to-disable-esc-to-exit-fullscreen-macos-high-sierra...
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/8p8spm/disable_exiting_fullscreen_with_esc/

I hope this will help you with the issue! Please let me know if you have further questions!

Best regards,
Minh

Minh Nguyen
Technical Support Engineer
GRAPHISOFT

PB
Expert
Marvellous !

This seems to be working for me (so far)...

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/110569/disable-esc-shortcut-to-quit-fullscreen

Many thanks everyone, and notably mnguyen
AC27 Apple Silicon. Twinmotion.
16" M1 Max MacBook Pro 32GB, Apple Studio Display, MacOS 15
PB
Expert
Seems I celebrated too soon: It worked until restarted my Mac the following morning and is now ineffectual...



From the comments section, a clarification:

"The problem here is that the native shortcut by default is Ctrl-Cmd-F. Overriding the "Exit Full Screen" menu will only override the Ctrl-Cmd-F but ESC seems to have been implemented separately without a menu item"
– Theuni Feb 1 '19 at 11:25

"Exactly. This doesn't work for ESC for reasons mentioned in comments"
– Paul Dec 10 '19 at 23:10
AC27 Apple Silicon. Twinmotion.
16" M1 Max MacBook Pro 32GB, Apple Studio Display, MacOS 15
PB
Expert
Success !

(so far, so good...)

Having installed Karabiner (https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org), I downloaded the file for 'Don't exit fullscreen when pressing ESC in Safari' (https://ke-complex-modifications.pqrs.org/?q=esc) although I later realised that this can be done from directly within Karabiner.

File opened in TextEdit and modified to substitute "com.apple.Safari" with "com.graphisoft.Archicad", and update the description text at the beginning.

Seems to work without any glitches (...so far...)

My 'Don't exit fullscreen when pressing ESC in ArchiCAD' modified script is available at the link below - but please remember that I am not a programmer in any way or form, and I accept absolutely no responsibility for its use: Use at your peril !

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jffgpfzbvjxdadd/ArchiCAD%20Esc%20Key%20disable%20Exit%20Full%20Screen.json...
AC27 Apple Silicon. Twinmotion.
16" M1 Max MacBook Pro 32GB, Apple Studio Display, MacOS 15
Minh Nguyen
Graphisoft Alumni
Graphisoft Alumni
Hello,

Thank you very much for sharing the tips! This would be very useful for us in the future. I truly appreciate it!

Have a great day!

Best regards,
Minh

Minh Nguyen
Technical Support Engineer
GRAPHISOFT

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