Issue: When launching TaskPaper, it becomes the frontmost app, but its main window appears behind that of another app.
Details: When launched, TaskPaper’s main window disappears from the frontmost layer almost instantly and is placed behind the frontmost window of the previous frontmost app (the app that was active when launching TaskPaper). TaskPaper still occupies the Menu bar and responds to keyboard input, but you can’t necessarily see what you’re typing.
This on a M4 Mac Mini / Sequoia. I’ve previously observed the same behavior on a M2 MacBook Air / Sonoma.
How are you launching it? For me I don’t see this behavior when launching by double-clicking in the Finder or when launching from Spotlight.
It doesn’t seem to matter: launching via Finder, Spotlight, Dock all result in the described behavior on my system.
I’m not sure. I don’t remember that TaskPaper is doing anything very special with window/showing activation. Should have default system behavior.
What version of macOS are you using? Can you try creating a new fresh macOS account on your and test there. Maybe there is some configuration in your current account that’s creating the issue.
15.3.1 (24D70). But I’ve observed the issue before — ever since I got the Mac mini in November, and previously on a MacBook Air.
I had the same thought, in particular since I’ve seen the same issue on an earlier system with mostly identical login items. Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
- Log in as guest. The issue is gone. (But the license does not extend to this account. Maybe the 7-day-trial “splash screen” forces the main window to the foreground?)
- Start up macOS in safe mode, log in to my regular account. The issue is still present.
Related: TaskPaper is the first app I install on a new Mac. To my best recollection, it has displayed this bug on the Mac Mini from day one. In other words, it behaved as described before any third party app even had a chance to interfere.
All that being said: Since I seem to be the only user having this issue, you may want to ignore it. It’s really just a minor inconvenience.
Can you try entering your license in the guest account and see if that makes difference? I wouldn’t expect it to, but who knows.
This didn’t make a difference.
But it helped me discover something that does:
- Single-document TaskPaper windows behave normally
- Tabbed, multi-document windows appear behind other windows
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Ah, I can reproduce that! Thanks for digging into this.
I’m just testing out in TextEdit, and they seem to have the same problem, but only intermittently. So I think it’s a system problem, but maybe one I can work around. Might take me a bit, but I’ll see if I can find fix.
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