Joe Maller: FCP: How to free stuck windows in Final Cut Pro

I've seen a number of posts at 2-pop about various windows getting stuck under the menu bar. This page describes the problem and shows how to free the stuck windows.

Having the title bar of a window stuck under the menu bar is mostly a problem for windows like Log & Capture which can't be rearranged with the Window Menu. The most commonly mentioned solution is to delete Final Cut Pro's preferences, but I hate doing that for something so trivial.

This is a known but somewhat rare problem in Final Cut Pro versions through 2.02

Getting Stuck

This problem is one of those things I never really set out to figure out, until recently. If the window's title bar is clicked and dragged from the title bar's bottom rows of pixels, it can snap behind the menu bar instead of along the bottom edge. This "bad snap" is an unfortunate byproduct of Final Cut Pro's window snapping, the feature which helps line everything up and keep the workspace clean.

If the window is dragged from the row of pixels indicated by the red line shown above, the window will be able to snap behind the Menu Bar. The MacOS cursor's click point is the topmost black pixel in the arrow, the white pixels are just an outline. The images below show where the cursor needs to be to snap a window under the Menu Bar:

No

Yes

No

Getting Free

It is possible to free a stuck window in Final Cut pro by clicking on the black row of pixels at the bottom of the Menu Bar wherever there isn't a menu. The most common stuck windows seem to be in the upper left, which is a problem specifically because of all the menus. The space just to the left of the Apple Menu should allow freeing of stuck windows, if the window's close box is stuck in the corner, it will visibly highlight when the mouse button is pressed down. Move the cursor between the close box and the Apple Menu and click again.

This QuickTime movie shows how to get the bar stuck and how to unstick it.

Helpful Tools

If trying to click on a 1x4 pixel area is too annoying for you (or not working) there is a freeware control panel called Akua Bartender which makes solving this problem very easy.

Bartender is a control panel which can make the menu bar invisible or inaccessible. Since I've only used it for hiding the menu bar and retrieving stuck windows in Final Cut Pro, I turn off the menu bar completely. This allows me to easily grab a stuck windows and move it to a useable place. The settings I use are shown here:

 
Akua Bartender (Menu Bar off, Menus Inactive)

Using Bartender seems a little scary at first, but it's difficult to really get yourself into a bind. I usually don't close the window when using it, but it's no big deal if you do, just click back to the control panel. If you are prone to panic when your computer starts working funny, make an alias on the desktop, just to be safe.

Akua writes very clean software, and has been creating applications and extensions for AppleScript for a long time. I've had the Bartender control panel in my system for a while and haven't noticed any instability.