Google Hangouts’ window while presenting

25 Mar 2014 1 mins IM, Presentations & Speaking

Few weeks ago I stoped using Miranda, which I used for years, and installed Hangouts directly into my Iron (Chromium). I stopped using multiple IM networks few years back and I now use only Hangouts and only with my family. Last week while I was teaching my “multithreading” course I received a message, I saw it on my phone, and while the attendees were working on assignment I wanted to respond. And it didn’t worked.

No matter how I clicked the icon the window was not opening. First I thought it’s something with focus and browser window I restarted it, few times. Nothing. That was frustrating. But after next assignment I decided to take out big guns. Once I clicked the icon I looked at all the handles and windows being currently present and the Hangouts’ window was there. But not visible. Weird.

Then I realized I was in “presentation mode”. Turned it off and sure I was able to open the window and type. I don’t know any other applications other than Microsoft’s that take this “state” into account. Although muting all the IM messages is a great small smart touch, when I open the window I want it to do what I want 😃.

Hope it helps somebody while hunting for Hangouts’ window while in “presentation mode”, as I did.

Jiří Činčura is .NET, C# and Firebird expert. He focuses on data and business layers, language constructs, parallelism, databases and performance. For almost two decades he contributes to open-source, i.e. FirebirdClient. He works as a senior software engineer for Microsoft. Frequent speaker and blogger at www.tabsoverspaces.com.