Cannot see a draft in Mail and iTunes or Safari simultaneously

[desertman]

Someone I know cannot see see an open draft in Mail and either iTunes or Safari simultaneously on her computer with OS X 10.8.5. Whenever she clicks onto the iTunes icon the Mail draft window disappears, whenever she clicks onto the draft window in Mail iTunes disappears. On my Mac this works without problems, and she says that it used to work also on her computer in the past.

What might this be and how can it be fixed? Thanks.

Greetings - desertman

 

[Bruno09]

This is likely because Mail in assigned to one Desktop, when iTunes or Safari are assigned to another Desktop.

Therefore clicking on the Mail icon when in Safari will make switch between the two desktops and "hide" Safari.

See the available options by right clicking the app's icons in the Dock : "Options, Assign to..."

 

[desertman]

Thanks for the tip. I will have a look at it when I see that computer next time.

The strange thing is that it is possible to see the general Mail window and Safari at the same time but not a separately open draft window in Mail and Safari. It is not possible to look at a website in Safari and have next to it an open draft window in which editing can be done.

Is it possible to have just the draft windows of Mail assigned to a different desktop?

 

[Bruno09]

If you can see the general Mail window and Safari at the same time, they are not assigned to different desktops.

I can't reproduce the problem : I can have an open draft window and Safari side by side.

I don't think there is a way to assign the drafts to a different desktop.
However you can manually drag a draft window of Mail into the the Safari window by using Mission Control.

 

[desertman]

I can have an open draft window and Safari side by side.

Same here at my computer. Really mysterious why it does not work on my friend's machine.

 

[desertman]

It was a "Desktop" thing. I don't know exactly how she managed to get several desktop and how she assigned this to one and that to another one but after I assigned everything to all desktops it was possible to see the applications and all windows simultaneously.

Can I just delete the second desktop and then disable the shortcut for Mission Control to prevent something like this again?

 

[Bruno09]

Can I just delete the second desktop and then disable the shortcut for Mission Control to prevent something like this again?

Yes you can.

This would not be my choice, as having multiple desktops is very handy, in my opinion.