Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations Ability to minimize windows

It would be great if we could minimize certain windows, while other windows are maximized, to allow us to go into the chart to check things. For example, when you are writing a letter, you cannot minimize the letter writing window and go to the patient's chart to look at specific data. I end up having to take notes on the patient's chart, before I write the letter, because sometimes I will incorporate tracked data in the letter, and there is no way to view that once the letter form is started.

EyeGuy,

First, welcome to AC. Good to have you on the boards. What you want would be great, but it holds true for many windows in Windows Applications. Unfortunately, I feel your pain, but as stated, I could give you example after example. One that comes to mind is opening a Word document and then going to print. You can no longer edit, minimize or do anything with the Word document until you close the print window. It may be a little different, but it is still much the same.

My programmer, Ed, has always stated that AC would be much more efficient if it were more like Outlook. Ever notice that when Outlook is open and you click on certain fields, such as Sent or Inbox, etc. it opens within the same window. Even websites can open in the window. The only window I have seen that opens in a new window is the actual email window to send.

Our hospital which used to allow me to connect to Powerchart via a VNP and open two windows, not makes me log into a secure portal. I have to open five browsers now. It's ridiculous. So, I am with you on this one.

Oh, I wish you were in Brewer. When I opened my practice, I was looking for an easy number to remember. I finally settled on a less easy one but one that ended in successive numbers for phone number and fax number.

But, my first one was 989-2020. Wow, I could have sold that one to you.

Oh, and if you get a chance, can you make a signature with your real first name. We are all on a first name basis here. You can keep your logon name if you wish although that can be changed as well.

Thanks Bert for the feedback regarding the Windows issue. I realize that all programming languages have limitations. If only we lived in a perfect world...

Ed,

Thanks for the signature. And, the COOL Avatar. I feel as if I am being watched. Very cool.

I have been working on the perfect solution for you, but until then, if you have really good manual dexterity, this may help.

ALT + Shift + X will maximize the top most window. Works great except it's a bit difficult to hit the "x."

Take that back: If you use your middle finger of your right hand on the right ALT key and the index finger on the space bar, it makes it easy to hit the "x" key with your left hand.

HTH

Ed,

I advertised this program a couple of years ago, but no one wanted it. I tried it out again, and I think I may keep it this time depending on licenses.

It's a little program by a nice company Aquarius Soft.

http://www.aquariussoft.com/

Basically, it allows you to set up many Windows actions and set your own shortcuts to them. For instance, even though I don't maximize my AC window, I wanted to see if I could before I recommended it to you.

It was very easy. I set up F1 as the trigger key, so that any time I clicked on F1, the active window maximized. Pretty neat.

It's $24.95 for one license and the same thereafter. But, it would keep you from hitting the mouse key and would be quicker than the mouse anyway. I don't think it would be worth it for just one thing, but you can do many things.

Thanks again for your help. I will give the alt/shift/x combo a try. I may consider a program like Aquariussoft, but I have lots of computers that I use, and being the cheapo that I am, I may not want to spend $25 per license for each computer. I will have to look into it further. BTW, if you get a chance, check out my post "accidentally closing chart and losing data". One member suggested that the note could be recovered from the deleted items. However, when this occurs, I did not "officially" delete the chart, I just accidentally closed it. I will check it out, but I don't think the chart will be saved in the deleted items bin. I talked with tech support about this issue, and they did not have a good answer. They just suggested "being more careful"...

*roll eyes* how lame.

They better fix that one then.

Ed,

Well now I feel pretty stupid. My last two posts were directed toward your other thread. I think that was the one where if you tried to maximize the window, you could slide over and hit the red x. This keyboard combination would take care of that since you wouldn't have to worry about using the mouse.

The program would be sweet, because it would allow you to maximize in one key stroke rather than three, but as I stated, if you use your right hand and your left, it's rather easy to do that alt - space - x.

Sorry, I was just getting my minimized mixed up with my maximized. Easy to do. I do it all the time.