Home / How to prevent the toolbar and menu from being hidden?

From time to time, the toolbar disappears (I don’t know, some accidental shortcut?) - how to prevent it? It is to be visible to me forever and ever.

@Danielsam: The toggle key for showing/hiding the toolbar is F8, and the one for the menu (if Use tabs is off) is F9.

Thanks, F8 is what I need. Strange, that it is not shown in menu.

@Danielsam
Agreed it is odd that the shortcut was not shown on earlier versions including official 3.1.2 but seems now to be corrected in recent builds, however I wonder which version you are using as your presentation / fullscreen entries differ from recent official versions. Those shortcuts were changed about version 3.0

I use the best 2.5.2. 3.x is terrible.

‘Terrible’ is quite a strong word to use! Any pointers on what precisely it is about 3.x that ticks you off so much? Any constructive suggestions you have are sure to be appreciated.

Terrible, due to loss of ergonomics. Google came up with three lines as a menu or settings, so we unknowingly copy them to our program, because we want to be trendy, but the fact that then you have to click 2 or 3 times more, it doesn’t matter, the most important is to look seemingly nicer.

Some things unfortunately become the norm, but yes, I do get what you are saying. I suppose your problem will be solved if the program ever allows the menu bar and tabs to be displayed together:

That said, since I’m primarily an old-school keyboard-first user, I love the fact that I can bypass the hamburger menu altogether simply by pressing Alt+F for instance and having the File menu open up just like before, and similarly for all the other top-level menus such as View, Go To, Settings, Help and Window. Keyboard accelerators/shortcuts FTW!

@Danielsam
I am a bit confused by your statement that 2.5 “looks” different to 3.1.2 (current release) when the option Use Tabs is off they should look similar

image1180×400 102 KB

True, but since he’s talking specifically about how he dislikes the “three lines” i.e. hamburger menu, guess he was trying to use 3.x with tabs. And as you’ve yourself stated on that GitHub issue, currently only exploiting buggy behavior seems to allow for both tabs and menu bar together.

How do I lock the toolbar so that it is always visible and that never, ever, any accidental pressing of F8 will make it disappear?

That is a highly interesting question, and I can think of only two ways (without changing the source code) to achieve similar from past experience.

Humour Alert:
The old “office myth” to stop users hitting ESC, was to sellotape a drawing pin (thumb tack) on top, it could certainly reduced the number of accidental exits, but nowadays its considered morally unsafe. In reality removing the key top was a more likely solution, but I have seen other means such as toothpicks under the key employed.

The realistic alternative is to electronically disable that “Key Code” by using an app such as AutoHotKey (one exe from the portable version zip is all you need) and assign F8 out of reach. I strongly recommend this solution as it can be easily targeted at one app (SumatraPDF) and is temporary i.e. only interfering with keyboard whilst the AHK file is running (It can be setup to start with SumatraPDF)
Look at some of the simple examples in this forum by searching AHK and AutoHotKey but your code need be as simple as make F8 act the same as the return key

#IfWinActive ahk_class SUMATRA_PDF_FRAME
{
F8::return
}

If you dont feel confident in writing your own solution there are many share/free ware offerings but one open source app I tested as working (of the type that permanantly changes the registry) is at https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys. The advantage is that its permanant on next login until you eventually delete that setting, the (dis)advantage is it affects every application using that same key. Since it modifies the registry constant changes increase the risk of a failure. A safer option is probably using the Microsoft one (https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/wiki/Keyboard-Manager-Overview) which like the AHK solution is only active whilst running, but is more global than using AHK.

Unless keys become user assignable its unlikely to be given high priority to add such a function, however you could explain the need as an issue at Issues · sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf

Many thanks, AHK is what I needed.

I have version 3.3.1 / 64 on W8.1 and F8, F9 doesn’t work. The hidden toolbar is really terrible.

You can get regular menu by disabling tabs with advanced options: Customizing SumatraPDF 3.2

Set UseTabs to false (Customizing SumatraPDF 3.2) and restart the app.

Then you can turn the menu on / off with F9.

It works for menu bar, but NOT for toolbar. Toolbar is what I want to see permanently. Actually until this version I didn’t know that there is toolbar at all. I have never seen it.

I have found that the toolbar disappears only when epub or mobi file is opened. When I open pdf or djv, the toolbar is there. Strange! I use portable version.

There are two (actually dynamically more) Toolbar UI modes

Fixed Layout for PDF searching includes the Find box for PDF but not comics

Ebook (reflowable) UI with only the progress bar along the bottom (no search option or other non applicable top toolbar icons) It can be switched to Fixed layout for searching or rotation

The Top Bar Menu is only shown if tabs are off and is also dynamic like some pulldowns.

I see. The toolbar is visible only when “UseFixedPageUI = true.”