Mac users rejoice!  If you are anything like me (and I suspect you all are!), then you get very annoyed with a certain feature of the GroupWise 8 Mac Notify program.

When you receive a notification on the Mac, and the popup alerts you to a new message, any action on that popup diverts you from where you are and takes the focus back to the GroupWise client.  For example, if you are working in OpenOffice (which I’ve been toiling away at for days), and a notification pops up, clicking “clear” or “delete” will switch you to the GroupWise client, rather than simply clearing the notification and leaving you in OpenOffice to continue your work.

Today, quite by accident, I discovered a nice little workaround for this.  I’ve been using Mac Spaces more and more, and I noticed today that if if I’m working in Space 2, and GroupWise is loaded in Space 1, the Notification will pop up in Space 2, but clearing the notification window will NOT move me to GroupWise.  This got me so excited (I know – pathetic), that I immediately changed my Spaces layout to have three spaces rather than the default two.  I have now assigned GroupWise to Space 3 (which I don’t intend to use for anything else), and I will never again have my focus hijacked by the GroupWise 8 Notify!

Of course, if you don’t typically use Spaces at all, you could simply turn it on, and assign GroupWise to Space 2.  I chose to use Space 3 because I do routinely keep certain programs in Space 1 and others in Space 2.  Even though GroupWise is now in a separate space all of its own, a Command-Tab, or clicking on the GroupWise icon in the dock takes you directly to the program, so you will barely notice that GroupWise is not sitting in Space 1!

I still have it on my wishlist for Novell to fix this annoying little feature of the Mac GroupWise 8 Notify program, but I can live with this workaround for now 🙂

Happy GroupWising!

Danita