Question about screen area, header/menu bar

[Gamebird]

When I play Civ II, the top of my screen is the standard Mac menu bar, with the apple at the far left and clock at the far right. When I play Civ III, the game takes up the whole screen, so I can't see the time or more importantly, how much battery power I have left. When I was playing Civ II, if I wanted to switch to another program, I just had to minimize Civ II and I'd have my standard desktop. For Civ III, I have to end the game to get to my desktop, then restart it when I'm done. If I'm just doing something like checking my battery power, this is a lot of steps just for one quick look.

This is only my second game of Civ III, so maybe I'm just missing something basic or simple. Any advice on how I can get Civ III to allow me to see the top Mac menu/header bar while I'm playing?

 

[Blue Monkey]

Welcome to our little world!

Read this whole thread. If you have problems with getting it to work search this forum with the key words "Window Mode". Solutions are scattered across several threads.

 

[Gamebird]

Awesome! I'll try the suggestions in that thread. Thanks a lot!

 

[AlanH]

You don't say which version of Civ3 you are using, but I think the following applies to both MacSoft and Aspyr releases.

Hold down the Command (Apple) key when launching Civ3. You should see a dialog where you can select Window or Full Screen mode as well as some other parameters. You ca also set a checkbox so that this dialog appears whenever you launch Civ3. Window mode lets you run Civ3 in a Mac OS window that leaves the menu bar visible.

 

[dirtworm]

it'd be nice if civ III's "window" mode was a true window..its sort of...stuck window mode...
its still nice non-the-less

 

[Gamebird]

Okay, I've tried both of those options and neither works. To recap, I've tried:

1) Holding down the apple key from before clicking on the Civ III icon to when the main start screen appears. Although I get a window to pick options, the windowing option is not among them. I can set resolution, refresh rate, whether it plays a startup movie, and something about quartz text, but the button for "Choose Monitor" is greyed out. I've tried several combinations of the options and none help.

2) Holding down the apple key+h, or apple+H, or apple+ctrl+h, apple+ctrl+H. And of course just H or h. Nothing happens.

Any other ideas out there?

PS: I'm using the MacSoft version.

 

[AlanH]

Choose monitor will only be available if you have more than one monitor.

And you're quite right - it's a long time since I ran the MacSoft version - it doesn't have Window mode as an option. Sorry!

You can use Command-H to hide it, though.

 

[dirtworm]

how do you know what version you have? i am able to select windowed mode if i hold the command button while i double click civ 3...interesting...

 

[Gamebird]

I still have all the documentation that came with the disk when I bought it. Booklet, package, whole thing. We bought it a few years ago, played it once, then stuck it back in the package and on the shelf because I didn't like it. Now that Civ II won't play, though, it's either play Civ III or no Civ at all. And you know how that is.

 

[AlanH]

how do you know what version you have? i am able to select windowed mode if i hold the command button while i double click civ 3...interesting...

In a previous thread, you have mentioned that you have Civ3 Complete, which is the more recent Aspyr release, and allows windowed mode. The much older MacSoft release in full screen only. The clue is in the publisher's name printed on the disk, in the manual, and on the packaging.