Open Multiple Instances of Programs at Once

[Mark Walczak]

Hi all!

So, I am relatively new to the Mac platform, and need to use it more at work. While both Windows and Mac have their share of issues, the biggest impediment to my productivity on the Mac is not being able to open multiple instances of the same program (like Maya or After Effects) at once. There must be a way around this!

Thoughts?

What makes you explode?
http://www.explosivegraffix.com

[Zane Barker]

[Mark Walczak] “the biggest impediment to my productivity on the Mac is not being able to open multiple instances of the same program (like Maya or After Effects) at once”

I don’t even think that you can do that on windows with those same programs. But I don’t use ether.

[Mark Walczak] “There must be a way around this! “

If there is it would be up to the maker of the program. Its not an Apple thing, its a issue with the way the software developer made the program.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[Mark Walczak]

You can absolutely do this on Windows, but after a more refined Google search yesterday, I was able to find something that worked wonderfully.

I have copied the text below from macosxhints.com, just in case the link gets broken over time:

Here’s how to use multiple copies of After Effects at the same time. First, make sure it isn’t running, then navigate to the After Effects program in the Finder.

Control click on the application and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. Navigate into the Contents -> MacOS folder, and then make an alias to the After Effects file in that folder. Place the alias somewhere easy to get to, like your Desktop (and/or drag it into your Dock for quick access). Now you can use this link to open After Effects, and it will open as many times as you click on the link. Note that it will open the Terminal also, and show all the open process.

By this way you can render in one copy of After Effects while working in another one.

https://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060713094900651

What makes you explode?
http://www.explosivegraffix.com

[Zane Barker]

Its NOT a good idea to go into the package contents of anything and start changing things. That just asking for problems to come your way.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[Chuck Reti]

[Zane Barker] “Its NOT a good idea to go into the package contents of anything and start changing things. That just asking for problems to come your way.”

That’s not “changing” anything. It’s just creating an alias (“Shortcut” for Windows emigres) directly to the unix executable and launching the app that way, rather than to the application package represented by the program’s icon.
These cautions from posts at MacOSXHints.com on this topic:
“Note that running multiple copies of one app as the same user may not work perfectly, especially if the app requires exclusive access to a file, or if you change preferences while two copies are running.”
“Multiple running instances of a program may be accessing and modifying the very same configuration files simultaneously, resulting in potential race conditions and file corruption.“

[Zane Barker]

Like I said it’s asking for problems.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[Mark Walczak]

Thanks for all of the feedback, guys – I’ll be sure to test it out with projects that are not too critical. This certainly seems to be an Apple thing, if Windows does it without a problem. I never understood the way OSX manages windows, but the nice thing about this alias work-around is that it allows me to apple+tab to individual instances! Woo-hoo!

What makes you explode?
http://www.explosivegraffix.com

[Zane Barker]

Like I said it is NOT an Apple thing because other applications allow you to have more then one project open at a time. For example Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, FileMaker, and many others all allow you to have multiple projects open at the same time.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!