Unable to access minimized Collectorz windows

My wife and I have been using the Microsoft Windows desktop versions of CLZ's database programs for managing book, comic, and movie collections for many years. We've found the Collectorz database programs to be well-designed and very useful, but we've encountered some issues getting the programs to work correctly on her Ubuntu Linux system, though I would note that the software was developed for Microsoft Windows operating systems and the company doesn't indicate they are supported under Linux. One problem we encountered is that after installing the programs under Wine, when she opened one of the programs, e.g., Movie Collector, and then minimized it or switched to another application with Alt-Tab, she was unable to switch back to the Collectorz program. Alt-Tab would not work nor would the Super key plus Tab key combination. There would be a small window at the upper, left-hand corner of the screen indicating the program was running, but clicking on it would not allow her to enlarge the window to work in the application again and there didn't appear to be any way to enlarge or maximize the window.

Collectorz app minimized

I would have to kill the program from a GNOME Terminal window using a kill or pkill command.

alice@Wonderland:~$ ps -aux | grep -i moviecollector
lisa@ad+ 1427255 30.5  0.5 6401600 765300 ?      Sl   14:48   4:08 C:\Program Files\Collectorz.com\Movie Collector\MovieCollector.exe
lisa@ad+ 1428592  0.0  0.0   9316  2736 pts/3    S+   15:01   0:00 grep --color=auto -i moviecollector
alice@Wonderland:~$ ps -aux | grep -i moviecollector | grep -v grep
lisa@ad+ 1427255 30.4  0.5 6401600 765300 ?      Sl   14:48   4:12 C:\Program Files\Collectorz.com\Movie Collector\MovieCollector.exe
alice@Wonderland:~$ pkill MovieCollector
alice@Wonderland:~$ 
alice@Wonderland:~$ ps -aux | grep -i BookCollector | grep -v grep
lisa@ad+ 1428917 34.2  0.2 5258740 365700 ?      Sl   15:13   0:36 C:\Program Files\Collectorz.com\Book Collector\BookCollector.exe
alice@Wonderland:~$ pkill BookCollector
alice@Wonderland:~$ 

The problem occurred with Book Collector and Movie Collector, but not with Comic Collector, which I had installed using Bottles. Since I had installed the Collectorz applications using the Wine prefix .wine-collectorz, I ran winecfg using that prefix with the command WINEPREFIX=~/.collectorz winecfg and checked the configuration under the Graphics tab. "Allow the window manager to decorate the windows" was checked, but "Allow the window manager to control the windows" was unchecked.

Wine configuration - decorate windows

When I checked that option, the problem with minimizing a Collectorz window or switching away from it and then trying to switch back to it was resolved. I could use Alt-Tab or Super-Tab to restore the Collectorz window. But then I had the problem again where I could not use File and Open Database again or browse for image files on the system — see Wine Iexplore unable to access webpages via HTTPS and Collectorz database programs — so I unchecked the option again. I was able to resolve the problem with minimizing the application or switching from it without re-creating the problem opening files by checking the Emulate a virtual desktop option, instead.

Wine configuration - Emulate a
virtual desktop

The system has version 11 of Wine and is using Wayland as the communication protocol for communications with the display server and is using the GNOME for the desktop environment.

alice@Wonderland:~/Documents$ wine --version
wine-11.0
alice@Wonderland:~/Documents$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
wayland
alice@Wonderland:~/Documents$ echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
ubuntu:GNOME
alice@Wonderland:~/Documents$ 

References:

  1. Using WINE Prefixes
    By: Nick Congleton
    Date: August 21, 2018
    LinuxConfig.org

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