How to Fix Long “Open” & “Save” Dialog Boxes on Monterey OS

The Monterey OS offers many improvements for the Mac but there’s a minor issue to be aware of with Archicad 25. Each time you use the “Open” and “Save” dialogs the dialog box gets wider and eventually the edges disappear off the screen. Overtime it gets wide enough that the “Open”, “Save” and “Cancel” buttons become hard to access. Below is an example of what happens after you use the Open dialog a number of times…
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Graphisoft will have a fix to this issue in an upcoming update but until then we’ve got two options that will resize these dialogs back to their out-of-the-box size as follows…

OPTION 1 : Using Terminal Commands

The Terminal app allows you to control your Mac using a command prompt. Follow the two steps below to reset the Open/Save dialog boxes with a terminal command.

Step 1 : Launch the Terminal App

Close Archicad and then launch the Terminal app using one of the following options…
– Launch App with Search : Go to Search in the Finder menu, enter Terminal and open the Terminal.app (or)
– Launch App from Finder : In the Finder, open the /Applications/Utilities folder, then double-click the Terminal app.

Step 2 : Enter Commands into Terminal

The next steps is to enter the following commands in the Terminal. Note that the same commands can be used for both Archicad 25 and Archicad 25 Solo as follows…

Archicad 25 Terminal Commands
– defaults delete com.graphisoft.archicad25 NSNavPanelExpandedSizeForSaveMode
– defaults delete com.graphisoft.archicad25 NSNavPanelExpandedSizeForOpenMode

Copy and paste the first command above into the Terminal prompt and return. Then enter the second command and return. Below is a screenshot of the Terminal using these two commands…
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Note that if you enter the commands more than once after the first execution of the commands it will show an error because it’s already reset the Open and Save defaults. Below you can see the difference in the dialog window after successfully executing the Terminal command.
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OPTION 2 : Resize using Publishing & Save as PDF

If you want to resize the Open and Save dialog boxes without closing Archicad you can accomplish this by manually resizing the dialog boxes from the Publishing Properties and Save as PDF.

Step 1 : Resize Open Dialog from Publishing Properties

The Open dialog resize issue is solved by manually resizing the “Browse” dialog size from the Publishing Properties. To do this select a Publisher Set, click the Publishing Properties button, click the Browse button and select the option To Local File System. When the “Browse” dialog appears resize it to the smallest width which will change the size of the Open dialog as well.
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Step 2 : Resize Save Dialog from Save as PDF

For the Save and Save As dialog, use the Print -> Save as PDF option. When the “Save as PDF” dialog appears resize it to the smallest width which will change the size of the Save and Save As dialogs as well.
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Either option will fix the issue but be aware your Open and Save dialog box will resize back to its wider length after multiple uses so you may need to re-apply the Terminal commands or resizing the dialogs using Publishing / Save as PDF. Graphisoft will have a fix to this issue in an upcoming update but until then these are two simple fixes that can make the Open and Save dialog boxes easier to use with Monterey OS.

Written by Thomas M. Simmons, ARCHVISTA Consulting