Sign In
Register
Help
Learn some tricks for working with lists in TextEdit and other applications, such as Stickies. [more]
Page 1 of 1
Mac OS X Hints Weblog: Tricks with Lists
#1
Macworld.com 
- Veteran
-
- Group: Members
- Posts: 1,900
- Joined: 06-February 04
Posted 08 December 2005 - 11:40 AM
MultiQuote
#3
Nobody
- Power User
-
- Group: Members
- Posts: 58,347
- Joined: 18-October 07
Posted 08 December 2005 - 09:00 PM
This shows some of the better underlying features of OSX that upgrade and improve application functions by upgrades in core OSX functions.
This would be a bigger plus if Apple applied them more consistently and told people about them. I must of necessity move amongst machines with different systems and it gets difficult to figure out what does or doesn't work and how.
Whilst this method of listing works I feel it isn't smooth and predictable. Mainly in the same way that styles are awkward in TextEdit due to lack of feedback and subsequent editing. There is no indicator of what style is applied and no way to edit the style so you get universal changes after they are applied.
The lists are hard to edit and shake off. As you will find if you copy and paste listed text from web pages. Captions under pictures will suddenly acquire a list number and everything falls out of place. Terminating a list means having to select subsequent returns or text and applying another style.
A lot of this comes down to Apple's Next programmers awkward approach to Mac design. They try but often don't quite get it. Generally they try to be consistent with Mac conventions but their lack of familiarity shows and the inconsistencies have fouled the User's experience.
I am particularly annoyed by the inconsistent use of cmd N vs cmd opt N to create enclosing folders in Finder vs Safari bookmarks and iTunes' playlists. Also the inverted use of shift and cmd keys to gather contiguous items and non-contiguous items in lists. In Text Edit for example to raise the point size of type is "cmd shift +" so it should be logical to use "cmd shift -" to reduce size, but instead it is "cmd -" I reported this several versions ago, along with many other UI glitches, and it should take only minutes for an Apple programmer to fix, but it never is.
This makes it difficult to anticipate unstated shortcuts and interaction with software in OSX.
Apple has drifted away from one of the crown jewels of the Mac OS, consistency and predictability. But it has done that in many more ways than this. I wonder at what point the Mac OS will be indistinguishable from Windows.
Getting back to listing in Text, my golden outliner model was More. It worked smoothly and predictably. Apple should look out how it implemented this function. It should also look at how Quark XPress implements styles via the numerical keypad, which is quick and convenient.
Before it gets down to that sophistication though, it should at least make styles retrospectively editable. At the moment it isn't even easy or obvious how to replace or eliminate styles let alone update how they are applied without manually applying them all over again.
This would be a bigger plus if Apple applied them more consistently and told people about them. I must of necessity move amongst machines with different systems and it gets difficult to figure out what does or doesn't work and how.
Whilst this method of listing works I feel it isn't smooth and predictable. Mainly in the same way that styles are awkward in TextEdit due to lack of feedback and subsequent editing. There is no indicator of what style is applied and no way to edit the style so you get universal changes after they are applied.
The lists are hard to edit and shake off. As you will find if you copy and paste listed text from web pages. Captions under pictures will suddenly acquire a list number and everything falls out of place. Terminating a list means having to select subsequent returns or text and applying another style.
A lot of this comes down to Apple's Next programmers awkward approach to Mac design. They try but often don't quite get it. Generally they try to be consistent with Mac conventions but their lack of familiarity shows and the inconsistencies have fouled the User's experience.
I am particularly annoyed by the inconsistent use of cmd N vs cmd opt N to create enclosing folders in Finder vs Safari bookmarks and iTunes' playlists. Also the inverted use of shift and cmd keys to gather contiguous items and non-contiguous items in lists. In Text Edit for example to raise the point size of type is "cmd shift +" so it should be logical to use "cmd shift -" to reduce size, but instead it is "cmd -" I reported this several versions ago, along with many other UI glitches, and it should take only minutes for an Apple programmer to fix, but it never is.
This makes it difficult to anticipate unstated shortcuts and interaction with software in OSX.
Apple has drifted away from one of the crown jewels of the Mac OS, consistency and predictability. But it has done that in many more ways than this. I wonder at what point the Mac OS will be indistinguishable from Windows.
Getting back to listing in Text, my golden outliner model was More. It worked smoothly and predictably. Apple should look out how it implemented this function. It should also look at how Quark XPress implements styles via the numerical keypad, which is quick and convenient.
Before it gets down to that sophistication though, it should at least make styles retrospectively editable. At the moment it isn't even easy or obvious how to replace or eliminate styles let alone update how they are applied without manually applying them all over again.
Page 1 of 1
