Editorial
Andrew Pavey
At the August meeting we asked members to indicate whether they would be interested in a meeting to explain what was needed in a conversion from OS 9 to OS X. Tricks, Tips pitfalls etc. There seemed to be general interest in this topic so we'll try and schedule it soon. If you can't wait, Adam Engst wrote a good 2 part article on upgrading which you can find at http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06848 and http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06852.
In that light I have included a longish article in this issue which covers the topic of returning to OS X some of the functionality we all got used to in OS 9. I've spent the last week in OS X, and whilst still frustrating I find it possible to do most things I'd like to do. A while ago I got caught again by OS X and Microsoft. Command-H in Word used to bring up the Find and Replace dialogue box which I use extensively while editing articles. Unfortunately Microsoft being ever helpful have implemented Word X with Command-H being the Hide command. Press Command-H and poof Word vanishes silently leaving you with a screenful of windows in other apps. Not helpful and downright scary if you do it at the end of a long writing session as I did. Luckily nothing was lost. I just went to the damnable dock and got Word back as the frontmost app.
Some other developers haven't been so helpful. Acrobat 5, for example, has a hide menu item but luckily no Command key equivalent. Photoshop 7 uses Command-Option-H. Most of the other 11 apps I've got open use Command-H for hide, no doubt an Apple recommended standard but frustrating none the less. One of the great joys of OS 9 was the long history of developers managing to agree on most of the common Command key equivalents. This seems to be common sense and no doubt is covered somewhere in Apple's once wonderful Human Interface guidelines. A document Apple themselves seem to have ignored in much of OS X.
If you have a favourite OS X frustration perhaps you could write and tell me about it.
