From bogus@does.not.exist.com Thu Nov 3 14:29:52 2005 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu Nov 3 14:29:57 2005 Subject: No subject Message-ID: reach my AppleScripts will be a minor, but persistent annoyance. I will be creating a large body of AppleScripts for OmniOutliner, which I will use frequently. The Services menu is really cool, but perhaps sporadically used. For die-hard script menu users, this is not the case. The loss of efficiency will be noticeable. Mike From bogus@does.not.exist.com Thu Nov 3 14:29:52 2005 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:01 2005 Subject: No subject Message-ID: ICeCoffEE lets you Command-click on URLs in Cocoa applications to launch them. It is modeled after ICeTEe, for classic Mac OS, which provided the same functionality in many Macintosh applications by patching TextEdit. http://web.sabi.net/nriley/software Jeff From bogus@does.not.exist.com Thu Nov 3 14:29:52 2005 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:05 2005 Subject: No subject Message-ID: From bogus@does.not.exist.com Thu Nov 3 14:29:52 2005 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:11 2005 Subject: No subject Message-ID: won't get trapped into trying to be all things to all people. Dick From bogus@does.not.exist.com Thu Nov 3 14:29:52 2005 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:12 2005 Subject: No subject Message-ID: won't get trapped into trying to be all things to all people. Dick --- end copy I'll add that it's probably not helpful for OO's users to go much beyond suggesting possibly useful features to OO's developers. In their messages, Brian, Andrew, and now Dan Frakes, have given good reasons as to why. Dick From bogus@does.not.exist.com Thu Nov 3 14:29:52 2005 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:13 2005 Subject: No subject Message-ID: develop. I'd make it OG Pro-only, and if the user buys both OG Pro and OO, they magically work together. That's $150 per seat (at current prices) worth of chocolatey goodness, and a steal even at $200+, IMHO. * * * Whew! That was a mouthful. Any ideas or suggestions, either from folks at Omni or people on the mailing list? Is the .graffle XML file format and its capabilities documented anywhere yet? How about the .ooutline format? Are the bug / feature request databases for either product publically accessible in any way? I suppose that I should make the typical "Databases can be used for everything! Therefore, it's a huge killer app!" (...with the unspoken, "Therefore, please make THIS feature request top priority!") statements here. But whatever, either way, I'll end up with something that will work in the interim... I'll keep you all posted about the ERD auto-generation, but in the bigger picture, I guess I'm a big advocate of integrating two cool products to make them even cooler. Thanks, and keep up the great work! Thom Brooks Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum Chicago, IL From angus at pobox.com Sat Jan 1 17:07:16 2005 From: angus at pobox.com (Angus McIntyre) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: OO3 Pro b8: saved attachment icons in package files Message-ID: I'm working on an OO3 document that contains multiple text file attachments. Each attachment is small - about 3K-5K in size. Inspecting the contents of the '.oo3' package folder, however, I notice that for each file I attach, I get not only a copy of the file (which I expected, and which I want) but also a '.tiff' file. The '.tiff' appears to be simply a copy of the icon (at three sizes) for the particular document type that was attached. One is created for each attachment, even if all the attachments are of the same type. This strikes me as inefficient, as it means that the package grows by about 32K for every attachment. Even in these days of big disks, that's wasteful. Is this the correct behavior? Is there a way to change OO's behavior so that it either doesn't save icons, or does so slightly more efficiently (i.e. through use of aliases to prevent duplication)? I realize that it may be too late in the day to change this before OO3 goes GM, but perhaps this could be released in the inevitable first bug-fix release. Happy New Year to you all, Angus -- Business: http://www.nomadcode.com/ Personal: http://www.raingod.com/angus/ Weblog: http://www.disoriented.net/ From tjw at omnigroup.com Sun Jan 2 12:59:29 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: AppleScript: Set Selected Rows In-Reply-To: <11438437.1104442730385.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> References: <11438437.1104442730385.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> Message-ID: <319B931C-5D01-11D9-9899-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> On Dec 30, 2004, at 1:38 PM, Michael Terry wrote: > Is there a way to set the selected rows in Outliner 3 via AppleScript? > This was possible in prior versions, and I rely on it in some scripts. selected rows of MyDocument > I don't understand why selected row didn't just remain a property, > instead of now being a class in itself. The way it is now, to add a > selected row to a document you'd have to do something like: It is a relationship (since it is to-many now, AppleScript requires this). In OO2 you could only access the first selected row, not multiple selection (which is all that can be done with a property). > make selected row > > ... but you would need to specify an insertion location, which doesn't > make very much sense, since a selected row maps onto a regular row. > The 'selected row' class would have to add a property that allows the > scripter to identify the new selected row with an already existing row > in the document. 'make selected row' will do something bizarre -- nothing useful can come of it, I think :) If you want to add a row to the selection: add MyRow to selected rows of MyDocument > I think either 'selected rows' should be a property of the document, > which is simple and easy and similar to other programs, or there > should now also be a 'selection-object' class (c.f., Script Editor's > dictionary) with which you can use the 'add' and 'remove' commands. We are trying to conform to the Scripting Interface Guidelines Tech Note in this respect (i.e., the 'add' and 'remove' commands). -tim From tjw at omnigroup.com Sun Jan 2 13:04:51 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: AppleScript: Get Attachments In-Reply-To: <7585930.1104443626665.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> References: <7585930.1104443626665.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> Message-ID: On Dec 30, 2004, at 1:53 PM, Michael Terry wrote: > Is there any way to get this out of Outliner? I think the pictures > would be considered attachments, flowed with the text of the row. > However, any way I access them, they just come out as "?". Any > suggestions? There is no way to get this right now, sadly. We were hoping to take Apple's lead on this, but no lead has been forthcoming yet. The likely way this will play out is: text attachments of text of MyCell with attachment having some set of as yet undefined properties ('expanded', 'title', 'url', and 'file' being likely candidates). We might also have subclasses for 'url attachments', 'movie attachments' and such so that you can filter the attachment type you are wanting to look for. This is all nebulous, since we weren't sure what people would want -- please send a list of what you want to omnioutliner3@omnigroup.com to make sure this gets logged. > I wanted to fall back on using GUI scripting to copy the rows, and > then parse them in AS, but this is a little tricky, partly because > Outliner doesn't seem to use nearly as many controls as it used to. > The entire window content area comes up as one Scroll View in UI > Element Inspector, so it's tough to manipulate. (I'm sure we owe > Outliner's increased performance partly to this.) This dovetails with > my last message, where I was hoping to change the selection with > AppleScript. Thats another way I could loop over the rows and copy > them with GUI scripting. You might have some luck with 'select MyCell'. This will start editing in the specified cell and then you might be able to use UI scripting to futz with the text object that is the first responder of the window. We also want to support accessibility in our outline view, but this involves a fair bit of work that didn't make it into 3.0. With infinite time, all things are possible... :) -tim From tjw at omnigroup.com Sun Jan 2 13:08:10 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Best place for OOPro 3 prefs scripts? In-Reply-To: <8046201A-5B69-11D9-910C-003065F00E42@comcast.net> References: <8046201A-5B69-11D9-910C-003065F00E42@comcast.net> Message-ID: <68687534-5D02-11D9-9899-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> On Dec 31, 2004, at 12:21 PM, Eric Durbrow wrote: > I would love to be able to put all of my OO Pro 3 prefs, licenses, and > scripts in either my System/Library folder OR my User/Library folder. > But not both if possible. Is there an optimal place for these library > files for the single-user? Thanks! OO3 should never write anything in /System/Library since that is owned by the operating system. When you install your license you are given the option of installing it on the 'Computer' (which will put it in /Library/Application Support) or making it a per-user license (which will put it into your home directory). Everything else will be put in your home directory by default (well, I think the scripts menu has the same sort of creation options). So, assuming you pick the per-user option when creating these things, all your OO3 files should live in ~/Library/Application Support except for the preferences file which will be in ~/Library/Preferences/com.omnigroup.OmniOutliner*.plist -tim From matsakis at mit.edu Sun Jan 2 15:11:50 2005 From: matsakis at mit.edu (Nick Matsakis) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: CSV Import? Message-ID: Is there a simple way to import a comma-seperated value (CSV) document into Omnioutliner? Nick Matsakis From lists at mostrom.pp.se Mon Jan 3 10:15:02 2005 From: lists at mostrom.pp.se (Jan Erik =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mostr=F6m?=) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: ThoughtManager (Palm) => OO Message-ID: Hi I've added support for ThoughtManager (Palm outliner) to my application MPC , this means that you can convert a ThoughtManager outline to OPML which then can be imported into OmniOutliner. Works fine (except for one detail that I have to discuss with the Omni people). jem -- Jan Erik Mostr?m www.mostrom.pp.se From dflatin at rcn.com Mon Jan 3 11:49:48 2005 From: dflatin at rcn.com (Daniel Flatin) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: tab delimited text parsing on paste Message-ID: I have recently been moving data from a set of tables in html format to a multi-column outline in OO3. These tables consist of text and numerical data. I have found that if the outline column data types are not text, the pasted data is not parsed, but rather OO3 complains: "Values is of the wrong type. Was expecting a NSDecimalNumber, but got a OOTextStorage" In addition to the poor grammar, I was sorry to see that OO3 does not even attempt to parse the pasted text. To see this in action, just create a simple outline with one column in addition to the topic and set it to be numerical. Then paste in a few lines like: item1 1 item2 2 item3 3 Be sure you don't have a text insertion point (flashing vertical bar) in the topic column before pasting or all your text will be inserted into one topic field. Is this a bug or expected behavior? I should point out that the data can be imported if all the columns are text, and after all the data has been imported the column type can be changed to number and then the values are properly parsed. In a large outline this leads to another behavior which I think is essentially cosmetic, but points out a dramatic need for code optimization. When the data type of a column in a large outline (~1500 rows) is changed, the values are not updated in any sort of timely way. You can force them to be updated by collapsing and expanding the parent, but it is disconcerting to see your data just disappear. Dan From jaharmi at mac.com Mon Jan 3 15:54:01 2005 From: jaharmi at mac.com (Jeremy Reichman) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: tab delimited text parsing on paste In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/3/05 2:49 PM, "Daniel Flatin" wrote: > In addition to the poor grammar, I was sorry to see that OO3 does not even > attempt to parse the > pasted text. To see this in action, just create a simple outline with one > column in addition to the > topic and set it to be numerical. Then paste in a few lines like: > > item1 1 > item2 2 > item3 3 > > Be sure you don't have a text insertion point (flashing vertical bar) in the > topic column before > pasting or all your text will be inserted into one topic field. I've commented on the parsing of pasted text, and the copying of text to be pasted into other apps, since version 1.x. I would really like to see improvements there but have not tried what I wanted to do in OO 3 beta yet. I'd just love to see tab-indented text paste into OO as an outline. If OO3 does this, I will certainly upgrade. It's that simple. A newer wish would include better copy-paste interaction with Entourage 2004. I paste of lot of meeting minutes from OO 2.x into Entourage outgoing mail -- and get RTF-styled text, even though my Entourage window is set for plain text (rather than styled/HTML text). In my situation, if I drop to the Terminal and then run: % pbpaste | pbcopy ... the OO data on the clipboard is stripped of its styling and I can paste into Entourage as plain text. (This very well could be Entourage's problem, but I find it hard to say, definitively. I also get this kind of thing when I paste OO outlines into BBEdit.) In the past, though, I've also had problems like yours, Daniel, with copying/pasting. OO doesn't handle it as well as other apps I've used, like BrainForest Pro. -- Jeremy From jaharmi at mac.com Mon Jan 3 15:58:49 2005 From: jaharmi at mac.com (Jeremy Reichman) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Best place for OOPro 3 prefs scripts? In-Reply-To: <68687534-5D02-11D9-9899-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> Message-ID: On 1/2/05 4:08 PM, "Timothy J.Wood" wrote: > OO3 should never write anything in /System/Library since that is > owned by the operating system. When you install your license you are > given the option of installing it on the 'Computer' (which will put it > in /Library/Application Support) or making it a per-user license (which > will put it into your home directory). Everything else will be put in > your home directory by default (well, I think the scripts menu has the > same sort of creation options). > > So, assuming you pick the per-user option when creating these things, > all your OO3 files should live in ~/Library/Application Support except > for the preferences file which will be in > ~/Library/Preferences/com.omnigroup.OmniOutliner*.plist I've not tried this, but it may become important to me soon ... does OO merge the various domains so that you get the settings/customizations from each? Some apps (Ranchero's Big Cat scripting plugin, for one) don't handle anything but the User domain. Some apps use the domains, but present them separately (the Script Menu from Apple is one). Important parts of the system let you treat each domain that affects you as just part of your setup ... you can get data from each one that applies to you (fonts in Font Book are one example of merging domains) ... and as a sys admin, I appreciate that. -- Jeremy From jd at icx.net Mon Jan 3 17:34:33 2005 From: jd at icx.net (John DeSoi) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Date/Time column issues Message-ID: I'm trying to create a date/time column with the ISO format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. I create a date column and then setup a custom format. Next I choose "Insert Time Stamp --> Short Date and Time from the Edit menu. This appears to put the correct information in the cell, but when I move to the next column the time part changes to 00:00:00. OO3 b8. Best, John DeSoi, Ph.D. From srich at mac.com Mon Jan 3 22:30:17 2005 From: srich at mac.com (Stuart Rich) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: ThoughtManager (Palm) => OO In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <196400C3-5E1A-11D9-8D1B-000A95D3762A@mac.com> Thank you. I cannot tell you how glad I am. :) On 3 Jan 2005, at 12:15 PM, Jan Erik Mostr?m wrote: > Hi > > I've added support for ThoughtManager (Palm outliner) to my > application MPC > , this means that you can convert a > ThoughtManager outline to OPML which then can be imported into > OmniOutliner. > > Works fine (except for one detail that I have to discuss with the Omni > people). > > jem > -- > Jan Erik Mostr?m www.mostrom.pp.se > _______________________________________________ > OmniOutliner-Users mailing list > OmniOutliner-Users@omnigroup.com > http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnioutliner-users > From robinfrancistrew at mac.com Tue Jan 4 03:04:29 2005 From: robinfrancistrew at mac.com (Robin Trew) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts Message-ID: <67E01850-5E40-11D9-9744-000D93C0E102@mac.com> The graphic "feel" of Ver 3 has, oddly become *weaker* than in Ver 2 This discourages me from wanting to actually buy it and work in it. I may stick with the more sophisticated and less distracting "look" of Ver 2 DETAILS Ver 2 provide a comfortable working environment - few redundant contrast edges to distract the brain. One of the great strengths of Ver 2 is that its own own apparatus of controls and icons is in a well-muted background visual plane, allowing the user to concentrate on their own work in the visual foreground Ver 3 (current Beta) however, suddenly feels a little noisy and garish, too distracting too allow concentration on one's own task. (Has there been a shift in the balance of forces / skills in your organisation ?) In particular: - A strongly contrasting, and unnecessarily distracting blue focus line has appeared around the topic of the active note - The curve at the corners of the above creates additional and redundant visual stimulus (the Ver 2 straight lines do not shout visually) - The excellent muted icons (indentations etc) of Ver 2 have been replaced by icons with more strident visual contrasts - The column titles, both bolded and underlined, with the edges of the pixels all bleeding into each other, look suddenly unprofessional and unfinished, whereas they looked professional and discreet before - The new application icon uses cruder contrasts and inevitably looks cheaper than the previous app icon. - Finallly , the checkbox Ver 2 uses a standard 3D aqua checkbox, with fairly gradual (grey transition) visual contrast at the edges which does not over-excite (or "shout" at) the retina. Ver 3 introduces some distracting visual shouting by going back to a solid pixel pure rectangle (the retina is particularly stimulated pure horizontals and verticals) If you really want to do this then perhaps you should at least mute the shouting down to grey pixels rather than using a full volume black against white contrast. We all have limited processing capacity (me particularly :-), and every little bit of distraction, visual or otherwise, cuts into the quality of attention that we can bring to our work. A pity to turn an excellent app into a strident and distracting working environment which risks reminding potential buyers that Ver 2 of any app is often the best ... From jaharmi at mac.com Tue Jan 4 05:21:08 2005 From: jaharmi at mac.com (Jeremy Reichman) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <67E01850-5E40-11D9-9744-000D93C0E102@mac.com> Message-ID: I agree with Robin. In comparison to OO2, OO3 betas so far (I'm on beta 5) look very distracting. It does feel like the application is getting in my way, whereas OO2 felt like it fit in. Robin explained my feelings quite well. The contrast of the selection outline and the outline widgets (checkboxes, etc.) do feel the most out of place to me. Having the opportunity to mute them, or muting them by default -- at least on-screen -- would be a bonus to me. -- Jeremy From jmck at mac.com Tue Jan 4 06:03:41 2005 From: jmck at mac.com (jmck@mac.com) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <703E533C-5E59-11D9-BD84-000A957F1AF0@mac.com> On Tuesday, January 4, 2005, at 08:21 AM, Jeremy Reichman wrote: > The contrast of the selection > outline and the outline widgets (checkboxes, etc.) do feel the most > out of > place to me. I have to disagree. The selection outline is disctinctive, but as a selection is an important distinction, it is appropriate. I actually feel that the outline widgets blend into the outline more than in OO2 -- because they look more typographic. John McKenzie From curt.clifton at mac.com Tue Jan 4 06:02:43 2005 From: curt.clifton at mac.com (Curtis Clifton) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DFCBAC2-5E59-11D9-928B-0003938AA174@mac.com> On Jan 4, 2005, at 7:21 AM, Jeremy Reichman wrote: > I agree with Robin. In comparison to OO2, OO3 betas so far (I'm on > beta 5) > look very distracting. It does feel like the application is getting in > my > way, whereas OO2 felt like it fit in. Perhaps this is a matter of a difference in the tasks to which we apply OO, but I find that OO3 is visually _more_ helpful. The highlights and borders help me track my place in the outline, especially when an item has many children. I also have come to prefer the new checkboxes, which seem like part of the content instead of extraneous controls. The new handling of pop-up list columns is much nicer visually. Perhaps my eye is more distracted by the depth and size of the old widgets than by the hard edges of the new widgets. With regard to column headings, you can edit the style of these to suit your taste. And you can edit the default template so you never have to suffer through those "unprofessional and unfinished" bleeding pixels again. > Robin explained my feelings quite well. The contrast of the selection > outline and the outline widgets (checkboxes, etc.) do feel the most > out of > place to me. Having the opportunity to mute them, or muting them by > default > -- at least on-screen -- would be a bonus to me. An option to change the color of the highlighting and borders would be welcomed. This would be nice to have on a per-document basis. Then if one wants to hide the borders, she or he could just set the color to match the background, or nearly so. By being per-document, we could still use the more forceful borders for documents where they are useful. And of course, by changing the templates we could have whatever default setting we would like. Best, Curt ---------------------------------- Curtis Clifton, PhD Candidate Dept. of Computer Science, Iowa State University http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cclifton From jmck at mac.com Tue Jan 4 06:03:41 2005 From: jmck at mac.com (jmck@mac.com) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <703E533C-5E59-11D9-BD84-000A957F1AF0@mac.com> On Tuesday, January 4, 2005, at 08:21 AM, Jeremy Reichman wrote: > The contrast of the selection > outline and the outline widgets (checkboxes, etc.) do feel the most > out of > place to me. I have to disagree. The selection outline is disctinctive, but as a selection is an important distinction, it is appropriate. I actually feel that the outline widgets blend into the outline more than in OO2 -- because they look more typographic. John McKenzie From ooutline-ml.5.haelo at spamgourmet.com Tue Jan 4 10:04:40 2005 From: ooutline-ml.5.haelo at spamgourmet.com (ooutline-ml.5.haelo@spamgourmet.com) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <703E533C-5E59-11D9-BD84-000A957F1AF0@mac.com> References: <703E533C-5E59-11D9-BD84-000A957F1AF0@mac.com> Message-ID: <6cbc989205010410047100573b@mail.gmail.com> I fully agree with these observations. The first thing that I noticed when I loaded up the beta was a certain degree of "gaudiness" to the over-all look and feel. I think the selection widgets are the most distracting to me -- especially when multiple items are selected. Doing a select all creates a very visually confusing window. Multiple selections also feel a bit rough, especially when a parent and its children are selected together. The extension of the line on the left is redundant and informationally obscuring, and the right side has an awkward white patch where the curve of the child meets the straight edge of the parent. The amount of white space in between selected items, in addition to the bolder, curved line around the shaded background areas, creates far too much visual detail which conveys no information. The only status type widget I like better is the checkbox. OS X's default check box was never meant to be used inline with a document, the way it gets used. I do agree with the first comment though, it is a little bolder than it needs to be, especially when mixed together with all of the other available widgets. The other status symbols are too much, though. They are either too bold, or in some cases not instantly informative enough. Whether or not a note is collapsed is not readily obvious by the icon, for instance. When an item is selected, you cannot instantly see whether or not it has a note, because the Create Note and Expand Note icons look nearly identical. As for the icon: I actually would not mind it that much if the light bulb were removed. The contrast between ochre and blue with white outlining is distinctive and interesting. It stands out on the dock nicely where OO2's icon had a tendency to get lost, visually speaking. The lightbulb is a bit -- over the top, I think, and is somewhat confusing. What does it mean? I don't use a light bulb to make outlines, I use a pen and paper. -A. From dflatin at rcn.com Tue Jan 4 15:22:40 2005 From: dflatin at rcn.com (Daniel Flatin) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <6cbc989205010410047100573b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I find myself in the camp that likes the new aesthetics. An option to hide the selection boundary might be reasonable, but it could be problematic for the overall functionality of the interface. Think about dragging sections of the outline around. I find that the new, smaller row handles are, in the words of John McKenzie, more typographic as are the checkboxes. I also like how you can make the row handles only show with a mouse-over, allowing the interface to really get out of the way of the content. As far as the toolbar icons are concerned, I just set them to the small format / no text and they seem pretty reasonable, and you can always hide them anyway. The comment about the light bulb in the icon strikes home with me, however. I really don't see how a bulb adds to the outline metaphor. If it is to draw a connection with the cartoon association of light bulb to ideas, I would point out that the bulb in the icon is either dead or off. Neither of those conditions is likely to represent what the Omni Group would like to put forward about their product. Dan From leon.spencer at student.usyd.edu.au Tue Jan 4 16:30:20 2005 From: leon.spencer at student.usyd.edu.au (Leon Spencer) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I find myself disliking the aesthetics of OO3 the more I use it. The roundrect border is exactly the wrong size to look good. It needs a bigger margin so that the insertion beam doesn't crash into it in a startlingly ugly display of ugliness. Not to mention, its an entirely non-standard way of highlighting things that isn't used anywhere else in the whole operating system. The boxes and the bullets are also exactly the wrong size, position and color to be attractive. -- L. From john at oram.com Tue Jan 4 17:58:41 2005 From: john at oram.com (John Oram) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: While I can kind of see where people are coming from on the borders in OO3 (even though I very much like it and would even like the option to keep the border *on* around certain bits of the outline...), I have to put my vote towards the current style for checkboxes and bullets. The aqua checkboxes in OO2 were extremely distracting and did not look appropriate on screen, never mind on printed documents. Maybe on option to choose the shade of the checkboxes would be in order. -john From cpac at mac.com Wed Jan 5 04:54:34 2005 From: cpac at mac.com (Ciaran P. A. Connelly) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <67E01850-5E40-11D9-9744-000D93C0E102@mac.com> References: <67E01850-5E40-11D9-9744-000D93C0E102@mac.com> Message-ID: Personally, I couldn't disagree more. I find the checkboxes more appropriate for typographical documents (as they are neither forms on a web page nor system controls), and I find the selection ring (especially with the expand collapse animation) to be must easier to follow/read than the entire-row highlighting that used to occur in OO2. (you yourself say that pure verticals/horizontals are harsher on the retina, well the rounded corners of the selection oval make selection all the less jarring) The toolbar icons I find to be much more intuitive and communicative about what they do than their equivalents in 002, though perhaps a grey-scale or almost grey-scale version (ala Graphite in OmniWeb) would be a good compromise solution for those finding the current icons "garish." Overall, OO3 just looks and feels more like a real, professional application rather than merely an NSTable on steroids. (PS - that's not meant to belittle OO2 - it got me through law school and was an excellent application - it's just that I think OO3 is a significant improvement!) -cpac On Jan 4, 2005, at 6:04 AM, Robin Trew wrote: > > The graphic "feel" of Ver 3 has, oddly become *weaker* than in Ver 2 > This discourages me from wanting to actually buy it and work in it. > I may stick with the more sophisticated and less distracting "look" > of Ver 2 > > > DETAILS > > Ver 2 provide a comfortable working environment - few redundant > contrast edges to distract the brain. > One of the great strengths of Ver 2 is that its own own apparatus > of controls and icons is in a well-muted background visual plane, > allowing the user to concentrate on their own work in the visual > foreground > > Ver 3 (current Beta) however, suddenly feels a little noisy and > garish, too distracting too allow concentration on one's own task. > (Has there been a shift in the balance of forces / skills in your > organisation ?) > > In particular: > > - A strongly contrasting, and unnecessarily distracting blue focus > line has appeared around the topic of the active note > > - The curve at the corners of the above creates additional and > redundant visual stimulus > (the Ver 2 straight lines do not shout visually) > > - The excellent muted icons (indentations etc) of Ver 2 have been > replaced by icons with more strident visual contrasts > > - The column titles, both bolded and underlined, with the edges of > the pixels all bleeding into each other, > look suddenly unprofessional and unfinished, whereas they looked > professional and discreet before > > - The new application icon uses cruder contrasts and inevitably > looks cheaper than the previous app icon. > > - Finallly , the checkbox > > Ver 2 uses a standard 3D aqua checkbox, with fairly gradual (grey > transition) visual contrast at the edges > which does not over-excite (or "shout" at) the retina. > > Ver 3 introduces some distracting visual shouting by going back to a > solid pixel pure rectangle (the retina is particularly stimulated pure > horizontals and verticals) > If you really want to do this then perhaps you should at least mute > the shouting down to grey pixels rather > than using a full volume black against white contrast. > > We all have limited processing capacity (me particularly :-), and > every little bit of distraction, visual or otherwise, > cuts into the quality of attention that we can bring to our work. > > A pity to turn an excellent app into a strident and distracting > working environment > which risks reminding potential buyers that Ver 2 of any app is often > the best ... > > _______________________________________________ > OmniOutliner-Users mailing list > OmniOutliner-Users@omnigroup.com > http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnioutliner-users From ooutline-ml.5.haelo at spamgourmet.com Wed Jan 5 08:07:23 2005 From: ooutline-ml.5.haelo at spamgourmet.com (ooutline-ml.5.haelo@spamgourmet.com) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: References: <67E01850-5E40-11D9-9744-000D93C0E102@mac.com> Message-ID: <6cbc989205010508071744742f@mail.gmail.com> > I find the checkboxes more appropriate for typographical documents (as > they are neither forms on a web page nor system controls), I pretty much had the same comment. Yes, they are more typographic than OS X's checkbox widget, but that still does not mean they are good enough. There is something subtly "wrong" with the size and boldness of the status icons in general. They should be diminished just a tad, either pixel-wise or raising the value of the colour to a charcoal grey, as opposed to jet black. In short, it is a step in the right direction, but not good enough, and overall I feel they are more distracting than OO2 and some other outliners, even with the improvement to the checkbox factored in. > and I find > the selection ring (especially with the expand collapse animation) to > be must easier to follow/read than the entire-row highlighting that > used to occur in OO2. (you yourself say that pure > verticals/horizontals are harsher on the retina, well the rounded > corners of the selection oval make selection all the less jarring) This is true -- to a point. The problem I have is two-fold. I feel the degree of curvature is too pronounced, and could be scaled back to a 4-6 pixel effect. This would give it a softer feel while not being too distracting. Secondly, and more importantly, when /multiple/ items all have this pronounced curve (or even a minor curve) applied to them, it gets too "busy," for lack of a better term. Visually, each selected item has the same amount of attention drawing power that a title should have on the screen. If you follow what I mean, line items should not have the same distinction as a header. It would be like using the "chapter" style in Word for every single paragraph. Your eyes get fatigued by the lack of focus. Line items should be subdued unless the user specifically wishes to draw attention to them (with a background colour, or whatever they wish.) > Overall, OO3 just looks and feels more like a real, professional > application rather than merely an NSTable on steroids. To me, it looks like something that has had a lot of money thrown at the graphics department, and not nearly enough at the UI department. It is possible, and preferable, to have a professional UI (and by that I mean the intelligence of the overall design, including functional access) which has a subdued graphical appearance. Excessively graphical UI design, to me, tends to look a bit as if the developer is trying to hard, especially when coupled with mediocre UI intelligence. Good UI is an extremely delicate line between subtle and stated. Non-active elements should be less stated than active elements if the software design has such a model for data entry. However, they shouldn't be so understated that their function becomes obscured. The primary problem with OO3's UI, as I see it, is that everything in the application is stated to the degree of an active element, and thus the mind and the eye become confused and fatigued when working for long durations in the environment. An excellent example of all this is the drop shadows in OS X. Drop shadows around windows is the kind of thing that could have been done horribly if unintelligently approached. Apple put just the right amount of statement on the active element (the foreground window) and reduced the amount of statement to inactive elements (background windows), so that the user has a subtle, yet guided "sense" of which window is currently active. Just a slight more subtle, and it would be easy to lose the active window; just a slight more statement on everything, and it would again become difficult to use the interface since everything "feels" active at once. A lot of this stuff is difficult to quantify, which makes critique difficult as well. It is hard to say precisely what would push OO3 toward a better visual presentation. Suffice it to say, I feel that nearly every visible element in OO3 needs to be looked at, and slightly worked on to reach the ideal balance. Finally, there is nothing wrong with simplicity. It is a tendency for developers and users of the Mac to make complex displays because the OS allows /so/ much. I hate to sound like an ideologue which is always bringing up MORE, but that was a good example of smart UI. The status cues were just enough to let you know what was going on without being too overstated. Everything was very simply stated, graphically speaking, and as a result you could work in the application for days and not feel fatigued by the interface. OO3, is to me, fatiguing. It looks really swank on first run, and for the initial few hours of working in it, it is all right. Extended use, however, becomes difficult. I never *once* got tired of looking at OO2. Graphically, OO2 is uglier than OO3, but it does the job without making me tired of it, and ultimately, that is all that really matters for an application which is designed to capture your thoughts. On that score, alas, OO3 fails for me. -A. From atl at comp.lancs.ac.uk Wed Jan 5 08:17:57 2005 From: atl at comp.lancs.ac.uk (Adam Lindsay) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <6cbc989205010508071744742f@mail.gmail.com> References: <6cbc989205010508071744742f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050105161757.17000@news.comp.lancs.ac.uk> ooutline-ml.5.haelo@spamgourmet.com said this at Wed, 5 Jan 2005 08:07:23 -0800: >In short, it is a step in the right direction, but not good enough, >and overall I feel they are more distracting than OO2 and some other >outliners, even with the improvement to the checkbox factored in. I, for one, would like to see a mock-up of your specific ideas illustrating these nips and tucks you propose. It's one thing to sit and critique, and quite another to execute. I don't doubt that what OO3 provides can be improved upon, but I haven't seen it illustrated yet. -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Adam T. Lindsay, Computing Dept. atl@comp.lancs.ac.uk Lancaster University, InfoLab21 +44(0)1524/510.514 Lancaster, LA1 4WA, UK Fax:+44(0)1524/510.492 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From jmck at mac.com Wed Jan 5 08:40:44 2005 From: jmck at mac.com (jmck@mac.com) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <6cbc989205010508071744742f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8B702582-5F38-11D9-A526-000A957F1AF0@mac.com> On Wednesday, January 5, 2005, at 11:07 AM, ooutline-ml.5.haelo@spamgourmet.com wrote: >> I find the checkboxes more appropriate for typographical documents (as >> they are neither forms on a web page nor system controls), > > I pretty much had the same comment. Yes, they are more typographic > than OS X's checkbox widget, but that still does not mean they are > good enough. There is something subtly "wrong" with the size and > boldness of the status icons in general. They should be diminished > just a tad, either pixel-wise or raising the value of the colour to a > charcoal grey, as opposed to jet black. > > In short, it is a step in the right direction, but not good enough, > and overall I feel they are more distracting than OO2 and some other > outliners, even with the improvement to the checkbox factored in. I have to take some of the blame for these checkboxes looking as they do, as in early sneaky peeks of OO3, they were a little smaller and charcoal grey, and I complained about this. My issue was that my eyes were working harder to to scan the status of the boxes, relative to OO2, whose aqua checkboxes provided great contrast between checked and unchecked items. ( I agree with the list that aqua UI elements should not be used in a document context...) Come to think of it, the Group's solution -- to make the boxes larger and black -- does nothing to increase the contrast *between* checked and unchecked items. Perhaps unchecked boxes could be grey, and checked black? John McKenzie From tjw at omnigroup.com Wed Jan 5 20:56:09 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: OmniOutliner 3.0 released Message-ID: <479DC06F-5F9F-11D9-A009-000D93361BA8@omnigroup.com> For those of you not on the Omni News mailing list.... Keep the feedback coming, though. While 3.0 is a major milestone, we know as well as anyone that the road stretches on. Thanks to all our beta testers and all the great feedback, feature requests and bug reports from the subscribers of this list! -tim (Oh, yeah, also, OmniWeb 5.1! :) -tim > From: linda@omnigroup.com > Subject: THIS JUST IN: Omni releases new stuff, emails hyperbole > Date: January 5, 2005 6:17:54 PM PST > To: omninews@omnigroup.com > > Hello there, you amazing people who subscribe to the OmniNews list! > Are you doing something different with your hair? Because you look > FABULOUS. Really. I'm just saying. > > I know most of the time I write you I have no actual "news", and my > emails are more, oh, I don't know, a "thinly disguised effort to take > you for every cent you've got", ha ha, but TODAY, today I have news. > New product releases, by golly, and not just two - *three*. > > On the same day. No doubt killing our web server. Because we are so > smart! S-M-R-T! > > Just posted and waiting for your download at > are OmniOutliner > 3 and OmniOutliner Professional 3. They are HUGE updates to our little > outlining app, and I hope you like them. You've got tons of new > options for styling and editing documents; you can include > attachments; you've got new export options, inline notes, improved > AppleScript support, a batch find feature, and WAIT THERE'S MORE, > because in the Pro version you've ALSO got folded editing, clipping > service support, audio recording, and saved templates. > > It's like, how can I possibly have more news, because this is already > so awesome? Well it's a good thing you don't pay for the full seat in > THIS news list because I am here to tell you that today you will ONLY > NEED THE EDGE. Bam! > > You also have a brand new version of OmniWeb waiting for you at > . OmniWeb 5.1 > integrates the latest Apple Webcore rendering engine, which means it > going to be more compatible with some websites that might have been > giving you trouble before. Also! History browsing is way better, now > that we've included some updates to the cache. And you can tab between > form elements now, and there've been improvements to OmniWeb's Java > compatibility and performance, and would you believe there are ALSO > "other improvements and fixes"? Because there ARE. > > I am totally all winded from these ALL CAPS words and the exclamation > marks and all, but I need to tell you that we also have brand new > family pack pricing on our online store at > . Family pack pricing! You know, for > kids! Or any members of your household that get sick of you hogging > our software all day long. Now you can get a discounted multi-seat > license for everyone. > > Enjoy! Download the new stuff, try it out, let us know what you think. > And come visit us at Macworld, booth #2338 - we'll have giveaways, and > special discounts! > > Okay, I need to lie down now. > > _______________________________________________ > OmniNews mailing list > OmniNews@omnigroup.com > http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omninews > From jaharmi at mac.com Thu Jan 6 05:42:48 2005 From: jaharmi at mac.com (Jeremy Reichman) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/4/05 8:58 PM, "John Oram" wrote: > While I can kind of see where people are coming from on the borders > in OO3 (even though I very much like it and would even like the > option to keep the border *on* around certain bits of the > outline...), I have to put my vote towards the current style for > checkboxes and bullets. The aqua checkboxes in OO2 were extremely > distracting and did not look appropriate on screen, never mind on > printed documents. > > Maybe on option to choose the shade of the checkboxes would be in order. I agree that the Aqua checkboxes looked out of place on printouts. I don't agree that they looked that way on-screen. I don't disagree that the new elements look more like they are part of the document and should work better in print. Those in all of these camps can agree to disagree. I do feel the OO 2's outline element interface was much more subdued than the start contrast of the black elements in OO 3. I really dislike the rounded rectangles for selections in OO 3. I can understand they serve a purpose. I just don't like their appearance. Between the roundrects and the heavier, darker elements, and the way they all fit together, the aesthetics of the application are really giving me a pause about upgrading. Making the roundrects and outline elements more subtle, by shading them, would go a long way towards resolving my concerns. Even if I want the features, I'm not sure I want to look at the application all the time, as it stands now. Oh well, I've resigned myself to the metal Finder and the BBEdit 8 icon. I suppose I'm mentally flexible enough. -- Jeremy From jaharmi at mac.com Thu Jan 6 05:47:12 2005 From: jaharmi at mac.com (Jeremy Reichman) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <8B702582-5F38-11D9-A526-000A957F1AF0@mac.com> Message-ID: On 1/5/05 11:40 AM, "jmck@mac.com" wrote: > Come to think of it, the Group's solution -- to make the boxes larger > and black -- does nothing to increase the contrast *between* checked > and unchecked items. Perhaps unchecked boxes could be grey, and checked > black? -- Jeremy From jaharmi at mac.com Thu Jan 6 05:50:22 2005 From: jaharmi at mac.com (Jeremy Reichman) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <8B702582-5F38-11D9-A526-000A957F1AF0@mac.com> Message-ID: On 1/5/05 11:40 AM, "jmck@mac.com" wrote: > Come to think of it, the Group's solution -- to make the boxes larger > and black -- does nothing to increase the contrast *between* checked > and unchecked items. Perhaps unchecked boxes could be grey, and checked > black? (Sorry for a third attempt to send this to the list; Entourage 2004 isn't letting me manage the Omni lists the way I expect it to, with its Mailing List Manager feature.) Anyway, I was going to say that the boxes and bullets could be grey, and the checkmarks, when present, could be black (or darker than the boxes/bullets). This would be closer to the look of OO2. (I agree with another poster -- I keep reverting to OO2 because I do feel 'fatigued' in some way using OO 3.) -- Jeremy From jaharmi at mac.com Thu Jan 6 06:21:46 2005 From: jaharmi at mac.com (Jeremy Reichman) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Lines without outline formatting (bullets, etc.) on export Message-ID: Is there a way, current with OO 2 or 3 (which is apparently released now), to use copy-paste or export to create outline rows without outline formatting? I feel like I'm flailing trying to explain this. Perhaps I can do this visually, with the following text snippet of an outline in OO 3 beta: *** [snip] - ITS security agent - Requirements meeting - - Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - - Where we stand - Get buy-in from CIO *** [snip] I take meeting notes in this outline format all the time, and everyone always wants them e-mailed to the group. It would save me time if I could define some way that, when I copy and paste this outline, I instead get plain text that looks like: *** [snip] ITS security agent Requirements meeting Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - Where we stand - Get buy-in from CIO *** [snip] Since I'm pasting into Entourage 2004 and have previously posted about my problems with OO to Erage copy-paste resulting in styled RTF text in a mail message, I could obviously add some steps to my cleanup routine (where I drop to the Terminal and use `pbpaste | pbcopy` to strip the styled text data on the pasteboard). A quick awk script would clean the outline lines up for me. However, I'd like to be able to define rows that act like headings or old-style memo fields or something, and that are treated differently on export and/or copy-paste into other apps. I'd like them to be something other than outline rows. Is this possible now, especially with the styling features of OO 3? Thanks! -- Jeremy From curt.clifton at mac.com Thu Jan 6 07:34:44 2005 From: curt.clifton at mac.com (Curtis Clifton) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Lines without outline formatting (bullets, etc.) on export In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7D7352B6-5FF8-11D9-A96A-0003938AA174@mac.com> Jeremy, I think I understand what you are asking for, but let me verify that... On Jan 6, 2005, at 8:21 AM, Jeremy Reichman wrote: > *** [snip] > - ITS security agent > - Requirements meeting > - > - Tuesday, January 4, 2005 > - > - Where we stand > - Get buy-in from CIO > *** [snip] I'm assuming the above is in OO. > *** [snip] > ITS security agent > Requirements meeting > > Tuesday, January 4, 2005 > > - Where we stand > - Get buy-in from CIO > *** [snip] And you would like something like the above, in plain text, when you paste to Entourage. > However, I'd like to be able to define rows that act like headings or > old-style memo fields or something, and that are treated differently on > export and/or copy-paste into other apps. I'd like them to be something > other than outline rows. > > Is this possible now, especially with the styling features of OO 3? So you are willing to apply an OO3 Pro named style to the following rows: > ITS security agent > Requirements meeting > > Tuesday, January 4, 2005 > If my assumptions are right, then this should be do-able with AppleScript. That might be handy for my work too. I can probably throw something together over lunch, but will wait for you to confirm my assumptions. Best, Curt ---------------------------------- Curtis Clifton, PhD Candidate Dept. of Computer Science, Iowa State University http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cclifton From crasmen at free.fr Thu Jan 6 08:58:27 2005 From: crasmen at free.fr (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Corentin_Cras-M=E9neur?=) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: OmniOutliner 3.0 released In-Reply-To: <479DC06F-5F9F-11D9-A009-000D93361BA8@omnigroup.com> Message-ID: <1gpyrpn.16hozkdk0htmaM%crasmen@free.fr> Timothy J.Wood wrote: > For those of you not on the Omni News mailing list.... > > Keep the feedback coming, though. While 3.0 is a major milestone, we > know as well as anyone that the road stretches on. > > Thanks to all our beta testers and all the great feedback, feature > requests and bug reports from the subscribers of this list! > > -tim > > (Oh, yeah, also, OmniWeb 5.1! :) Congratulations!!! (for both). Now I'm on my way to buy my upgrade license :-)) The beta versions have been surprisingly stable and solid on my Mac. I've tested a bunch of other apps before so I must say I was impressed by the quality of the betas for OO..... Corentin From rene at wuttke.org Thu Jan 6 09:31:35 2005 From: rene at wuttke.org (=?UTF-8?B?UmVuw6kgV3V0dGtl?=) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: OO3 Pro on an USB stick or iPod? Message-ID: <41DD75F7.7000608@wuttke.org> Hi, is there a way to install OO3Pro on a iPod (3G), or better an USB stick, in a way that it can be run on any Jaguar or Panther system without leaving any traces in the Library? I'd like to take OO with me all the time. Thanks, -Ren? From eric.durbrow at comcast.net Thu Jan 6 11:17:54 2005 From: eric.durbrow at comcast.net (Eric Durbrow) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Discount on OO Pro 3? Message-ID: I beta tested OO Pro 3 and have an educational license for OO 2. Can some kind soul tell me how I can buy an educational or discounted license or upgrade to OO Pro 3? I am bit confused by the website. Many thanks. Cooperatively, E. Durbrow, Ph.D. ? eric.durbrow@comcast.net ? home.comcast.net/~eric.durbrow/index.html ? www.rainforest.care2.com From crasmen at free.fr Thu Jan 6 11:26:20 2005 From: crasmen at free.fr (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Corentin_Cras-M=E9neur?=) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Discount on OO Pro 3? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1gpyyj3.m48np9mh4sw0M%crasmen@free.fr> Eric Durbrow wrote: > I beta tested OO Pro 3 and have an educational license for OO 2. Can > some kind soul tell me how I can buy an educational or discounted > license or upgrade to OO Pro 3? I am bit confused by the website. Many > thanks. > > Cooperatively, It's all there in the "Edu Store": https://store.omnigroup.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/OnlineStore.woa/1/wa/stor efront?store=edu&wosid=Da3MvtTB8Hu32fbWuIlrzAbewws I agree. The link to the Edu Store at the top of the page of the regular Omni Store is not that obvious. Corentin From tjw at omnigroup.com Thu Jan 6 11:46:34 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: OO3 Pro on an USB stick or iPod? In-Reply-To: <41DD75F7.7000608@wuttke.org> References: <41DD75F7.7000608@wuttke.org> Message-ID: On Jan 6, 2005, at 9:31 AM, Ren? Wuttke wrote: > is there a way to install OO3Pro on a iPod (3G), or better an USB > stick, > in a way that it can be run on any Jaguar or Panther system without > leaving any traces in the Library? I'd like to take OO with me all the > time. Not completely, but you can get part way there if you are willing to modify the application plist (select 'Show Package Contents' from the contextual menu in Finder then look in Contents and open Info.plist in TextEdit or PropertyList Editor). - Under OFBundleRegistryConfig/AdditionalRegistrations is a list of paths to additional default files to use. You should be able to set up your preferences once and then copy that file to the stick and put the path in this array. This will not cause *new* preference changes to get written to this copied file, though. Apple's preference code is probably not flexible enough to write anywhere other than ~/Library, but I haven't specifically looked for this in their API. - Under OFBundleRegistryConfig/SearchPaths is a list of paths to look for plug-ins. If you download OO3 add-ons later, you could modify this to look for them on your stick. - In the Contents/Resources directory of the app wrapper is OZSettings.plist. This has a LicenseSearchPath entry that would allow you to put your license on the stick and carry it with you. We don't have any solution good or bad for the Scripts, Templates and other stuff that goes in the Application Support directory that I can think of (other than creating symlinks). Anyone that is interested in this feature should send their vote to so we can prioritize it vs. other requests. I hope this helps! -tim From dvorak at omnigroup.com Thu Jan 6 11:51:31 2005 From: dvorak at omnigroup.com (Brian C.) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Lines without outline formatting (bullets, etc.) on export In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5CA239AE-601C-11D9-B051-000A9567A046@omnigroup.com> I think that you can do what you're looking for here by setting the "spaces per level" setting in the Text export preferences to "0". Is that what you were after? Sincerely, Brian C. Support Manager Omni Group On Jan 6, 2005, at 6:21 AM, Jeremy Reichman wrote: > Is there a way, current with OO 2 or 3 (which is apparently released > now), > to use copy-paste or export to create outline rows without outline > formatting? I feel like I'm flailing trying to explain this. > > Perhaps I can do this visually, with the following text snippet of an > outline in OO 3 beta: > > *** [snip] > - ITS security agent > - Requirements meeting > - > - Tuesday, January 4, 2005 > - > - Where we stand > - Get buy-in from CIO > *** [snip] > > > I take meeting notes in this outline format all the time, and everyone > always wants them e-mailed to the group. It would save me time if I > could > define some way that, when I copy and paste this outline, I instead get > plain text that looks like: > > > *** [snip] > ITS security agent > Requirements meeting > > Tuesday, January 4, 2005 > > - Where we stand > - Get buy-in from CIO > *** [snip] > > > Since I'm pasting into Entourage 2004 and have previously posted about > my > problems with OO to Erage copy-paste resulting in styled RTF text in a > mail > message, I could obviously add some steps to my cleanup routine (where > I > drop to the Terminal and use `pbpaste | pbcopy` to strip the styled > text > data on the pasteboard). A quick awk script would clean the outline > lines up > for me. > > However, I'd like to be able to define rows that act like headings or > old-style memo fields or something, and that are treated differently on > export and/or copy-paste into other apps. I'd like them to be something > other than outline rows. > > Is this possible now, especially with the styling features of OO 3? > > Thanks! > > > -- > Jeremy > > > _______________________________________________ > OmniOutliner-Users mailing list > OmniOutliner-Users@omnigroup.com > http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnioutliner-users From dvorak at omnigroup.com Thu Jan 6 11:59:26 2005 From: dvorak at omnigroup.com (Brian C.) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Are any Mac OS X (french) users on the list... Message-ID: <77CC4A15-601D-11D9-B051-000A9567A046@omnigroup.com> Can you email me off-list? I've got a question from a user I'll need a bit of assistance to answer. Thanks, y'all! Sincerely, Brian C. Support Manager Omni Group From laferr at mac.com Thu Jan 6 12:19:39 2005 From: laferr at mac.com (Randy J. La Ferr) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Unsubscribing to users list Message-ID: Hello: I have been subscribed to the Omni Outliner user's list for some time now , and I find that I don't need to be a part of the on going discussion anymore. Would you please un-subscribe me when you can? Thanks for a great product! Randy J La ferr laferr@mac.com From robinfrancistrew at mac.com Thu Jan 6 12:37:55 2005 From: robinfrancistrew at mac.com (Robin Trew) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Graphic guidelines for the next release Message-ID: In case too many potential users of Ver 3 find it visually a little fatiguing, and decide to stick with Ver 2, a useful source of graphic guidelines for any redrafts is, of course: Edward R. Tufte, "Envisioning Information", Graphics Press. One useful rule of thumb which it expands on (in relation to visual contrasts) is that using the "minimum effective difference" will usually optimize the signal / noise ratio. Redundant contrasts, or contrasts which are stronger than required, are pretty much like distracting noise, or excessive volume - they aborb precious mental resources, and make it harder to concentrate. The problem is often, of course, that marketing departments want to "catch attention", and cry their wares as loudly as possible. Good luck ! Robin Trew From dvorak at omnigroup.com Thu Jan 6 14:10:08 2005 From: dvorak at omnigroup.com (Brian C.) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The problem we were trying to solve there was that the old selection model that OO2 used didn't make it clear to users that selecting a parent implicitly selected the children as well. Thus, the new borders we put up that surround everything that's selected... Would simply making the colors softer make this work better for you, or is there some other interface entirely you're envisioning? Sincerely, Brian C. Support Manager Omni Group On Jan 6, 2005, at 5:42 AM, Jeremy Reichman wrote: > I really dislike the rounded rectangles for selections in OO 3. I can > understand they serve a purpose. I just don't like their appearance. From fraser at speirs.org Thu Jan 6 15:01:07 2005 From: fraser at speirs.org (Fraser Speirs) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Scripting a search in OO3 Message-ID: Hi, I'm just wondering if it's possible to AppleScript a search in OO3? What I'd like to do is create a toolbar script which does a search for every instance of the text of the selected row. Thanks, Fraser -- http://www.speirs.org - http://www.mycamera.org.uk From mark at bbprojects.net Thu Jan 6 15:24:05 2005 From: mark at bbprojects.net (Mark Smith) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Graphic guidelines for the next release In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Robin Trew wrote: >In case too many potential users of Ver 3 find it visually a little >fatiguing, and decide to stick with Ver 2, a useful source of graphic >guidelines for any redrafts is, of course: > >Edward R. Tufte, "Envisioning Information", Graphics Press. Damned fine book, was reading it earlier myself. >One useful rule of thumb which it expands on (in relation to visual >contrasts) is that using the "minimum effective difference" will >usually optimize the signal / noise ratio. > >Redundant contrasts, or contrasts which are stronger than required, are >pretty much like distracting noise, or excessive volume - they aborb >precious mental resources, and make it harder to concentrate. > >The problem is often, of course, that marketing departments want to >"catch attention", and cry their wares as loudly as possible. I'm not getting this complaining about OO3 in this respect. I find that visually it gets a lot more right than OO2 did. I'm guessing that you are finding the bluish highlighting of nodes (about which I can see your point, but its not even close to fatiguing for me) and/or the gradient highlighting of sections. In case you don't know, you can control the latter via System Prefs -> Apprearance: highlight colour. From nmeersschaert at mac.com Thu Jan 6 16:32:30 2005 From: nmeersschaert at mac.com (Niels Meersschaert) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: OO3 HTML Output Message-ID: <9D600746-6043-11D9-ADF0-00039386BDE0@mac.com> With the additional graphics & potentially javascript file, html exports now go into a folder instead of a single file as in OO2. However, the folder is always named with .html extension. Is there any way to not have the folder have an extension? The file dialog box doesn't show the extension & unlike OO2 doesn't have a checkbox to show extensions, with which I could delete it. Anyone have a suggestion? Thanks, Niels From alfred.lang at psy.unibe.ch Fri Jan 7 02:24:08 2005 From: alfred.lang at psy.unibe.ch (Alfred Lang) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Problem with Inspector placement: inaccessibility bug! Message-ID: Dear people at Omni Group, I got a problem with OO3 Pro beta 8 that is unfortunately retained in the definitive version (v 109) in the trial mode (while awaiting the licence):: the Inspector window repositioned itself into the top of the screen in such a way that only that lowest section is visible and I could move the Style Attribute section, but find no way to access the panel above. When I tried to re-arrange the second screen I got to see again the whole Inspector panels, but, unfortunately, although I can open and close the sections, all the commands are greyed and I cannot acces any item. Neither restart of the app nor the system does change anything. Can anybody help me? Its a PB G4 17" OS10.3.7 2GB RAM with a second screen placed to the right or on top of the main screen. This makes no difference. The same with changing the pixels displayed. Very strange effect! A bug? How can it be repaired? Alfred -- Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland http://www.langpapers.net --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch From atl at comp.lancs.ac.uk Fri Jan 7 02:50:45 2005 From: atl at comp.lancs.ac.uk (Adam Lindsay) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Problem with Inspector placement: inaccessibility bug! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050107105045.9670@news.comp.lancs.ac.uk> Alfred Lang said this at Fri, 7 Jan 2005 11:24:08 +0100: >the Inspector window repositioned itself into the top of >the screen in such a way that only that lowest section is visible and >I could move the Style Attribute section, but find no way to access >the panel above. I ran into this during the beta. It was distressing, and then I saw Inspectors > Reset Inspector Locations after I dashed an email off to the OmniGroup. That should do it for you! -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Adam T. Lindsay, Computing Dept. atl@comp.lancs.ac.uk Lancaster University, InfoLab21 +44(0)1524/510.514 Lancaster, LA1 4WA, UK Fax:+44(0)1524/510.492 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From philip at king-graphics.co.uk Fri Jan 7 06:24:50 2005 From: philip at king-graphics.co.uk (Philip King) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thursday, 6 January, 2005, Brian C. said: >The problem we were trying to solve there was that the old >selection model that OO2 used didn't make it clear to users >that selecting a parent implicitly selected the children as >well. Thus, the new borders we put up that surround everything >that's selected... Which rather ignores long-time users who are quite aware of what is being selected and don't need such hand-holding. >Would simply making the colors softer make this work better for >you, or is there some other interface entirely you're >envisioning? Quieter colour with better positioning and anti-aliasing would help. - Philip -- KING GRAPHICS PHO: 020 7735 3494 MOB: 079 4133 5103 From alfred.lang at psy.unibe.ch Fri Jan 7 07:31:46 2005 From: alfred.lang at psy.unibe.ch (Alfred Lang) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Problem with Inspector placement: inaccessibility bug! Message-ID: Dear people at Omni User Group, Sorry to write again. But the problem is really serious. And myself I am quite in panic. I do not want to lose the content although it is backed up. But I need to work on this. The file in question is like locked. I am unable to write anywehre in this file, while other files are OK, also in the Inspector. Looking at the info panel of this file, it is not locked, but the setting switch "locked" is greyed too. Nowhere in OO 3 Pro I find some setting that allows locking items. Would be a desirable feature anyway. I finally found out, that the file is set "read only", probably not by any device directed at the file itself, but by the lack of serial number in the trial version of the definite version 3 of Pro which I am awaiting from Omni Group. There are some upgrade problems in connection with the educational version. For I can work with and save the file in normal OO3. Alfred -- Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland http://www.langpapers.net --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch From georges at radicalivros.com.br Fri Jan 7 07:46:10 2005 From: georges at radicalivros.com.br (Georges Kormikiaris) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Problem with Inspector placement: inaccessibility bug! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4097041F-60C3-11D9-8478-000A9569B3F4@radicalivros.com.br> Don't panic. Just close the file and open it through File > Open File. It happened to me too. I have set OO3's preferences to open the last file I was working one and upon launching OO3 (v109) for the first time it opened my last used file and the Release Notes. I guess the Release Notes Read Only status "contaminated" my personal file... But only Omni folks could confirm that. Georges On 07 de jan de 2005, at 13:31, Alfred Lang wrote: > Dear people at Omni User Group, > > Sorry to write again. But the problem is really serious. And myself I > am quite in panic. I do not want to lose the content although it is > backed up. But I need to work on this. The file in question is like > locked. I am unable to write anywehre in this file, while other files > are OK, also in the Inspector. Looking at the info panel of this file, > it is not locked, but the setting switch "locked" is greyed too. > Nowhere in OO 3 Pro I find some setting that allows locking items. > Would be a desirable feature anyway. I finally found out, that the > file is set "read only", probably not by any device directed at the > file itself, but by the lack of serial number in the trial version of > the definite version 3 of Pro which I am awaiting from Omni Group. > There are some upgrade problems in connection with the educational > version. For I can work with and save the file in normal OO3. > > Alfred > -- > > Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland > http://www.langpapers.net --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch > _______________________________________________ > OmniOutliner-Users mailing list > OmniOutliner-Users@omnigroup.com > http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnioutliner-users Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thoughts, that's their definition, essentially. No artistic merit, causes sexual thoughts ... Sounds like every ad on television, doesn't it? -- Bill Hicks From gorik68 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 7 08:01:45 2005 From: gorik68 at yahoo.com (Gregoire Dupond) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Size of quicktimes icons of audio recordings in documents packages!!! Message-ID: <20050107160145.66029.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> I just made some tests to find the best and smaller codec to record audio in oo3 pro from my BT headset. works great with Qualcomm PureVoice 11.025 half-rate. I could save a lot of space this way as my plan was to be able to put a lot of short audio notes on a document. But what a shame : each recording creates a 28k quicktime icon in the document package!!! My shorts recordings were between 12 and 24k so I more than double the size of my file! Just one icon would be enough for all recordings I guess. Even though, just use the system icon for quicktime and then none is needed in the oo document. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From sophos at mailcan.com Fri Jan 7 08:26:41 2005 From: sophos at mailcan.com (sophos@mailcan.com) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts Message-ID: I think at least some of the cognitive interference problems would go away if the highlighting was used only for mouse selections and not for the current text insertion point. We are all familiar with keeping track of the cursor. Removing the extra highlighting (or making it optional) would lessen the visual distinction between what I am typing now and what I might be reading for reference while I am typing. From sophos at mailcan.com Fri Jan 7 08:34:17 2005 From: sophos at mailcan.com (sophos@mailcan.com) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: reliability of backups Message-ID: As I understand it, the auto-save is currently writing to the resource fork for files without attachments. I wonder if power fail or kernel crash style testing has been done with this implementation. What happens if the system crashes while OO is in the process of writing the autosave? What if the system crashes during a normal save? This design seems to be expecting a lot from the file system. From fraser at speirs.org Fri Jan 7 08:41:52 2005 From: fraser at speirs.org (Fraser Speirs) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Script grammar for "all rows which have named style x" Message-ID: <0895323E-60CB-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> Hi all, I'm trying and failing to express a particular filter reference form in AppleScript for OO. What I want to say is "every row of the front document which has a named style whose name is fooStyle". The best I could derive was: set theStyle to named style "foo" of front document set theRows to every row of front document whose named styles of style contains {theStyle} ...which doesn't work. My fallback approach is to use a repeat to inspect the named styles of every single row in the document with a "if named styles of style of thisRow contains {theStyle}" filter. This appears to be an exceedingly slow approach to take, however. Any suggestions? TIA, Fraser -- http://www.speirs.org - http://www.mycamera.org.uk From formido at mac.com Fri Jan 7 09:47:58 2005 From: formido at mac.com (Michael Terry) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Script grammar for "all rows which have named style x" In-Reply-To: <0895323E-60CB-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> References: <0895323E-60CB-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> Message-ID: <11735819.1105120078409.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> On Friday, January 07, 2005, at 08:42AM, Fraser Speirs wrote: >Hi all, > >I'm trying and failing to express a particular filter reference form in >AppleScript for OO. What I want to say is "every row of the front >document which has a named style whose name is fooStyle". You should be able to do this: tell app "OmniOutliner Professional" to tell front document get container of every named style of style of every row where its name is "Some Style Name" end The second line should be monolithic. However, I couldn't test it because I don't totally understand Outliner's style system. How does one create a named style that belongs to a row? I don't mean with AppleScript, but just any way whatever. I wanted to create a named style that belonged to a row, so that I could then test getting it out with AS, but I couldn't figure out how. Were you able to get Outliner's AS interface to claim that a named style was contained in the style of a row. I couldn't. I've only been able to have a row inherit styles defined in a named style that belongs to the document and I don't see an easy way to figure out if an inherited style has been applied to a row in AppleScript. Is there a way? Is this what you're talking about? Michael From formido at mac.com Fri Jan 7 10:03:28 2005 From: formido at mac.com (Michael Terry) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Scripting a search in OO3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <672470.1105121008157.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> On Thursday, January 06, 2005, at 03:01PM, Fraser Speirs wrote: >Hi, > >I'm just wondering if it's possible to AppleScript a search in OO3? >What I'd like to do is create a toolbar script which does a search for >every instance of the text of the selected row. > You can't activate the find panel, but you can do something like this: tell application "OmniOutliner Professional" to tell front document set searchTxt to topic of first item of selected rows set results to every row where its topic contains searchTxt end tell Depending on what features you want, the script can be made more sophisticated, for example highlighting all found rows with a particular style. You'd want a partner script to clear the highlights too. In Outliner 2, it would have been possible to select the found rows, but not anymore. Michael From curt.clifton at mac.com Fri Jan 7 10:06:00 2005 From: curt.clifton at mac.com (Curtis Clifton) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Size of quicktimes icons of audio recordings in documents packages!!! In-Reply-To: <20050107160145.66029.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050107160145.66029.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Gregoire, On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:01 AM, Gregoire Dupond wrote: > But what a shame : each recording creates a 28k quicktime icon in the > document > package!!! > My shorts recordings were between 12 and 24k so I more than double the > size of > my file! > Just one icon would be enough for all recordings I guess. > > Even though, just use the system icon for quicktime and then none is > needed in > the oo document. Hmm, I was going to suggest that you turn on compression of the OO3 document until this multiple icon feature is sorted out. Unfortunately, it seems that the compression is only applied to the xml file which stores the outline; attachments and icons are not compressed. * WARNING -- Dangerous Speculation Ahead -- I probably shouldn't post this. * I did some experimenting and discovered that if I closed an outline in OO3, then showed the package contents in the finder, I could delete the .tiff icon files created for my attachments. OO3 did not recreate the icons on opening, editing, and saving the outline and everything worked OK. I discovered this in trying to manually create symlinks to associate all the tiff icons to a single file. OO3 actually deleted the symlinks, but did not recreate the icons. Please note that I would *not* recommend deleting the icons from the package. Futzing with the internals of a package is fraught with peril. This trick is just as likely to render an outline unusable as it is to save a few kB of disk space. And which is more valuable, disk space or your ideas? However, the fact that the trick seems to work really begs the question of whether the .tiff icons are necessary at all. Best, Curt ---------------------------------- Curtis Clifton, PhD Candidate Dept. of Computer Science, Iowa State University http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cclifton From tjw at omnigroup.com Fri Jan 7 10:10:30 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6A620EBA-60D7-11D9-AC13-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> On Jan 7, 2005, at 6:24 AM, Philip King wrote: > Which rather ignores long-time users who are quite aware of what is > being selected and don't need such hand-holding. The other thing that Brian forgot to mention is that the new selection display gives a visual indication of how far down the children of the selection extend. So, on OO2, you can easily select the parent of a long list and scroll down and find the end, no matter how long the list is. This is really, really important -- try doing this in OO2 and it is pretty hard to do this operation reliably. There are some improvements we are considering, so keep the feedback coming :) -tim From curt.clifton at mac.com Fri Jan 7 10:12:02 2005 From: curt.clifton at mac.com (Curtis Clifton) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:26 AM, sophos@mailcan.com wrote: > I think at least some of the cognitive interference problems would go > away if the highlighting was used only for mouse selections and not > for the current text insertion point. We are all familiar with > keeping track of the cursor. Removing the extra highlighting (or > making it optional) would lessen the visual distinction between what I > am typing now and what I might be reading for reference while I am > typing. I'm among those that prefer OO3 to OO2, but I would agree with sophos's suggestion. Also, in a multi-row selection would it look better if contiguous rows at the same level were highlighted with a single rounded rectangle, instead of one rounded rectangle per row. (Though as a programmer, I imagine that would wreck havoc on the underlying architecture. But then, I'm just imagining how I would implement the current behavior.) Curt ---------------------------------- Curtis Clifton, PhD Candidate Dept. of Computer Science, Iowa State University http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cclifton From fraser at speirs.org Fri Jan 7 10:13:57 2005 From: fraser at speirs.org (Fraser Speirs) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Script grammar for "all rows which have named style x" In-Reply-To: <11735819.1105120078409.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> References: <0895323E-60CB-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> <11735819.1105120078409.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> Message-ID: On 7 Jan 2005, at 17:47, Michael Terry wrote: > You should be able to do this: > > tell app "OmniOutliner Professional" to tell front document > get container of every named style of style of every row where its > name is "Some Style Name" > end Unfortunately, that gives me an NSCannotCreateScriptCommandError. > I've only been able to have a row inherit styles defined in a named > style that belongs to the document and I don't see an easy way to > figure out if an inherited style has been applied to a row in > AppleScript. Is there a way? Is this what you're talking about? I've been able to apply a named style to a selected row thus: tell front document of application "OmniOutliner Professional" add named style "foo" to end of named styles of style of selected row end tell Note that if you say something like: set style of aRow to named style "foo" then the attributes of "foo" are copied to aRow, but the styles applied to aRow will not be connected to the named style "foo". Fraser -- Technical Coordinator - ScotGrid a: Room 481, Kelvin Building, University of Glasgow w: http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~fspeirs/ t: 0141 330 6439 From fraser at speirs.org Fri Jan 7 10:18:43 2005 From: fraser at speirs.org (Fraser Speirs) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Scripting a search in OO3 In-Reply-To: <672470.1105121008157.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> References: <672470.1105121008157.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> Message-ID: <900F18F8-60D8-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> On 7 Jan 2005, at 18:03, Michael Terry wrote: > Depending on what features you want, the script can be made more > sophisticated, for example highlighting all found rows with a > particular style. You'd want a partner script to clear the highlights > too. In Outliner 2, it would have been possible to select the found > rows, but not anymore. You can still script the selection: set theRows to every row of front document whose topic is "foo" select theRows ...seems to work for me. In any case, I've found that using applescript filter references is much more flexible than the search field alone. Actually, instead of selecting the found rows I'm faking a hoist by copying them into a temporary document. Works quite nicely for me. Cheers, Fraser -- Technical Coordinator - ScotGrid a: Room 481, Kelvin Building, University of Glasgow w: http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~fspeirs/ t: 0141 330 6439 From curt.clifton at mac.com Fri Jan 7 10:32:45 2005 From: curt.clifton at mac.com (Curtis Clifton) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Script grammar for "all rows which have named style x" In-Reply-To: <0895323E-60CB-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> References: <0895323E-60CB-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> Message-ID: <86109F1D-60DA-11D9-883B-0003938AA174@mac.com> Fraser, On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:41 AM, Fraser Speirs wrote: > I'm trying and failing to express a particular filter reference form > in AppleScript for OO. What I want to say is "every row of the front > document which has a named style whose name is fooStyle". > Try: tell front document of application "OmniOutliner Professional" set discussedStyle to id of named style "Discussed" set discussedRows to every row whose (discussedStyle is in (id of named styles of style of it)) return count of discussedRows end tell This assumes, of course that you have a style named "Discussed". Curt ---------------------------------- Curtis Clifton, PhD Candidate Dept. of Computer Science, Iowa State University http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cclifton From tjw at omnigroup.com Fri Jan 7 10:51:45 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Script grammar for "all rows which have named style x" In-Reply-To: <11735819.1105120078409.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> References: <0895323E-60CB-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> <11735819.1105120078409.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> Message-ID: <2DC20E54-60DD-11D9-AC13-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> Finding all the rows that are impacted by a named style is not currently easy. We have a bug open on this (more general than the named style case). On Jan 7, 2005, at 9:47 AM, Michael Terry wrote: [...] > tell app "OmniOutliner Professional" to tell front document > get container of every named style of style of every row where its > name is "Some Style Name" > end This won't work since 'container' on the 'named style' will always be a document. Per-section (or per-row) named styles is interesting, but it would probably be confusing for a lot of people. > I've only been able to have a row inherit styles defined in a named > style that belongs to the document and I don't see an easy way to > figure out if an inherited style has been applied to a row in > AppleScript. Is there a way? Is this what you're talking about? How the OO3 style system works in a nutshell: - Level styles - Each row has a list of level styles that form the basis for its children's styles. - The document as a whole has a list of level style. Consider the document an invisible root row (in fact, that's part of the implementation!) - Named styles - Owned by the document - Each style has an ordered list of inherited styles (which are always named styles; can't inherit from some other row's style) - Cells - Each row has a style - Each column has a style - Each cell has a style formed by considering first its row (most specific since rows are more numerous) and then column. - Styles attribute lookup - locally in the style itself - in the ordered list of inherited styles for this style - recursively in the ordered list of styles implied by the structure (row and column as mentioned above). - cells have special logic to ensure that all level styles are considered prior to the column style This seems complicated to some people at first glance and natural to others. Hopefully our upcoming SDK documentation will spell this out more clearly than I have here (it'll likely have pictures at least :) So, to get back to your question -- how do you tell if a row is impacted by a named style? The following steps need to be done (I haven't tested this code!) if (named styles of style of MyRow contains MyNamedStyle) -- yes else repeat with MyLevel from 1 to level of MyRow set MyLevelStyle to level style MyLevel of ancestor MyLevel of MyRow if (named styles of style of MyLevelStyle contains MyNamedStyle) -- yes end end end -- Check the "Whole Document" style too if (named styles of style of MyDocument contains MyNamedStyle) -- yes end -- no Now, this is really much more complicated than you really want in your scripts (and slow, too). In fact, our ObjC model can do this computation in one method call: return [myStyle isInfluencedByStyle:someOtherStyle]; So, the bug in our tracking system is that we need to expose this feature in a way that lets people write scripts like: if MyStyle is infuenced by MyOtherStyle ... end or every row of MyDocument whose style is influenced by SomeStyle There are a couple issues here: - The terminology is vague. "influenced" in this case means "potentially has a visual effect, but maybe not". For example, if the named style has "font-fill=red" but the row itself has "font-fill=blue", we'd still say 'influenced' is true in this case, even though the row covers up all the stuff the named style defines. - I haven't had time to research how to write a qualifier like this -- the line may or may not work (probably not, but I'm not sure since I haven't had the time yet). Anyway, I hope this helps clear the murk instead of increasing it. We definitely have plans to add more complex AppleScript accessors that manage the complexities of styles, but we didn't have time up front and we wanted to see what people actually wanted for their scripts :) -tim From formido at mac.com Fri Jan 7 10:53:20 2005 From: formido at mac.com (Michael Terry) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Scripting a search in OO3 In-Reply-To: <900F18F8-60D8-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> References: <672470.1105121008157.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> <900F18F8-60D8-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> Message-ID: <9476905.1105124000176.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> On Friday, January 07, 2005, at 10:19AM, Fraser Speirs wrote: >On 7 Jan 2005, at 18:03, Michael Terry wrote: > >> Depending on what features you want, the script can be made more >> sophisticated, for example highlighting all found rows with a >> particular style. You'd want a partner script to clear the highlights >> too. In Outliner 2, it would have been possible to select the found >> rows, but not anymore. > >You can still script the selection: > >set theRows to every row of front document whose topic is "foo" >select theRows Awesome. I missed that. Thanks very much. I believe the select command is new in Outliner 3, and a change from the way you set the selection in Outliner 2, where the selection was a property of the document class. >...seems to work for me. In any case, I've found that using >applescript filter references is much more flexible than the search >field alone. Yes, absolutely. >Actually, instead of selecting the found rows I'm faking a hoist by >copying them into a temporary document. Works quite nicely for me. Yep, that's one of the more sophisticated improvements I was thinking of. Michael From tjw at omnigroup.com Fri Jan 7 10:57:10 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Scripting a search in OO3 In-Reply-To: <672470.1105121008157.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> References: <672470.1105121008157.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> Message-ID: On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:03 AM, Michael Terry wrote: > In Outliner 2, it would have been possible to select the found rows, > but not anymore. Huh? Yes, it is possible. In fact in OO2 it would *not* have been possible since you could only set a single selected row. In OO3 you can use the new 'select' command to select columns, rows or a cell. Some examples that should work: select every row whose topic contains "foo" select last column select cell "Topic" of first row whose state is unchecked You can also modify the selection with: add every row whose topic contains "foo" to selected rows remove every row whose topic contains "foo" from selected rows -tim From gorik68 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 7 10:58:48 2005 From: gorik68 at yahoo.com (Gregoire Dupond) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Size of quicktimes icons of audio recordings in documents packages!!! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050107185848.34997.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> hmmm, as you said only xml seems to be compressed. And if I plan to have 42 audio notes on an outline, the disk space is 42X25368 bytes so it is over a meg for nothing. How many am I supposed to accept on my HD for an xml weighing few kilos. True I could write an apllescript to delete all these in the package... but I would instinctively follow your advice not to do so... --- Curtis Clifton wrote: > Gregoire, > > On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:01 AM, Gregoire Dupond wrote: > > > But what a shame : each recording creates a 28k quicktime icon in the > > document > > package!!! > > My shorts recordings were between 12 and 24k so I more than double the > > size of > > my file! > > Just one icon would be enough for all recordings I guess. > > > > Even though, just use the system icon for quicktime and then none is > > needed in > > the oo document. > > Hmm, I was going to suggest that you turn on compression of the OO3 > document until this multiple icon feature is sorted out. > Unfortunately, it seems that the compression is only applied to the xml > file which stores the outline; attachments and icons are not > compressed. > > * WARNING -- Dangerous Speculation Ahead -- I probably shouldn't post > this. * > I did some experimenting and discovered that if I closed an outline in > OO3, then showed the package contents in the finder, I could delete the > .tiff icon files created for my attachments. OO3 did not recreate the > icons on opening, editing, and saving the outline and everything worked > OK. I discovered this in trying to manually create symlinks to > associate all the tiff icons to a single file. OO3 actually deleted > the symlinks, but did not recreate the icons. > > Please note that I would *not* recommend deleting the icons from the > package. Futzing with the internals of a package is fraught with > peril. This trick is just as likely to render an outline unusable as > it is to save a few kB of disk space. And which is more valuable, disk > space or your ideas? However, the fact that the trick seems to work > really begs the question of whether the .tiff icons are necessary at > all. > > Best, > > Curt > > ---------------------------------- > Curtis Clifton, PhD Candidate > Dept. of Computer Science, Iowa State University > http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cclifton > > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From tjw at omnigroup.com Fri Jan 7 11:08:53 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Size of quicktimes icons of audio recordings in documents packages!!! In-Reply-To: References: <20050107160145.66029.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <9271972C-60DF-11D9-AC13-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:06 AM, Curtis Clifton wrote: > Please note that I would *not* recommend deleting the icons from the > package. Futzing with the internals of a package is fraught with > peril. This trick is just as likely to render an outline unusable as > it is to save a few kB of disk space. And which is more valuable, > disk space or your ideas? However, the fact that the trick seems to > work really begs the question of whether the .tiff icons are necessary > at all. As long as you delete only these tiff files it shouldn't hurt anything, but yeah, still not really recommended. NSFileWrapper (part of Apple's file writing path) is writing these on our behalf. I guess we need to find the appropriate place to tell it that we'd rather not having them if they are just the default icon (you probably do want them if the file has a preview or you are dragging a link from OmniWeb with a favicon, etc). -tim From fraser at speirs.org Fri Jan 7 11:11:11 2005 From: fraser at speirs.org (Fraser Speirs) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Script grammar for "all rows which have named style x" In-Reply-To: <2DC20E54-60DD-11D9-AC13-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> References: <0895323E-60CB-11D9-8E85-000A9593106E@speirs.org> <11735819.1105120078409.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> <2DC20E54-60DD-11D9-AC13-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> Message-ID: On 7 Jan 2005, at 18:51, Timothy J.Wood wrote: > - The terminology is vague. "influenced" in this case means > "potentially has a visual effect, but maybe not". For example, if the > named style has "font-fill=red" but the row itself has > "font-fill=blue", we'd still say 'influenced' is true in this case, > even though the row covers up all the stuff the named style defines. The reason I'm asking this question is that I'm trying to commit a rather egregious abuse of named styles. Specifically, I'm trying to use named styles with no attributes as a means of "tagging" rows with text without using a specific prefix in the topic string or note field. Then I want to use AppleScript to find all the rows which have had these invisible styles applied. So it's quite important to my plans that "influenced" doesn't just describe the visual appearance of a row, but all the styles that may be impacting a row, whether seen or unseen. Fraser -- Technical Coordinator - ScotGrid a: Room 481, Kelvin Building, University of Glasgow w: http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~fspeirs/ t: 0141 330 6439 From formido at mac.com Fri Jan 7 11:35:10 2005 From: formido at mac.com (Michael Terry) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Graphic guidelines for the next release Message-ID: <6793798.1105126510808.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> On Friday, January 07, 2005, at 10:40AM, Robin Trew wrote: >Hi Michael, > >I'm sure you're right - as you've seen from the newsgroup, some have >shared my regret at the visual foregrounding of the program itself, >while others have not been bothered. Ah, right. I hadn't seen that thread for technical reasons too boring to go into here. >The most distracting for me is probably the two high-contrast edges >(inner and outer), plus the rounded corners (unusual and therefore >visual "marked" or noticeable) of the blue focus line around the active >item. So, is there some good scientific basis for this distractibility: Rounded corners are absolutely worse for some reason? Or is it relative: It's worse because it's unexpected compared to what came before? For me, the rounded corners are what I think of as "cool". They make no functional difference in my use, so I'm inclined to like them for that reason alone. Wherever possible I prefer cool things to not, which is partly why I use a Mac. >Next, the full-black check-box, I've noticed the complaint that Omni didn't use the aqua checkboxes, if that's what you're referring to, but that argument seems weak to me. Actually, I'm quite sympathetic to the notion that developers should adhere to interface guidelines, but I'm distressed that this adherence might overwhelm good sense and innovation. It seems rather like preferring rule based Utilitarianism to act based Utilitarianism. I don't care how checkboxes look as user interface widgets in other programs, so I think it's good they follow the rules for consistency's sake. But in Outliner, the checkboxes' look actually affects my enjoyment of the program. The aqua checkboxes are too hefty; they weight the document down. They draw attention to themselves that they don't deserve. I'm persuaded by Omni's reasoning that the checkboxes are part of the document's content, as they've always seemed that way to me. No matter how small you make the aqua checkboxes, they still look three-dimensional, so they jump off the page. For an object that's meant to be printed in some cases, this is one unnecessary, out-of-place dimension too many. >the pixel bleeds on the Bold plus >Underlined column heads I suppose if I'd been trained in computer graphics I might have a different sensibility. To my untrained eye, the column heads look cool too. Although I must admit that I dearly love brushed metal interface elements, so my taste may be suspect. >and the increased contrast levels of the >toolbar icons. Ah. Yeah, I agree with that, but I always turn off Outliner's toolbar. The icons are too big. Application toolbars suck in general 'cause it's too hard to remember what some little icon is supposed to do, and if it's big enough to be truly representative, then it takes up too much space. If I use it enough, I learn the keyboard shortcut anyway. >Shall we keep this to the newsgroup incidentally ? I don't always check >this particular inbox. Your wish is my command. ;) Michael ------------------ >Best wishes, > >Robin Trew > >On 7 Jan 2005, at 17:55, Michael Terry wrote: > >> >> On Thursday, January 06, 2005, at 12:38PM, Robin Trew >> wrote: >> >>> In case too many potential users of Ver 3 find it visually a little >>> fatiguing, and decide to stick with Ver 2, a useful source of graphic >>> guidelines for any redrafts is, of course: >>> >>> Edward R. Tufte, "Envisioning Information", Graphics Press. >>> >>> One useful rule of thumb which it expands on (in relation to visual >>> contrasts) is that using the "minimum effective difference" will >>> usually optimize the signal / noise ratio. >>> >>> Redundant contrasts, or contrasts which are stronger than required, >>> are >>> pretty much like distracting noise, or excessive volume - they aborb >>> precious mental resources, and make it harder to concentrate. >>> >>> The problem is often, of course, that marketing departments want to >>> "catch attention", and cry their wares as loudly as possible. >> >> Presumably another problem would be determining what the "minimum >> effective difference" is for the greatest cross section of people. >> What specifically are you objecting to? The folks I've talked to think >> that Outliner 3 whomps on Outliner 2. >> >> Michael > > > From demme at pobox.com Fri Jan 7 12:49:20 2005 From: demme at pobox.com (David Emme) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --- On 2005-01-07 12:12 PM (-0600), Curtis Clifton wrote: >On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:26 AM, sophos@mailcan.com wrote: > >> I think at least some of the cognitive interference problems would >> go away if the highlighting was used only for mouse selections and >> not for the current text insertion point. We are all familiar >> with keeping track of the cursor. Removing the extra highlighting >> (or making it optional) would lessen the visual distinction >> between what I am typing now and what I might be reading for >> reference while I am typing. > >I'm among those that prefer OO3 to OO2, but I would agree with >sophos's suggestion. Just to be different, I like it (highlighting the current row) just the way it is. Some feel it's distracting. To me it helps me focus on where I am in the outline. Since I use OO for a to-do list for software development, I'm "constantly" referring to the outline, then doing something else. When I return to the outline, the highlighting makes it easier for my eye to find "where I left off". Perhaps if I were using the outliner to actually do "writing", rather than as a check list, I might feel differently. >Also, in a multi-row selection would it look better if contiguous >rows at the same level were highlighted with a single rounded >rectangle, instead of one rounded rectangle per row. OTOH, I can see (implementation aside) where the current behavior makes sense. Suppose I have a topic with several subtopics A B C D Selecting A draws a single rounded rectangle around the group A,B,C,D. Now if I want to operate on A, B, and C only (change a font or text color, perhaps), I click in the gutter of A and drag down to select B and C. I still have the large rectangle around the group, and independently have the selected topics (A, B, C but not D) separately highlighted. I suppose the smaller (A, B, C) selection could be a single rectangle instead of 3, but I actually think that might be visually more confusing, since it would look much like the large rectangle around the entire group. On one point I will agree with some other posters, however. I do like the smaller, less obtrusive checkboxes, but I wish it were a little easier to visually distinguish between the checked and unchecked state at a glance. I feel that I have to sort of "study" the lines to see which are checked and which are not. -Dave -- We are all ignorant, only in different ways; and no one is as ignorant as an educated man outside his own field. - Will Rogers From formido at mac.com Fri Jan 7 12:58:50 2005 From: formido at mac.com (Michael Terry) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Scripting a search in OO3 In-Reply-To: References: <672470.1105121008157.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> Message-ID: <2549074.1105131530503.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> On Friday, January 07, 2005, at 10:57AM, Timothy J.Wood wrote: > >On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:03 AM, Michael Terry wrote: >> In Outliner 2, it would have been possible to select the found rows, >> but not anymore. > > Huh? Yes, it is possible. Sorry, sorry, sorry! I'm forced to use the .mac web interface to check my e-mail right now, and I didn't think to search the cc field for replies to my query a few days ago about this subject. I didn't see your response. Thank you, no, I think the 'select' command is a great way to implement this, I just hadn't expected it. > In fact in OO2 it would *not* have been >possible since you could only set a single selected row. Yeah, I know it. I don't why I said that. Michael From formido at mac.com Fri Jan 7 13:05:09 2005 From: formido at mac.com (Michael Terry) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: AppleScript: Get Attachments In-Reply-To: References: <7585930.1104443626665.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> Message-ID: <12587214.1105131909219.JavaMail.formido@mac.com> >> I wanted to fall back on using GUI scripting to copy the rows, and >> then parse them in AS, but this is a little tricky, partly because >> Outliner doesn't seem to use nearly as many controls as it used to. >> The entire window content area comes up as one Scroll View in UI >> Element Inspector, so it's tough to manipulate. (I'm sure we owe >> Outliner's increased performance partly to this.) This dovetails with >> my last message, where I was hoping to change the selection with >> AppleScript. Thats another way I could loop over the rows and copy >> them with GUI scripting. > > You might have some luck with 'select MyCell'. This will start >editing in the specified cell and then you might be able to use UI >scripting to futz with the text object that is the first responder of >the window. Yes, now that I see 'select', the rest will be easy, thanks. >We also want to support accessibility in our outline view, >but this involves a fair bit of work that didn't make it into 3.0. >With infinite time, all things are possible... :) Heh. Michael From curt.clifton at mac.com Fri Jan 7 13:27:22 2005 From: curt.clifton at mac.com (Curtis Clifton) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dave, I think you might be missing a couple of subtleties in what I was agreeing with and suggesting, as was I... On Jan 7, 2005, at 2:49 PM, David Emme wrote: > --- On 2005-01-07 12:12 PM (-0600), Curtis Clifton wrote: > >> On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:26 AM, sophos@mailcan.com wrote: >> >>> I think at least some of the cognitive interference problems would >>> go away if the highlighting was used only for mouse selections and >>> not for the current text insertion point. We are all familiar >>> with keeping track of the cursor. Removing the extra highlighting >>> (or making it optional) would lessen the visual distinction >>> between what I am typing now and what I might be reading for >>> reference while I am typing. >> >> I'm among those that prefer OO3 to OO2, but I would agree with >> sophos's suggestion. > > Just to be different, I like it (highlighting the current row) just > the way it is. Some feel it's distracting. To me it helps me focus on > where I am in the outline. Since I use OO for a to-do list for > software development, I'm "constantly" referring to the outline, then > doing something else. When I return to the outline, the highlighting > makes it easier for my eye to find "where I left off". Perhaps if I > were using the outliner to actually do "writing", rather than as a > check list, I might feel differently. I too like the selection rectangle when selecting a whole row, for precisely the reason you said. But when I am _editing_ the text of a cell in the row, then perhaps the rectangle border is not necessary. OTOH, how do we know when a non-text cell has editing focus? Hmm, maybe we need the border after all. > >> Also, in a multi-row selection would it look better if contiguous >> rows at the same level were highlighted with a single rounded >> rectangle, instead of one rounded rectangle per row. I think you missed the "at the same level" in what I wrote. > OTOH, I can see (implementation aside) where the current behavior > makes sense. Suppose I have a topic with several subtopics > > A > B > C > D > > Selecting A draws a single rounded rectangle around the group A,B,C,D. > Now if I want to operate on A, B, and C only (change a font or text > color, perhaps), I click in the gutter of A and drag down to select B > and C. I still have the large rectangle around the group, and > independently have the selected topics (A, B, C but not D) separately > highlighted. I suppose the smaller (A, B, C) selection could be a > single rectangle instead of 3, but I actually think that might be > visually more confusing, since it would look much like the large > rectangle around the entire group. My suggestion applied to your example would have two rectangle borders and two filled areas. One would border would surround A and all its children; the other border would surround B and C. One filled area would just be row A; the other filled area would be B and C. This also generalizes, if I selected A-D, then a single border and single filled area could be used. Below is a lame, ASCII art attempt at showing what I mean. This will only make sense in a fixed width font, and even then it might not. (I'm probably wasting time now, but procrastination is a powerful motivator. :-) Current Behavior Proposed Behavior Select A, B, and C: ________________ ________________ |***A***********| |***A***********| | ________ | | ________ | | |***B***| | | |***B***| | | _________ | | |*******| | | |***C***| | | |***C***| | | | | | |_______D_______| |_______D_______| Select A-D: ________________ ________________ |***A***********| |***A***********| | ________ | |***************| | |***B***| | |*******B*******| | _________ | |***************| | |***C***| | |*******C*******| | _________ | |***************| |___|***D***|___| |*******D*******| Best, Curt From robinfrancistrew at mac.com Fri Jan 7 13:44:39 2005 From: robinfrancistrew at mac.com (Robin Trew) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <200501072000.j07K0bZT006090@slowbro.omnigroup.com> References: <200501072000.j07K0bZT006090@slowbro.omnigroup.com> Message-ID: <54E24A22-60F5-11D9-B419-000D93C0E102@mac.com> On 7 Jan 2005, at 20:00, omnioutliner-users-request@omnigroup.com wrote: > Would simply making the colors softer make this work better for you, or > is there some other interface entirely you're envisioning? Softer contrasts (less strongly-contrasting edges) would make a big difference. This would apply both to the selection and to the toolbar icons. Removing (or making optional) the unusual curved corners would also deal with a source of distraction. Also, bold plus underline is really overkill for the column headers, and causes pixels to bleed together with no white space between them. An easy fix there I would think. Finally, muting down from full volume black/white edges in the checkboxes would be good. Generally the product range and the web-site has an unusually good graphic profile - really worth maintaining, I think. From robinfrancistrew at mac.com Fri Jan 7 15:51:12 2005 From: robinfrancistrew at mac.com (Robin Trew) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 OPML change breaks XML parsing Message-ID: <02AAA7D6-6107-11D9-98CD-000D93C0E102@mac.com> In Ver3, a small change in the OPML export format has broken XML parsing by standard software. Ver 2 used encoding="UTF-8" in the first line of its OPML files, and this was happily processed by XML parsers like expat (try the Realbasic implementation for example). the new use of encoding="MACINTOSH" in Ver 3 triggers an error and actually prevents parsing by standard XML software. Could you revert to the use of an XML - compliant symbol at this point ? Thanks ! RT From tjw at omnigroup.com Fri Jan 7 17:27:01 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 OPML change breaks XML parsing In-Reply-To: <02AAA7D6-6107-11D9-98CD-000D93C0E102@mac.com> References: <02AAA7D6-6107-11D9-98CD-000D93C0E102@mac.com> Message-ID: <659D1EF3-6114-11D9-AC13-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> You can get UTF-8 output by selecting it in the "Text" preferences pane. There is finer-grain control of this via some user defaults that aren't currently exported in the UI: OOPlainTextStringEncoding OOOPMLStringEncoding OOMOREStringEncoding OODefaultStringEncoding OOStringsStringEncoding So, if you always want UTF-8 for OPML, you can do the following in Terminal defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniOutlinerPro3 OOOPMLStringEncoding "iana UTF-8" Adding better support for export options is high on our to-do list. -tim On Jan 7, 2005, at 3:51 PM, Robin Trew wrote: > In Ver3, a small change in the OPML export format has broken XML > parsing by standard software. > > Ver 2 used > encoding="UTF-8" > > in the first line of its OPML files, and this was happily processed by > XML parsers like expat (try the Realbasic implementation for example). > > the new use of > > encoding="MACINTOSH" > > in Ver 3 > > triggers an error and actually prevents parsing by standard XML > software. > > Could you revert to the use of an XML - compliant symbol at this point > ? > > Thanks ! > > RT > > _______________________________________________ > OmniOutliner-Users mailing list > OmniOutliner-Users@omnigroup.com > http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnioutliner-users > From tjw at omnigroup.com Fri Jan 7 17:33:28 2005 From: tjw at omnigroup.com (Timothy J.Wood) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <54E24A22-60F5-11D9-B419-000D93C0E102@mac.com> References: <200501072000.j07K0bZT006090@slowbro.omnigroup.com> <54E24A22-60F5-11D9-B419-000D93C0E102@mac.com> Message-ID: <4C78B35E-6115-11D9-AC13-000A95A6B0E4@omnigroup.com> On Jan 7, 2005, at 1:44 PM, Robin Trew wrote: > Removing (or making optional) the unusual curved corners would also > deal with a source of distraction. Note (for those that haven't seen this capability), you can simply edit your default template (via preferences) and get rid of the underline if you don't like it by editing the 'Column Titles' style in the template. The selection indicator issues are not customizable right now, but we are reading this thread and pondering the issues :) -tim From curt.clifton at mac.com Fri Jan 7 21:08:47 2005 From: curt.clifton at mac.com (Curtis Clifton) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:26 2005 Subject: Scripting Clippings Message-ID: <60D5EB38-6133-11D9-A7E0-0003938AA174@mac.com> Is there a way to add items to a clippings outline using a script? I'd like to be able to write something like. set textToBeAdded to ... -- something here specific to the app I'm using, like the title and URL of the current Safari page tell default clippings outline of application "OmniOutliner Professional" make new clipping with text textToBeAdded end I could script it so OO opens the right outline and does the insertion, but it would be nice to be able to take advantage of the logic that already exists to insert a new date and time stamp as necessary. Thanks, Curt ---------------------------------- Curtis Clifton, PhD Candidate Dept. of Computer Science, Iowa State University http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cclifton From robinfrancistrew at mac.com Sat Jan 8 00:23:10 2005 From: robinfrancistrew at mac.com (Robin Trew) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:27 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Exported HTML - Attachment icons Message-ID: <881EED43-614E-11D9-811A-000D93C0E102@mac.com> I notice that HTML folders for outlines (with attachments) exported from Ver 3 contain very good .tiff icons for attachments with file types like Word, Powerpoint, Adobe Reader. The HTML page itself, however, does not use/display these icons - is there a setting anywhere which can enable display of file-type icons for attachments in exported HTML ? Thanks, Robin Trew From jhauser at mac.com Sat Jan 8 13:40:01 2005 From: jhauser at mac.com (Jo Hauser) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:27 2005 Subject: Background image Message-ID: I can't insert a background image in omnioutliner pro. I have followed the instructions in the manual and nothing happens. Can anyone help? Jo Hauser From mark_hilton at mac.com Sat Jan 8 22:08:09 2005 From: mark_hilton at mac.com (Mark R. Hilton) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:27 2005 Subject: A small quibble Message-ID: <20050109140809766258.GyazMail.mark_hilton@mac.com> Dear OO people, Have to say that I don't have any problems with the interface along the lines that have been much discussed on the list. On the other hand I have to say that, although in all that I have used OO3Pro for to date, I have had the status checkboxes turned off, I do think that having them greyed or softened somehow, especially when unchecked, would be preferable as they are somewhat stark. OO3 is saving me a huge amount of time in terms of preparing lecture presentations and notes for my students, in that I can produce it all as an outline which I can then export to Keynote for tweaking, and to RTF which I then place in InDesign to tweak and export as PDF for the students to download ... or if I don't have time for the latter, I can print the outline to PDF and let them download that. It is also brilliant for preparing multiple choice tests. But I have discovered a minor quibble. If you have row numbering turned on and the first word in that row is italicised, as for instance the title of a book, then the number, together with its prefix and suffix are also put into italic. I find this rather irritating; I don't feel that the text style for the numbering should be conditional upon the first word(s) when it or they are a special case and the rest of the row is in the normal style for rows of that level. But otherwise I am hooked on OO3Pro Mark Paid-up, licensed OO3Pro user. From timothyelliott at glory-road.com Sat Jan 8 13:43:47 2005 From: timothyelliott at glory-road.com (Timothy Elliott) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:27 2005 Subject: OmniOutliner templates In-Reply-To: <200501042001.j04K16ZV014919@slowbro.omnigroup.com> References: <200501042001.j04K16ZV014919@slowbro.omnigroup.com> Message-ID: <60777E22-61BE-11D9-AB7D-000A95DB84B2@glory-road.com> Greetings, all. I'm working with latest OO 3 pro, and I'm wondering if there are templates available. For instance, there are multiple screenshots of templates on the main site's promo page. (The one for multiple columns, which has a layout for a Web site project, is a good example.) Having such templates available may speed up the learning curve for users moving from 2.0 to 3.0. Thanks, Tim Elliott Timothy Elliott Associate Media Producer Program on Counterterrorism Preparedness and Training Dartmouth Institute for Security Technology Studies 1 Medical Center Drive Colburn Hill Suite 204 Lebanon NH 03756 603-653-1521 voice 603-653-1515 fax timothy.elliott@dartmouth.edu http://iml.dartmouth.edu From sophos at mailcan.com Sun Jan 9 12:22:14 2005 From: sophos at mailcan.com (sophos@mailcan.com) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:27 2005 Subject: oo3 extension used for different file formats Message-ID: <26ADF2D9-627C-11D9-BD2D-000A95BCAF80@mailcan.com> Version 3 is using the same file name extension, .oo3, for documents stored as pure xml, zip compressed xml, and for the directory that wraps documents with attachments. While I like having all of these options, it makes taking advantage of the benefits of xml more difficult. For other applications to handle the .oo3 files, they need to know more than just the extension to parse the xml, they must have additional OmniOutliner specific implementation knowledge to discriminate between the different document formats. Now that OOv3 is released, it is probably too late to change, but it would be nice to have the option to use different file extensions for the different file formats. Perhaps something like, .oo3 for the current behavior .o3x for xml text .o3z for zip compressed .o3a for documents with attachments From dflatin at rcn.com Sun Jan 9 16:03:36 2005 From: dflatin at rcn.com (Daniel Flatin) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:27 2005 Subject: Family Licensing Message-ID: I just want to thank Omni Group publicly for their outstanding support for family licenses. This trend in software publishing helps balance the desire on the part of their customers to adhere to the letter of the license contract and still provide the best tools possible for their families. The pricing structure, the cost of upgrades, the whole spectrum upgrade paths is really comprehensive and quite fair. Dan From alfred.lang at psy.unibe.ch Mon Jan 10 03:41:58 2005 From: alfred.lang at psy.unibe.ch (Alfred Lang) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:27 2005 Subject: Problem with Inspector placement: inaccessibility bug! Message-ID: Dear people at Omni User Group, here I have another problem with which I need immediate help: why is a file I am working at suddenly specified "red only" while it is read/write for me in its info panel and how can I make it writable again. I cannot find any command in oo3 pro to switch read only on or off So what can I do to work on? I remember no operation that could have that effect. I Have a titlt section there that comes from a template, the rest is copied in from an earlier version without that title. Alfred -- Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland http://www.langpapers.net --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch From philip at king-graphics.co.uk Mon Jan 10 03:52:03 2005 From: philip at king-graphics.co.uk (Philip King) Date: Thu Nov 3 14:30:27 2005 Subject: Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts In-Reply-To: <54E24A22-60F5-11D9-B419-000D93C0E102@mac.com> Message-ID: On Friday, 7 January, 2005, Robin Trew said: >Softer contrasts (less strongly-contrasting edges) would make a >big difference. This would apply both to the selection and to >the toolbar icons. > Indeed. I just opened an OO document in 2.x and 3.1 side-by-side and I much prefer 2. What's most important to me is my content, and in 2 it is the content which is highlighted when a row is clicked. In 3 it is the highlight which is highlighted and my content is less visually important. The strong edge of the highlight even obscures the top pixels of the text (at standard setting). This I consider impolite. In my view, the new arrows and checkboxes are similarly disrespectful of my content. Where in 2 the arrows are grey - thus taking a step back from my black text - in 3 they are solid black and so challenge the content for my attention. The version 2 arrows also match the standard MacOS X Finder arrows and so my mind is not required to accommodate separate models and comprehension is thus streamlined. >Removing (or making optional) the unusual curved corners would >also deal with a source of distraction. The model being followed here is that used in iCal, but the situations are not the same. iCal is dealing in modular data where visual distinction, differentiation and grouping are key to instant understanding of the data, but the content entrusted to OmniOutliner may or may not be similarly modu