8 Replies Latest reply: Aug 4, 2010 11:50 AM by MT.Freelance RSS

    can anyone solve my niggles?

    sarrob Community Member

      Hi, sorry if this is repeated somewhere

       

      I'm quite new to indesign 5 (switched from quark) and I'm finding these niggles really annoying, just wondered if anyone else has them and how do I fix them, may be a pref I'm missing:

       

      1 Sometimes my tools revert to the previous tool I was using eg. if I zoom in using keyboard shortcut then go to selection tool I get a hand!

       

      2 Not as annoying but sometimes if I drag the document window to make it bigger or smaller its erratic, rescales itself!

       

      Its a brand new copy of cs5 premium and I'm on a new mac pro

       

      Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

       

      Sarah

        • 1. Re: can anyone solve my niggles?
          macinbytes Community Member

          1. That's a feel factor that you'll need to get used to.

          2. Press CMD+1 rather than CMD+0 and scale from there. Usually when your zoom is above 150% the scaling goes away also. Window handling is also a bit of a feel factor.

           

          What drives me crazy is that there are resizable windows as of CS4 on any edge. Who thought that was a good idea? I'll give you a hint. No other Mac OS X application worth a damn.

          • 2. Re: can anyone solve my niggles?
            sarrob Community Member

            thank you! I should check here more often stop me getting paranoid its me!

            hope adobe fix these its destroying what's otherwise a smooth transition

            • 3. Re: can anyone solve my niggles?
              MT.Freelance Community Member

              macinbytes, I actually like the scalable from any side windows in CS4. Any other Mac OS program worth a darn could take a cue from it.

               

              Example: what if a window is exactly where I want it on the top, right and bottom, but I need/want more screen space taken to the left... in other programs, I have to reposition the entire window and then try to drag the lower right corner to find the 'sweet spot' for the other three sides. PITA in my opinion when only one side is changing position... ^_^

               

              @ sarrob, the springing of tools ONLY occurs when you use specific hotkeys to temporarily call some features, like the zoom. To manually switch to the Zoom tool, use the hotkey Z (so long as you aren't inside a text frame/text box). That will change to the Zoom tool instead of temporarily activating the zoom tool (Command+Space) or the hand tool (Option+Space), which works regardless of being inside a text frame.

               

              The feature that currently is a distraction to you may end up being a time saver as you do not need to constantly make round trips to the tool box in order to grab a different tool to first, zoom into or out of a region and then go back to grab an editing tool.

               

              Hover your mouse over the various tools in the tool box to see their shortcuts.

               

              BTW: I use CS4 on both a Mac (OSX 10.6) and a Windows machine (Vista x64)

               

              -mt

              • 4. Re: can anyone solve my niggles?
                sarrob Community Member

                MT thank you I guess I need to erase my brain of shortcuts and start again!

                • 5. Re: can anyone solve my niggles?
                  macinbytes Community Member

                  macinbytes, I actually like the scalable from any side windows in CS4. Any other Mac OS program worth a darn could take a cue from it.

                   

                  Example: what if a window is exactly where I want it on the top, right and bottom, but I need/want more screen space taken to the left... in other programs, I have to reposition the entire window and then try to drag the lower right corner to find the 'sweet spot' for the other three sides. PITA in my opinion when only one side is changing position... ^_^

                   

                  The natural flow of your user interface and language is to work from left to right. If you are keeping your supplemental needs to the left of your application window that is your issue. New windows, new tabs, secondary and tertiary monitors, nearly everything works under the supposition that you work left to right.

                   

                  The elements brought in on CS4: windows resizing, the application frame and the application bars are all Windows interface elements that have no business in a Mac OS X application.

                   

                  Window resizing is supposed to be standard and developers generally take a cue from the interface guidelines rather than Adobe's arbitrary interface decisions. Who thought it was a good idea to allow you to hide all but a couple pixels of a window behind the menubar? Apparently no one other than Adobe. Other apps don't let you tuck the window underneath the menubar, but if they did they wouldn't have an annoying nonstandard resize dialog when trying to get them out, forcing you to go nested in the window menu to find that there is no Zoom menu item.

                  2px.jpg

                   

                  http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuid elines/XHIGWindows/XHIGWindows.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-BACEDHFG

                   

                  If someone wants the ability to resize windows in a more verbose fashion they can do it via 3rd parties, but it shouldn't be foisted upon everyone. Mercury Mover, for example, can do this.

                   

                  http://www.heliumfoot.com/mercurymover/

                  • 6. Re: can anyone solve my niggles?
                    MT.Freelance Community Member

                    Valid points, macinbytes.

                     

                    I am not, in any fashion, attempting to say that the interface is flawless. Since CS2, I have used a script to quickly reposition my open documents into a position I consider conducive to a smooth workflow. The script positions the document entirely within a 'frame' comprised of the bottom of the screen, the control panel at the top, the tool box at the left and the OPEN panels on the right. Adobe has New documents always open with the right edge behind the panels on the right (conveniently hiding most of the scroll bar, BTW). I dislike that greatly, but the script allows me to position the working space where I can access my panels and still see all of the document window.

                     

                    There are times when I want two documents (or two windows of the same document) open, side by side. I can open both, run the script on each, grab the right edge of one and scale the window to half screen, then grab the LEFT edge of the other and do the same. Both documents now are positioned to maximize the visible screen area considering the tools, and panels in use. Prior to this feature, I was dragging both windows around to accomplish the same thing. Not as efficient regardless of left-to-right eyeflow in my language.

                     

                    I have always disliked the Mac OS "only scale a window from lower right corner" interface decision. As I noted in my example, there are times when I feel it is counterintuitive to move an entire window, simply for the purpose of changing the horizontal window scale. That, no doubt, shows my origins as a Windows user that has adapted to using the Mac OS.

                     

                    I detested OS 9 and earlier, but OSX has made me a convert. I own several Macs that happliy reside alongside my Windows machines.

                     

                    Windows is not the holy grail of interfaces. Mac OS is not, either. Both can and likely do take cues from each other that are adapted in future versions.

                     

                    My worspace preference is just that, my preference. If it works for me, why call it broken or a problem? I do not recall saying your preference was a problem, just stated that I prefer the added capability. On this, I suppose we may be able to agree to disagree?

                     

                    Cheers.

                     

                    -mt

                    • 7. Re: can anyone solve my niggles?
                      macinbytes Community Member

                      We can agree to disagree on the window sizing issue provide you agree that whoever decided that between Illustrator 10 and 11 that the TypeBastardizer9000™ should have it's controls switched need keel hauled. Some consistency, please. Who on earth thought it was a good idea to swap horizontal and vertical scale on one app?

                       

                      typebastardizer9000.jpg

                      • 8. Re: can anyone solve my niggles?
                        MT.Freelance Community Member

                        No clue... I use Illustrator so rarely, I'd never noticed...

                         

                        Perhaps an obscure "because we can" or "that's not a bug, it's a user error" type thing.

                         

                        I would have argued that it was to make the Suite applications similar, but one look at a comparison between AI CS4 (AI 14) and ID CS4 character palettes discounts that. (which may be what your screenshot is, though from the context I assumed you meant AI 10 and AI 11/CS)

                         

                        Screen shot 2010-08-04 at 1.44.53 PM.png

                         

                        We are off topic, but at times it just feels goot to rant.

                         

                        Cheers!

                         

                        -mt