Question re: Edit References sidebar

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mjvalente
Posts: 35
Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2015 8:13 am

Question re: Edit References sidebar

Post by mjvalente »

If I remember correctly a few versions ago there was a way to fill the various fields (Edit Reference sidebar) in a pop-up window (double clicking the fields in question to be filled/edited).

That was a very useful feature to me, specially when filling the authors', editors' and keywords' fields. I think this is not possible anymore, or is it?
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
Jon
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Re: Question re: Edit References sidebar

Post by Jon »

You could enlarge a field and edit it in a modal dialog sheet. This was a workaround for the problem that the fields were so small you couldn't see their content without scrolling. In the new edit pane this is unnecessary because the fields enlarge automatically as you type. It's a big improvement.

Jon
Sonny Software
thpm
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:30 am

Re: Question re: Edit References sidebar

Post by thpm »

I don't know if this is the right place to report this, but on Mac OS 10.13.6 (with bookends 14.1.1), the app completely freezes whenever I edit something in the sidebar (Specifically: As soon as I press the "Cancel" or "Save" button)

Out of interest: Was this new sidebar, and the optional standalone window to edit references refactored using Swift UI?

— Can't say I am a big fan of the new UI, in particular in case of the latter. I know Apple is "leading the way" towards endless low-contrast-no-hierarchy iOS list views, where it is a “fun game” to try to find out what a label or a text input is (cough cough Ventura system settings). But I really miss the bespoke, sensibly laid-out spatial order you had on this panel ("Authors" left, "Editors" right and so on). It's intuitive. Now, it looks and works like Zotero or other cross-plattform software. It also seems to me you are continuously moving away from a model where Bookends has multiple windows? Why? Would love to hear some thoughts.
Jon
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Re: Question re: Edit References sidebar

Post by Jon »

I've had several reports of freezing when editing the Summary view (which is what I assume you're doing). But I can't reproduce it. And of the people who have reported it, it works for them on another Mac. So it seems to be system-dependent. Can you try another Mac?

The Bookends for Mac UI was not created with Swift UI (the Bookends for iOS will be in the future, however).

In your last comment I assume you mean the edit pane now. The old view, which was pretty ancient, was comfortable in that the position of the fields was fixed, and when you were used to it you could see the information you wanted at a glance. But in that case it was not used as intended, which is to enter the data. To view data the Summary pane is the way to go, and since you can configure that to taste, it's far better. The old view also had many downsides -- small, inflexible editing fields, the inability to show all fields in one tab, the inability to move any field(s) to the top where they are more accessible, and more. I don't disagree with you about Apple's movement to iOSification of the UI, I dislike it, too. But as a developer we can't ignore it, and frankly, much of it is beyond our control since we use (mostly) native controls.

Finally, we moved many things to a unified window years ago. However, we have a fair number of independent windows (online search, the Formats and Import Filters Managers, a standalone Term List window, and others). We haven't changed those for quite some time and, as of now at least, don't plan to.

Jon
Sonny Software
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