Bookends 12.5 Feedback

[Jon]

I've made the journal and book title field a little taller. I don't agree, however, about the publisher and address fields, though. To me Abstract and Notes are much more important when looking at the data. For data entry it's just a few tabs to get to those fields.

Jon
Sonny Software

[brianogilvie]

Yes, I see your point. But you've made the Bookends window very wide. You could lessen the width considerably have the reference pane take up the majority of the window. In fact the resulting window can be almost the same width as the old standalone window you're showing in the image.

I like the idea of a separate edit window. Thanks for considering it!

My Bookends window is wide because when I'm not editing, I like to see a couple other fields besides author, date, and title, and I work with titles that are very long where the most important data might be ten or more words in (lots of old Latin titles are in the form "Four elegant books by the learned Conrad Gessner on the History of Animals," and it's the "History of Animals" part I want to see).

[dialectician]

First impression: visually stunning. Thanks! (If I have other comments, I'll return to this thread).

[Feanaaro]

Yes, I see your point. But you've made the Bookends window very wide. You could lessen the width considerably have the reference pane take up the majority of the window. In fact the resulting window can be almost the same width as the old standalone window you're showing in the image.

I like the idea of a separate edit window. Thanks for considering it!

My Bookends window is wide because when I'm not editing, I like to see a couple other fields besides author, date, and title, and I work with titles that are very long where the most important data might be ten or more words in (lots of old Latin titles are in the form "Four elegant books by the learned Conrad Gessner on the History of Animals," and it's the "History of Animals" part I want to see).

I second the idea of getting back a separate edit window. It does not need to be the full-functions semi-independent old window, just being able to do the edit (and possibly see attachments) would be great.
Being on a laptop, I always use the entire horizontal screen space for bookends, and I also like to see a few fields for each entry, thus using the edit tab in lieu of the old window runs into problems similar to those noted by brianogilvie.
Additionally, but this might be just my OCD, having the edit tab wider than the other ones (which I think is pretty much necessary to use it comfortably) creates a very distracting effect with the width changing back and forth while shifting tabs.
Everything would be great if the same tab we have now could just be detached and used as a separate window.

[raymond]

Hello,

I have updated to BE 12.5 on Yesemite and have lost my old favorite small size references window. Is there a way to bring me back my old favorite?

TIA

Raymond

[Jon]

Read this thread.

Jon
Sonny Software

[raymond]

Do you refer to his reply of yours:
" have had an idea, though, that might deal with the issues that some people are bringing up. The problem with the old window, besides being none-too-pretty, was that it was a completely self-sufficient way of dealing with the data, including formatting, drag and drop or otherwise attaching PDFs, managing the Inspector, handling scanning, and all of the thousands of things Bookends does. In fact, although most people probably don't realize it, you could do almost everything the Bookends does without ever opening the library window! That's how Bookends used to work. And it became an albatross.

However, it's possible that I could restore a simple separate edit window that could be invoked instead of the edit pane (just like before). It would only let you view/edit info -- that it would be, basically, the edit pane you see now in its own window."

Is the demanded version is already for downloading?

[Jon]

No, that's thinking out loud. If and when there's something to announce it will be announced.

Jon
Sonny Software

[rorayburn]

I would also like to know how to change the listing in the main editing view. Why are "Notes" "Abstract" "Key Words" etc all before "City" and "Publisher". I have to scroll down every time I am entering data, and I never use the other fields at all. Is there a way to reorder?

[Jon]

Abstract and Notes are very important (much more important than Publisher and City) for anyone who is actually interested in the reading the contents of the reference. Keywords perhaps less so. You only enter data once (and many never, since they import all their references), and it's just a few tabs to get to those fields. What do people think? Should Keywords be moved below Publisher and City?

Jon
Sonny Software

[joeldi]

My preference would be to have Publisher and City above Abstract. They are small fields and I rarely enter an abstract for a book and if I have notes they're usually pretty short. Joel

[brianogilvie]

My workflow usually involves entering citation information for a publication in Bookends, then taking notes in DEVONthink Pro, and finally returning to Bookends to type a short abstract. So my preference would be to have place and publisher above abstract and notes. But it's not a strong preference.

[eleuteruiz]

I like the new look of BE and especially Edit Reference section. Although I would like to be able to rearrange the field order, or at least having fields like Publisher, City, keywords, before Abstract and Note.

Ads for the new icon, I kind of like it, but... I have both BE and Pages in my dock, and sometimes I click BE instead of Pages, since they look pretty much the same...

[terrydev]

I too would like to be able to decide what fields appear where and in what order. I'm rather better able than others to decide the relevance of fields like Abstract and Notes to my workflow.

[Nhaps]

Abstract and Notes are very important (much more important than Publisher and City) for anyone who is actually interested in the reading the contents of the reference. Keywords perhaps less so. You only enter data once (and many never, since they import all their references), and it's just a few tabs to get to those fields. What do people think? Should Keywords be moved below Publisher and City?

Jon
Sonny Software

Keywords should be left where they are. Perhaps a little less space dedicated to Keywords and a little more (2 lines like Title) to Series and (Book) Vol.