Sonny Software

Hello again

Just finishing up my dissertation with Bookends and Mellel and it's been great!

Althought, there's one thing that I would like to see in the future versions of Bookends: A keyboard shortcut that returns you from Bookends back to the word processor without copying a reference.

Once I get into "the flow" it's just nice to keep on banging words. And the keyboard command Cmd-Y is perfect when entering references! There is no need to lift my hands from the keyboard to deal with a mouse, so the process is completely uninterrupted. Once in Bookends you can just type the first letters of the author you want, select the correct one and Cmd-Y back to the text.

But sometimes when I'm writing I realise that there's no need to actually enter the whole reference again. If I already have mentioned the reference previously, so I'm sure it will be included in the bibliography, I can just write something like "as Holmqvist (2005b) suggests..."

However, sometimes, if I'm quoting several texts from the same author and even from the same year, it is nice to jump back to Bookends to check the correct date or some detail entered in the notes etc. So, I can jump to Bookends with Cmd-Y, but then I can't jump back just as easily without entering the reference again.

So I thought that it would be nice to have a shortcut for this. The secondary option that I'm using now is punching Cmd-Tab to choose Mellel again but the shortcut would be better. Especially if I have several applications running in the background.

A related request. Working with two other applications (Mellel and Scrivener in my case) it has occurred to me that it would be very convenient to be able to specify a secondary linked application and paste a reference into it with (e.g) Command-shift-y.

I've added a new menu, Refs -> Switch To Word Processor (Option-Command-Y), to the next update. I'm not going to add a second link for several reasons, including the fact that it would be of interest to relatively few people, the interface overhead would be considerable, and you can already do this pretty easily with drag and drop.

Jon
Sonny Software

Jon wrote:I've added a new menu, Refs -> Switch To Word Processor (Option-Command-Y), to the next update.

Perfect! Thank you!

I'm not going to add a second link for several reasons, including the fact that it would be of interest to relatively few people, the interface overhead would be considerable, and you can already do this pretty easily with drag and drop.

Fair enough. Thanks for considering it.

Jasso wrote:However, sometimes, if I'm quoting several texts from the same author and even from the same year, it is nice to jump back to Bookends to check the correct date or some detail entered in the notes etc. So, I can jump to Bookends with Cmd-Y, but then I can't jump back just as easily without entering the reference again.

Unless I'm misunderstanding the problem, command-tab (hit briefly) allows you to switch between 2 apps easily.

You are right, that is possible.

But I still think that for the workflow it is more convenient to link the two commands (jump and enter ref, and just jump) logically.

And I don't really see why not to implement something so simple.


An added bonus of this is that you can jump easily back to writing any time you're in Bookends. If you don't move directly from you word processor to Bookends, but read a pdf and write some notes on the way, using Cmd-Tab changes into a video game where you're trying to hit the right application. Especially if you're running other programs in the background like me: