Manuscript - 1.6.1

This app has not changed much in several years' time. It doesn't take advantage of *any* of what OS X currently has to offer applications. It seems completely at odds with its OS. There are better alternatives. I recommend CopyWrite by Bartas Technologies. If that doesn't suit you, try Ulysses from Blue-Tec (though they're a lot more expensive) or Avenir from Return Self.

Running OSX 10.3.7, Manuscript won't launch for me. Last time sometime like this happened to me (a double-click wouldn't launch a program) it turned out to be an obscure incompatibility between StuffitDeluxe and the archive. I'm wondering if that's the case here?

nobody's flagged this one before - could one of you email me details so i can get a handle on it ? scideas@iol.ie

The program seems to have much potential and my wife already likes many of it's features. However I've got a few questions. Possibly they are something we're doing wrong.

1. When I create a chapter everything typed afterwards is underlined.
2. If I create a chapter and then select all the text and delete it the chapter is deleted.
3. I can't create a new chapter when the chapter window is open.

That's it for now.

okay, auto-save is nice, and in light of its presence i withdraw my concerns about data loss. but neither auto-save nor anything else provides an adequate excuse for a Cancel button that doesn't cancel. there *is* no acceptable excuse for a Cancel button that doesn't cancel, any more than there would be for your Mac's Restart command causing it to shut down. if you think the behavior of the Cancel button i wrote about is okay, then you quite simply don't know - or care, evidently - what a Cancel button is supposed to do. it's not like this is an opinion i'm stating here - it's a fact: there is one - and only one - correct behavior for a Cancel button as set forth in Apple's UI guidelines, and that is to return the user to the exact state in which he found himself before he took the step that presented him with the dialog or alert containing the Cancel button.

here, allow me to quote from http://developer.apple.com/documentation/mac/Toolbox/Toolbox-381.html#HEADING381-83 :

"Cancel means 'dismiss this operation with no side effects.' It does not mean 'I've read this dialog box' or 'stop what you're doing regardless.' When users click the Cancel button in your alert boxes, modal dialog boxes, and movable modal dialog boxes, your application should revoke any actions it took since displaying the alert or dialog box and then remove the box.

"When it is impossible to return to the state that existed before an operation began, DON'T USE A CANCEL BUTTON [my caps]. You can use Stop or OK, which are useful in different situations. A Stop button may leave the results of a partially complete task intact, whereas A CANCEL BUTTON ALWAYS RETURNS THE APPLICATION AND ITS DOCUMENTS TO THEIR PREVIOUS STATE." [my caps again]

do you see what that says? it says that Cancel means "dismiss this operation with no side effects." that's right: NO SIDE EFFECTS. and the Cancel button in Manuscript with which we are concerned does NOT "dismiss the operation with no side effects," and neither does it "return the application and its documents to their previous state," but rather does it cause Manuscript to CLOSE the open document - which is a SIDE EFFECT. do you perhaps begin to see my point? it's not an opinion. it's not a grudge. it's not a me-thing (dear estuary). it's a simple statement of fact: according to Apple, the behavior of your Cancel button is *wrong*.

thank you, scideas, for your explanation of the location of the preferences; that does seem to make sense to me (as long as the application itself has no preferences whatsoever).

but i've been using Macs for 17 years now. i was writing Mac software for fun when the Mac II was the state of the art, and i worked for years as a professional tester for a leading Mac software company. i know how Macintosh software is supposed to function, and i can tell you that if i let a piece of software ship with a Cancel button that worked like Manuscript's it probably would have cost me my job; at the very least it would have gotten me a very unpleasant talking-to from my boss. i'm glad for you that so many people seem to like Manuscript; all i'm saying is that - again, according to Apple's UI guidelines - some of its behavior is just flat-out wrong. it's not a matter of opinion, of my own personally-held belief; it's a black-and-white issue: there is correct behavior as set forth by Apple and as upheld by *almost* all the world's Macintosh developers, and then there's what Manuscript does, which is not described by that definition of correct behavior. this seems not to bother the majority of people who've reviewed the software here, and that's good for you. but you should also know that it's reason enough for some people to give it a try, be unpleasantly surprised by its unexpected behaviors, and throw it in the trash. i just happen to be in that latter category (a fact for which i think we can all be grateful).