When Notes are pasted over from another project, why do the User Attributes show up in the DisplayedAttributes pane?

All this is returning a rush of memories… (and rising concern of being kicked for veering too far off-topic!).

But YES! Debab, the Adobe card sets (and Classroom-in-a-book, with the included CD)… mostly, the dim awareness of being at the bleeding edge of it all - not completely sure of anything, but aware of having somehow attained a rarified stratum, and the freedom to experiment and hack and workaround, oftentimes with the blessings (not you, Adobe!) of developers (still happening in Tinderbox!!)

I may well have used your white paper, too, to make cross-platform CDS; in which case, belated gratitude!

I do also believe (and have previously stated) that atbref is a labor of love that is far beyond my set, both in terms of unfettered generosity, and conscientious dedication. This forum owes you much.

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I was going to write that I regretted opening this touchy subject, but this has triggered a discussion from which I have learned a lot.

Conventions - I concede this point. The Marks (A and B) are right. I was imagining more consistency in the Mac universe than really exists.

Tinderbox’s ways - Yes, OK, much of what a churlish user can see as eccentricity arises from elsewhere in computing or from the very powers that make Tinderbox attractive.

All that said, I feel the analogy with the English driver in France (shades of Kevin Kline insisting on driving on the right in London throughout “A Fish Called Wanda”!) is a little unfair to me.

Let me explain it this way. When I adopted Scrivener years ago, it was not like any other software I had used for writing (I’d used Nisus before). I had to learn new ways of thinking and doing. But with experience I developed some intuitions, “a feeling for the organism,” that caused me to be able to make new moves. IOW, when I would think, “I can do X, therefore maybe I can do Y,” Y would work. I have had similar experiences with DevonThink.

Wanting this ability to feel in sync with one’s software tools is not asking for an exact reproduction of previous experiences. It’s more like asking for enough analogous experiences that one can tap one’s prior knowledge, and feel confident in the new knowledge one has acquired about the new tool. You call it rube-who-wants-to-drive-in-France-as-if-it-were England. I call it, “gee, I wish this thing had a steering wheel.”

I’ll let this post stand (considered deleting) because I think it expresses the experiences of more than a few users. Offered in the context of being such a uder. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t use Tinderbox for tasks where nothing else is a good fit. I appreciate all the work and thought Mark B has put into making it and all the hours Mark A has helped us all to understand it.

David

If my analogy about which side of the road we drive read as ad hominen, my sincere apologies: that wasn’t my intent. I chose the driving analogy deliberately to point up that there is no ultimate right or wrong.

A fallacy about norms still persists: Tinderbox does have a steering wheel. If some users want it to be a different one, or in a different place, that’s OK, but also unrealistic. Behind this lies a zero-sum game of who decides what is ‘normal’ or’ intuitive’. That also imputes any app we ourselves don’t find immediately intuitive is designed without regard to the user; I’m not sure that assumption holds up. Regardless, winning—being right—serves us all ill as it doesn’t help get to grips with the app.

But, and I note this politely, the above is loaded with an assumption that your experience is the norm. But, consider for a moment, what if it isn’t? For instance, where in DEVONthink is the ‘history’ to which you refer? it’s not in the menus (I’m looking at DEVONthink v3) and not in the help file and the app has no link to the manual> downloading the manual, there is still no mention of a history. I mention this only to point that intuition is all too often contextual and in the eye of the beholder.

Conversely, I’d agree that Tinderbox doesn’t have a ‘check for updates’ menu item and that even if not always in the same place in every app, it is a generally common menu item in Mac apps (thought it sounds from @eastgate’s reply above that these issues may be addressed soon). FWIW, Tinderbox did— until v5—have a History view but in the v5 → v6 app re-design little used items were not retained. History view was one such, there being no evidence that users at the time where employing it in their use of the app. I may be describing the wrong thing but ‘history’ is clearly not an unambiguous term here.

I’m still unclear as to what Tinderbox, a very permissive tool by general standards, is doing wrong. It is a toolbox rather than an app with a single or small range of functions. The result of that is you need to decide what you are trying to do and find the right tool(s) to achieve that end. If they aren’t easily apparent, your fellow users here can generally help. What we can’t fix is existential angst over any dissimilarity of the apps the user has employed in the past.

If you are spinning your wheels over a particular issue (where to find a particular feature, or who to approach a particular task) do please ask. It might make sense to start new topic(s) for that but we’ll attempt to help. :slight_smile: