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preference messed up

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Maral Watanabe

02 Jan, 2014 04:44 PM

Hi,

the preferences under "Appearance" are extremely defective. Sometimes changes are applied instantly but mostly they have no effect and are not stored. After I had purchase the programm from the AppStore I played a bit with the preferences and ended up in a completely messed up installation. Whenever I opened a document MMD Composer did not display any content. Any changes I made in the Appearance preference were not applied by the programm. I had to remove MMD Composer and all its setting in ~/Library and reinstall it from the AppStore.

Here are some of the problems I run into

• When I change the value of "Line Height" from "1,7" to "1" (by deleting the "7" the new line height is applied immediatly. But when I change the value back to "1,7" (by adding the "7" after the colon) nothing happens. MMD Composer still uses a line heigt of "1". MMD Composer did not apply the original value until I deleted the whole content and entered "1,7" again.

• I entered a "Maximum Line Length" of 50. But when I typed text MMD Composer did not wrape lines after 50 characters.

• MMD Composer does not save changes to the "Appearance" prefrences. I changed the "Line Heigt" to 2,0. MMD Composer applied the new line height. I closed the preference dialog and quit the programm. When I restarted MMD Composer "Line Height" was 1,7.

Ciao

Maral

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Fletcher on 02 Jan, 2014 04:57 PM

   

   Maral,

   Thanks for purchasing and writing in.

   The preferences aren’t defective. You have to understand the relationship between preferences and the Composer Style Sheets:

   http://support.multimarkdown.com/kb/editing-pane/how-to-coordinate-font-size-zoom-auto-zoom-etc

   http://support.multimarkdown.com/kb/style-sheets/how-do-i-create-a-custom-style-sheet

   The style sheet you use may override some/most of the preferences. The “Plain” style sheet is intentionally created such that it doesn’t override the preferences, so you can experiment or customize. The idea is that style sheets override anything in the preferences, otherwise the style sheets wouldn’t work properly. You can customize the style sheets to include most settings, which allows you to toggle between favorites as you like.

   Also, if you install the non-sandboxed version, remember that they are two different applications. They do not share preferences.

   Thanks!

   Fletcher
    

   --
   Fletcher T. Penney
   Manager, Founder
   MultiMarkdown Software, LLC
   [email blocked]

   • Edit

2. 2 Posted by Maral Watanabe on 03 Jan, 2014 01:17 PM

   

   Hi Fletcher,

   my post was not about the relationship between preferences and Composer Style but about the preferences themselves. Indeed they are defective. Here are a few more examples:

   General

   I deactivated all checkboxes, set modifer key for synchronized scrolling to "Shift" and focus mask heigt to 0%. After I had closed the preference dialog synchronized scrolling works fine with Shift key. Then I quit the Composer and started it again. All checkboxes are activated. The modifier key for synchronized scrolling is Command. The focus height is 50%. In other words none of my changes were saved.

   Appearance

   I performed the following step

   1. Open a file
   2. Go to Preferences->Appearance
   3. Line Height is "1,7". Delete only the "7" with the Backspace key. The new value is "1,"
   4. Composer applies the new value immediately to the current file
   5. Hit the Tab-key until "Line Height" has focus again
   6. Do not deleted the current value, just enter "7" after the colon, i.e. change the value from "1," to "1,7"
   7. Composer does not apply the new value. You may hit the Tab-key as much as you like or close the preferences. The active line heigt remains "1" although the preferences tell you that they are "1,7".

   If you want to set the line height back to "1,7" you must clear the input field, i.e. change its value to "". Only then Composer applies change to the current file. I don't know which value it applies but I think it is "1,7". This is clearly defective.

   Relationship between Preferences and Styles

   The Appearance preference suggests

   • A user can select a style sheet
   • A user can change some properties are given by a style, for example the line height and the text alignment

   Hence my expectations are

   • When I select a different style its propreties which affected by the preferences are shown, for example the line height and the text alignment of the style
   • When I change some of the values (the line height and the text alignment of the style) Composer applies these values but does not change the properties of the style itself.
   • When I quit Composer and start it again Composer should use the selecte style and the changed values. Or in other words: Active Appearance = Style Sheet + Preferences
   • If I want to change a style or define a new style I cannot do that in the preferences but must use a text editor.

   But this does not seem to be the case for Composer. In my opion the way how Composer handles this issues is inconsistent and contradics common Mac OS user experience.

   Ciao

   Maral

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Fletcher on 06 Jan, 2014 03:08 AM

   

   Maral,

   See replies below.

   F-

   --
   Fletcher T. Penney
   Manager, Founder
   MultiMarkdown Software, LLC
   [email blocked]

   On Jan 3, 2014, at 8:17 AM, Maral Watanabe <[email blocked]> wrote:

   > • Composer does not apply the new value. You may hit the Tab-key as much as you like or close the preferences. The active line heigt remains "1" although the preferences tell you that they are "1,7".
   > If you want to set the line height back to "1,7" you must clear the input field, i.e. change its value to "". Only then Composer applies change to the current file. I don't know which value it applies but I think it is "1,7". This is clearly defective.

   In US systems, one uses periods instead of commas("1.7" vs "1,7"). It works just fine with a period. When you use a comma, it appears that it doesn't work properly.

   Use a period for now, and I'll look into why it doesn't work properly in other number systems.

   > Relationship between Preferences and Styles

   As described, the style sheets are the "master" -- otherwise one could not reliably apply the settings provided for in a style sheet, or to switch between two style sheets. Everything would be overridden by the preferences, rendering the style sheets effectively useless for many settings.

   If you want to control everything by preferences, use the plain style sheet. If desired, you can strip many of the settings out of another style sheet, leaving only the colors or any other settings you do not wish to override.

   • smime.p7s 4.78 KB
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