By forcing us to adopt the two-column approach imposed by the skeuomorphic design, Apple is effectively deprecating groups as a feature. They are still there, but using them has just become much more painful. You cannot see groups or select one at all while you are viewing the contact details of a specific card. You first have to click on the red bookmark button at the top
Which came first: Apple’s creative pro market shrinking, which might have led to dramatic changes in Final Cut Pro; or Apple’s cavalier attitude toward legacy features, which might have frightened video editors? According to the professionals we spoke to, there was already signs of an industry shift to Avid before FCPX came along, but Apple still had a very loyal and dedicated user base that it’s now turning away from.
Through a combination of pattern matching and markers, I can generate a quick index of anything I want. I can list all images, links or email addresses in a document.
I’ve long thought that I should make more use of markers. He also has examples of how to generate them via AppleScript.
Update (2012-01-18): I’ve had some success using an AppleScript to generate a table of contents in the markers menu, and using a documentWillSave attachment script to run the script when the document changes.
BBEdit also provides “Jump Marks”. These are invisible placeholders in a document. You can find them under the “Search” menu. They are also accessible through shift-cmd-j for “Set Jump Mark” and shift-cmd-b for “Jump Back”. If I need to quickly copy a reference link from the end of a document, I hit shift-cmd-j and then select the reference from the bookmark list. That places me at the end of my document with the reference selected. I can then copy or edit. When I’m done I hit shift-cmd-b to go back to my previous position.
Jump marks are great; I wish more applications had this feature.
I get the impression that not many people know XPath, or know it very well, which is a shame. For one, it’s a beautifully concise notation (as you’ll see shortly). For another, it may be the difference between whether you hate XML or not. (I won’t claim it’ll make you like XML, though it may. It did for me.)
