three newbie questions

Greetings; While searching for a Journler replacement, I’m trying EF, and have three questions I can’t resolve from the manual. Any help will be most appreciated.

  1. Is there a keyboard shortcut for importing text snippets?

If you highlight a portion of text on a webpage, the command-% combination (command-shift-5) doesn’t work. Is there any way to setup a keyboard shortcut? (I understand F1 captures the web page; I’m just trying to “shortcut” capturing highlighted text in a web page.)

  1. Is there any way to view each record at a higher % (larger size) than the chosen font?

Many apps (Pages, MS Word, Together, etc) have a “view” option, so that text in a small font for printing is displayed onscreen at a larger size. Is there any way to accomplish this in EF (or via OSX, if there is a global setting for RTF docs) ??

  1. Is there any way to “dock” the dropbox to the side of the monitor (as is done with Together, SOHO Notes, etc)?

Yes, it’s Command-%. You may need to log out and log back in again in order for Mac OS X to see newly installed services. Also, you may have to enable it in the Services section of the Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard pane in System Preferences.

This is not currently possible, although it’s a feature I’m planning to add. One possible workaround would be to open the documents in TextEdit if you want to see them zoomed.

No, although you could use the regular Mac OS X Dock.

Michael, Thank you for your reply. To followup…

Re keyboard shortcut:

You have to enter the precise name of the command in the form (“Menu Title”) - what would it be? (I’ve tried a few, but without success.)

And, for clarification, you mean command-shift-5 ?? (Shift-5 -= % sign)

Re viewing text size:

Thanks for having it on the to-add list. Opening in TextEdit is easy, but I don’t see any way to globally set that for a larger font size.

Re docking the Dropbox:

Michael, would you (please) consider adding this to a future version? If you save a great deal of snippets during the day, it is much faster and easier to just drag them left or right to the edge of the screen – I realize it may not sound like much for a few items, but when the quantity adds up, every little productivity gain really helps.

Thank you again for your prompt replies, and for EagleFiler.

Which version of Mac OS X are you using? With 10.6 it should appear in the Services section automatically—you don’t have to type anything. With 10.4 or 10.5 the Services section doesn’t exist, but the command will be enabled and assigned to Command-% by default.

Yes. (Different keyboards may require different key sequences to type %.)

Faster because it’s a larger target than the Dock icon? You don’t want to see the Drop Pad on screen? And you don’t like the keyboard? Just curious.

Well, I prefer the keyboard, but as per prior post I can’t get it to work. Yet.

In my situation, I need to save a lot of information each day, mostly in “snippets” (parts of web pages). Speed matters. I can always go back later (at the end of the day) to rename, resort, etc – and that is why I will stick with EF, because you have the “Unfiled” smartbox, which other products don’t have.

So, the fastest way to save is the best – and being able to highlight text (and photos, if possibe), and “throw” them with a mouse gesture to the side of the screen, is much faster than carefully dragging down to the dock.

(The criticism of the Drop Box is that it takes up too much space, somewhere on the screen, while the “tab” on the side takes up much less.)

Does “prefer” mean that if you could get the keyboard to work the discussion about the partially hidden Drop Pad would be moot?

OK, thanks.

Yes, of course it would be moot!! For me (and, I suspect, for any person using EF for professional work), the movie phrase “I feel the need for speed” is operative – a keystroke (or, much better, a function key !!) is faster.

The idea (goal) is to get “the stuff” into the “unfiled box” quickly, then edit & resort later. (People who want to take their time, label & rename on each entry, can use F1 with option, as you’ve setup already.)

Of course, ever seeking perfection, I would then ask you to link a sound to that action (as a guard against user-failure, not EF’s failure!). :wink:

Thank you, again, Michael, for your attentive and prompt replies.

Great! So which version of Mac OS X are you using? Did you have a look in the Keyboard preferences pane as suggested?

I’ll consider that, but meanwhile if you install Growl you can get a notification window and/or sound when EagleFiler completes an import.

Michael, Yes, but as I wrote above, “You have to enter the precise name of the command in the form (Menu Title) - what would it be? (I’ve tried a few, but without success.)”

Preference Pane: enter “+” (menu appears)
Application: enter EF
“Menu Title”: what goes here ??
Shortcut: Command+Shift+5

That shouldn’t be necessary. Which version of Mac OS X are you using?

10.5.7 – I’ll send you a screenshot by e-mail.

Unless another application is using Command-%, you don’t need to do anything in System Preferences. You should see the “EagleFiler: Import” command in the Services menu when you have some text selected in another application.

If you want to change the shortcut, the application should be “All Applications” (not “EagleFiler”; you aren’t invoking the shortcut from within EagleFiler) and the menu title is “EagleFiler: Import”.

Nope; in Firefox, if I highlight text with the mouse, then right-click, there is no EF import option (nor via the Firefox menu).

It does not work under my install: OSX 10.5.7 and EF 1.4.10
I can add the shortcut, then close Systems Preferences; the shortcut is not enabled, and when I open SysPref again, the name is there, but the shortcut has disappeared. I have carefully checked, and the shortcut is not shown for any other application.

Michael, are there any known conflicts between EF and other applications ???

That’s because Firefox is a rare application that doesn’t support Mac OS X services. Safari, OmniWeb, iCab, and most other browsers (and other applications) do.

On Mac OS X 10.5, services do not appear in the contextual (right-click) menu. They only appear in the Services submenu of the application menu.

I fear that I haven’t been clear. On Mac OS X 10.5, System Preferences only affects the keyboard shortcut, not whether the menu command is available. Therefore, if you don’t see the menu command there is no reason to muck about in System Preferences.

No.