Frame 9 keystrokes for entering Paragraph and Character Tags

Report · Nov 08, 2010

I have been using the F9 and F8 keystrokes for entering paragraph and character tags, respectively, for 25 years. I just upgarde to Frame 9, and suddenly they behave differently. Instead of being able to type the first few characters of the tag name and pressing Enter to select the tag, you can now only type the first letter and to get to the next tag in the list that starts with the same letter, you type the letter again. Furthermore, if there is only one tag with the letter you type, it automatically selects it without requiring you type press Enter, which might seem like a feature except if you're used to pressing Enter.

Does anyone know if there is a way to go back to the way it was?

Report · Nov 08, 2010

Tasha,

You have to upgrade your FrameMaker 9.0 to the current 9.0p255. With some update the previous behaviour came back.

- Michael

Report · Nov 08, 2010

Thanks. I'm thrilled. But do you mean 9.0.4? on the download page, which is the most recent update, other than the Beta Application Pack for S1000D? I don't see anything with the version you mentioned.

Report · Nov 08, 2010

Yes, that's the one. Make sure that you load patches in order - Adobe's aren't cumulative.

Report · Nov 08, 2010

Thank you so much. This worked. Looks like it was actually in 9.0.1. From the release notes:

(Ref‐ 1838069): Type‐ahead functionality of Control key shortcuts (Ctrl+0 to Ctrl+9) does not
work. However the following are the changes from legacy behavior (which are not fixed) :
2. (Ref‐ 1884451): When the starting letter is pressed the fly‐out menu of the status bar applies
the value automatically if there is a SINGLE entry

And thanks for the input on applying patches sequentially.

Report · Nov 11, 2010

While this did solve the problem partially, it seems Frame 9 with the patches still has slighly different behavior from the way I've been using F8 and F9 for the past 20 years. To return to the old behavior, what we need is a combination of the behavior of Frame 9 and Frame 9 with the patches. That is, press F9, type the first letter of the tag name, type the same letter again to scroll down the list, then press Enter to apply it. So, for example, if you have Body and Bullet, if you type "b" you get Body and if type "b" again, you get Bullet. This isn't so bad if you have these two tags, because you can easily type "bu" to get Bullet. But if you have Body1, Body2, Body3, Bullet1, Bullet2, Bullet3, it's kind of a pain to have to type "bullet2" to apply this tag using the keyboard. Kind of defeats the purpose of using the keystroke in the first place.

The other thing I've gotten used to over the years is being able to press F8 + Enter or F9 + Enter and have it apply the first tag in the list, which was always Default Para Font and Body. Not anymore. Now you have to type the first letter of the first tag in the list. Grrr.

While you can teach and old dog new tricks, I don't think it's very nice of them to change the behavior of these very common keystrokes.

Other opinions? I've never submitted a bug to Frame before, but perhaps the time has come.

Report · Nov 11, 2010

Tasha,

Those issues have been discussed in sometimes unnecessary emotional ways. It might be a feature request, but there is no bug.

You talk about the F8, ENTER and F9, ENTER shortcuts. The latter gives you only "Body" if "Body" is your alphabetically first paragraph format, some people have "Anchor" or still other first items in this list. If you get used to typing F9, <letter>, ENTER the current method can be seen as more stable/consistent, because it does not assume that any paragraph format is more important than others, all are treated equal.

Regarding F8, ENTER to get "Default ¶ Font" I agree that this is not really a character format and therefore might deserve some special treatment. From a lot of trainings I know that we keyboard people are a minority and the "mouse movers" are the majority – and they don’t care about our advanced issues!

To access "Default ¶ Font" I use F8, ARROW DOWN, ENTER as a special and equal quick shortcut – still way faster than any mouse movement, isn’t it?

- Michael

Report · Nov 11, 2010

Didn't mean to sound "emotional," but I guess I consider it a bug if the behavior has changed from the way it has always worked before. They considered it enough of a bug to fix it to some extent in a patch. I guess I am indeed a power user, and I guess I have no choice but to change my ways. Thanks.

Report · Nov 11, 2010

And there's one more thing. It used to be you could type "b" then change your mind and type "c" to go to the first tag that starts with c. Not anymore. Now you have to use the backspace key to go back to the beginning before it will find tags beginning with another letter. Grrr.