preferences gone

[ngazidja]

I just tried to use one of my user-defined keyboard shortcuts (I'd set shift-cmd-> to capitalise a word) and it's gone. On closer inspection I see that all of my user-defined shortcuts have gone - I guess in the past day or two. Any idea how this might have happened? Has there been some sort of update (I'm using 3.0.4) that has removed these? I certainly don't think I've done anything, unless there's a keyboard shortcut for "reset all shortcuts" that I might have hit inadvertently. I have had a couple of crashes recently and was trying to force-quit Firefox (I couldn't remember the shortcut and was trying various combinations of shift-alt-esc-opt-cmd), but that would presumably require Nisus to be the active app. Any ideas?

Iain.

[ngazidja]

Incidentally, while I'm here, I notice that the menu item says "Display as Capitalized". Was it always called this? I vaguely recall some issue I had once that was resolved once I understood that "Display as" was not the same as "Change to", that is, the first letter of my word was not in fact an upper case letter, it just looked like one...

(Ok, got this now, this was the problem last time, for anyone else who is interested, the change is Edit>Transform Text>To Capitalized, not Format>Letter case>Display as Capitalized. Quite why you would want to "Display as Capitalized" I don't know, but presumably the good Nisus people gave us this for a reason.)

So: how do I set a keyboard shortcut for "To Capitalized"? Prefernces will only let me set shortcuts for items in the Format menu.

Ok, this is really strange, my shortcuts are back. I just rebooted. Is this a system thing?

(Just talkin' to myself here...)

[credneb]

[quote]Ok, this is really strange, my shortcuts are back. I just rebooted. Is this a system thing?[/quote]

This is probably the solution. I have had shortcuts disappear before with a reboot (of system or just nisus) restoring them. I have also been able to restore them by going to the menu key preferences and resetting one. Often, my previous setting has been shown in the little settings window, and simply OKing the setting restored all. Strange behavior, but stranger has also happened.

[martin]

why you would want to "Display as Capitalized" I don't know, but presumably the good Nisus people gave us this for a reason.)

You're probably right that using the "Transform Text" commands is generally more desirable, since that converts the underlying characters. However there are indeed situations where "Display as" is useful. The key scenario is allowing styles to enforce the desired capitalization.

So: how do I set a keyboard shortcut for "To Capitalized"? Prefernces will only let me set shortcuts for items in the Format menu.

You should be able to use Nisus Writer's Menu Keys preferences to set keyboard shortcuts for any and all menus. Maybe you didn't notice the horizontal scrollbar along the bottom? You can scroll to the left to see earlier menus in the hierarchy.

Ok, this is really strange, my shortcuts are back. I just rebooted. Is this a system thing?

Keyboard shortcuts are something of a joint effort between Nisus Writer and the system. You can set keyboard shortcuts in your system preferences, but it's a bit limited. You are better off using Nisus Writer's preferences to do this. Not only will you see more available menu commands, but you can also use multi-key shortcuts (eg: Command + BQ for Block Quote) which are a Nisus-only feature.

But even if you customized your keyboard shortcuts using Nisus Writer's preferences, the settings may be stored in a location that's maintained by the system. For example, if you set Nisus Writer to use iCloud Drive as your "synchronized settings location", then loading your shortcuts requires iCloud to be available. Rebooting your system may have cleared some temporary iCloud issue– who knows.

(Just talkin' to myself here...)

Sometimes it's a pretty good option!

[ngazidja]

You should be able to use Nisus Writer's Menu Keys preferences to set keyboard shortcuts for any and all menus. Maybe you didn't notice the horizontal scrollbar along the bottom? You can scroll to the left to see earlier menus in the hierarchy.

The scrollbar across the bottom. I was wondering what that was for...

Yes, I was setting the preferences in Nisus, and I realise that some can't be reset (cmd-S, etc). But nothing was stored in the cloud, all local. Still, one of those little mysteries. But it's interesting that when I reset my shortcuts to "Display as capitalized" it overrode my shortcut for "Transform Text". And looking at it, I see the shortcut for "Transform Text" is "shift-cmd->" while "Display as capitalized" is "shift-cmd-." So I now have keyboard shortcuts for both of them...

Iain.