Global activation hotkey behaves inconsitently
Completed
Hi,
(hope this is was not already discussed - my search yielded nothing)
I have a Global activation hotkey set (cmd+F10). In nvALT that key activated not only the application but also set focus to the search bar. Thus, I could hit my shortcut and instantly type my search term.
nvUltra seems to behave differently depending on the state I left the app before:
Case 1: If the focus was/is already in the search bar, it works just like the "old nvALT behavior"
Case 2: If the nvUltra's focus was on the file list or the editing area, I have to move the focus to the search bar before I can start search. Cmd+L is not to hard to remember but it is quite cumbersome that the app behaves differently and plays constant tricks on my muscle memory.
In other words: the feature is actually named right: it is a shortcut to *acitvate* nvUltra and this might be the wanted behavior. But my expectation (wish) would be to have the global shortcut to *activate nvUltra and start a search* - just like nvALT did. (Of course with multiple folders, nvUltra would have to make a guess on the folder for such a search, but IMO *activate and start a search in the frontmost folder* would be good enough.)
But otherwise: thank you for this piece of software that hits so many sweet spots for plain text junkies.
Roland Küffner
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I'm not sure how the behavior is inconsistent? When the app is activated, the focus is exactly where you left it. If that is not what you're experiencing, let us know.
This behavior allows you to immediately continue writing in the note you were previously using if you like, or, as you describe, use Cmd-L to quickly search for a different note if you prefer.
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Hi Fletcher,
thanks for taking time to answer. Maybe "inconsistent" was not the best word to describe this (sorry, not a native English speaker).
As I wrote, the shortcut works exactly as it's name suggests. The experienced inconsistency lies in the expectation from a person coming from nvALT where the shortcut did something different.
nvUltra: activate the app
nvALT: activate a search (in the app)In fact, I don't quite see the benefit in having a shortcut to activate the app. Cmd+tab, Spotlight, Launchpad, Launchbar, Alfred, Keyboard Maestro - there are tons of options to activate an app. But being able to invoke a search with just one key stroke has always been one of nvALT's standout features. Of course, hitting an additional CMD+L is not too much detour, but one I have to take every single time. In nvALT I exclusively use the shortcut to search my notes and nvALT conditioned me good on this.
So, please do not consider this a bug but a UX-wish: it would be great to have a global "search hot key" not (only) an "app activation key".
Regards, Roland
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Roland -- gotcha. And no worries, your English is infintely better than my German or French.... ;)
I'll include a couple of comments for background, which might even be useful for me to reference from other threads periodically as well, so apologies for the slight tangent here.
1. I used Notational Velocity and nvAlt quite a bit in their early days, and then migrated away after creating Composer. The good thing about this is that I have familiarity with nvAlt, but am not "overly" familiar with it. Which allows Brett and I to approach things with a bit of a blank slate.
2. Obviously, the core functionality is designed after those apps, but reimplemented from scratch. Which means that some behaviors naturally align, and some are slightly different. In those cases, we take a step back to decide what we think the best choice is. Sometimes that is to adjust more towards what nvAlt did, but sometimes not. Which is largely why this project is not named nvAlt 2, or something like that.
In this particular case:
1. I used to agree with you about the shortcut not being necessary. (In fact, that was one thing we threw onto Brett's plate because I didn't care much about the feature, and assumed I would not do as good of a job.) . I was wrong. I now use the shortcut all the time, and have disabled the dock icon preference (though admittedly that is as much for testing reasons as because I care whether the icon is visible in the tab switcher).
2. I also agree with you that there are tons of ways to activate the app, and I think it's important that they are consistent in their behavior.
3. When Cmd-tab switching between apps, I do not expect nvUltra to move my focus away from the editor to the search bar. It should leave the focus where I put it. I suspect most people agree with this.
4. I think that the shortcut behavior and Cmd-tab switching should be consistent, which in this case means I expect the focus to be where I left it when using the shortcut as well.
5. I understand that this is different, but this is an instance where Brett and I agree that the new behavior is better than the old behavior. That doesn't mean every user will agree.
6. For every person who expects the focus to be in the search bar, I suspect there is also a person who is confused about why nvAlt kept moving the focus on them and was frustrated about having to hit return in order to return to where they left off.
7. Yes, adding another global shortcut key to activate *and* move the focus to the search bar is possible, but I don't think it really adds much to the application compared to the "cost" of adding yet another preference.
8. So instead, I added another "hidden preference" so you can set the behavior you desire from the command line (set `NVMoveFocusToSearchOnActivation` to YES)0 -
( This will eventually be documented here -- https://nvultra.com/help/advanced-features#hiddenpreferences )
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Hi Fletcher,
thank you for taking the time and the patience to dive into my little "perceived inconsistency". And many more thanks to address it with a hidden preference. This is very much appreciated. (I would have cobbled together a Keyboard Maestro Macro to skip the additional cmd+L).
I can imagine that building a text processing app is a laborious feat as a lot of hard decisions have to be made and the nerd-ratio in your audience is presumably a rather high one (I count myself in :) and every user has it's own needs and expectations.
In the sum, I can only repeat, that nvUltra already does a lot of things right and I would buy it in its current state without hesitating.
To compensate for your time, here are a few thoughts in reply to your points. Please consider this as "Friday afternoon thoughts" - no more feature wishes or inconsistencies south from here.
My use case for working with nvALT is quite different from yours. I'll take the liberty of explaining my usage pattern - in case you are interested. I use nvALT for years now and it is almost always running on my machines. But: I hardly use it for WRITING. I use it more in the sense of a "text hub", a kind of database for all my notes. That's why the searching capabilities of nvALT are so prominent in my mind (and muscle memory).
My "theory" of working with text consists of two phases: 1) writing text and 2) using text. For the first phase there exists a plethora of decent apps (just take a look at Brett's iTextEditors spreadsheet). Personally I have about a dozen text editors installed (including MMC btw) - but when it comes to writing I come back to one to three different apps - mostly BBEdit (because I always did and it is good for the most of my needs :-). Opening a text file in an external editor is a thing I do all the time in nvALT when I intend to do more than just a few edits.
But for the second phase, the choice of decent apps isn't quite that manifold. That was nvALT' USP for me: it makes it easy to USE my texts: realtime filtering based on the content of hundreds of files, flipping through the results list without having to open or close individual files, making cross references with WikiLinks. So: reading, looking up references, cheatsheets collecting all kinds of text snippets and boilerplate texts. There are some apps that try to implement relevant aspects for phase two (working with hashtags is another one), but nvALT, although aging, still stands out: it's search is fast, fast, fast. It is simple and clean and it makes working with text collections a joy.So my simple hope is, that nvUltra will pick up that crown and will get the best choice for a "phase 2 app" for me :-) - and who knows, maybe it will also grow on me in writing stuff ...
(and don't be afraid: alone the ability to work with different folders is a big step forward)Have a nice weekend,
Roland
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Hello Fletcher,
> So instead, I added another "hidden preference" so you can set the behavior you desire from the command line (set `NVMoveFocusToSearchOnActivation` to YES)
A little catch-up on this topic: the hidden preference to focus the search bar after activation does not work (at least on my machines). I double checked the preference with "defaults read" and also tried different values for this key (YES, TRUE, 1). Setting that preference simply has no noticeable effect.
In the meantime I have set up the mentioned Keyboard Maestro macro to give me that nvALT-like activate-and-search-behavior (it even brings the bonus advantage that the focus stays in the editing area when I cmd-tab to nvUltra (or, god-forbid, click on the Dock with that mouse thing). It only focuses on the search when I use my macro shortcut - so it is my choice).
So as I have a working solution: If I am the only person missing that option, you might also consider removing it.
Regards, Roland
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You're not the only one looking for this, this setting was exactly what I needed!
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Re-installed nvUltra and bumped again into this. For me, running this in a terminal while the app is closed and then re-opening it worked:
defaults write com.multimarkdown.nvUltra NVMoveFocusToSearchOnActivation YES
I have to side kaidoh here, having the focus in the search bar with the hotkey should be the default. If I just want to use another app quickly I don't close nvUltra with the hotkey, just use another window or resize the windows, or use cmd-tab to switch back & forth.
This way the user can control how they want the focus to work:
Hotkey –> upen up another or new note
Other ways –> continue editing the same note
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