Community

Can not understand why all commands are not available as possible toolbar buttons. Unless I am missing where they are, I can not find the 'block select' on or off buttons.

Why can't all commands be locatable on the toolbar ?

I can confirm that I do not see a Block Select button available but you have two alternate methods of toggling it. The first is right click/accelerator key (?) in the current document and access Block select mode from there. Alternate route is use the menu Configure, Block select mode or its default key stroke mapping of (Ctrl Q, B)

I might be misunderstanding you, but why not use the Block button in the Status Bar (bottom right-hand corner of the TextPad window)?

It works in the same way as the other buttons in the status bar--Read-only, Insert/Overtype, Caps lock, etc. The only difference between these and toolbar icons is that you double-click to enable them, double-click again to disable them.

I agree with your general suggestion--it would be good to have a toolbar equivalent for every menu item or command.

Cheers

Stuart Burnfield

I agree with your general suggestion--it would be good to have a toolbar equivalent for every menu item or command.

Please no. My worry would be that you end up with an UltraEdit-style interface where every menu and context menu is littered with inpenetrable icons. There may be an argiment for raising the priority of block select to give it an icon and allow it to be added to the toolbar.

Icons need to be clear (dare I say it, iconic) to work and if you iconise everything you lose that clarity.

I didn't mean they should put every menu item and command on a toolbar somewhere--that would be a nightmare. I meant that when you customise a toolbar or create a toolbar of your own, you should be able to choose from every menu option and command. This means you can have one toolbar that contains buttons for every option you use regularly and none of the options you don't use.

I think you can do this in MS Word's Customize Toolbar option (not that Word is a masterpiece of UI design).

In fact my favourite application from this point of view is Firefox. It lets you add icons to the menu bar, so I use all those otherwise wasted grey pixels to the right of the Help menu for icons and do away with the separate toolbar and navigation bar, leaving more vertical space to display documents.

Cheers from (mostly) sunny Perth

Stuart Burnfield

Oh wow, for some reason made my suggestion and didn't get back again until now

Yes great, didn't realise the block bottom right. Defintely need those new glasses

Cheers.