Need Help Please

[Fr. Rusty]

Dear All: I am very frustrated and in need of some guidance here, thanks in advance.

I may have asked about this when I first purchased Accordance and just cannot remember, so please, bear with me.

 

My difficulty is with the "set-up" of things on my computer ( Alum. macbook and, external monitor at office and home= 23" at office, 20" at home ).

 

Each time I open Accordance, I have to go about moving everything back around, I have to "place and resize " the instant details box, the resource palette, workspace and anything else I use, such as highlighters, or library window.

 

No matter how I save my session, or make a new "default" , nothing ever comes up the same way, the same size, or in the same place, no matter which screen I am using.

 

At times, when using my external monitor, things will come up "between screens" and I then I have to "unplug" the monitor from the display port, wait for the Macbook to reset the screen.

Once I do that, everything is back on the laptop screen, then plug the monitor back in, move things to it, resize and arrange.

 

The single most frustrating thing is that I can never get anything to come back up as I have set it to be used, no matter what.

 

That said, to be clear, everything "inside" the "workspace" comes up correctly each time-no problems there.

 

I have watched all the set-up video's as well as everything related by Dr. J.

 

I love the speed of Accordance, fast and quick are words that are much too slow a description.

 

However, that speed is wasted for me by the time I have to spend setting up the program for each work session .

I am a Pastor, with much to do, and little time to do it in, I just need Accordance to "come up and be ready to work" .

 

This and the "store" (smile), are my only real complaints.

 

Thanks for any help that can be given, it really is appreciated.

 

Grace and Peace in Christ,

 

Rusty+

[Ron Webber]

Open the Accordance application preferences window and choose the following setting.

Accordance menu > Preferences > General Settings > Startup. Select "Last Session" from the "Startup" drop down menu (right now it probably says "default session"). It must say: Startup "Last Session".

Choose OK. Now Accordance will open to the windows setup you had the last time you closed the application.

 

Best regards,

 

Ron

[Fr. Rusty]

Thanks Ron: But I still have the Instant Details, Resource Palette and for this study, the Highlighters, all show up in different positions and thus have to be "resized and moved".

 

I take it this "situation" is not common, but something happening on my end?

 

Grace and Peace,

 

Rusty+

[R. Mansfield]

Thanks Ron: But I still have the Instant Details, Resource Palette and for this study, the Highlighters, all show up in different positions and thus have to be "resized and moved".

 

I take it this "situation" is not common, but something happening on my end?

 

Grace and Peace,

 

Rusty+

 

Yes, that's not a common situation. Everything should still remain where you left it when you start over.

 

That makes me wonder if you have a permissions problem somewhere. You could run Repair Permissions in the Disk Utility in your Applications: Utilities folder. And you might also consider looking at your home folder and making certain that your full read and write access have been propagated down to every subfolder. You can give all sub folders permission from that one dialogue box.

[Fr. Rusty]

Ok, permissions and disc are fine, but you lost me on "home folder".

I have no folder in Accordance program named home that I can find.

I am an old Pc guy, just been on a Mac less than two years-glad I switched, but I still understand "windows" more than Osx.

 

Again, thank you both for taking the time to help, yours is as valuable to you as mine is to me, so please know you are appreciated.

 

Grace and Peace,

 

Rusty+

[Rick Bennett]

Thanks Ron: But I still have the Instant Details, Resource Palette and for this study, the Highlighters, all show up in different positions and thus have to be "resized and moved".

 

I take it this "situation" is not common, but something happening on my end?

 

Grace and Peace,

 

Rusty+

 

I used to noticed this when I was switching back and forth between my Macbook display and external display in seminary. I always assumed it wasn't Accordance at fault, but how the windows are arranged when it detects a different display. So, I just now tested it with Pages.

 

 

In 'Test 1' I arranged the text doc and palettes according to the size of my external display (24" LED Cinema).Then, in 'Test 2' I unplugged the Cinema display; you can see that the text window and palettes are all jumbled, and one is off the display. Last, in 'Test 3' I plugged the Cinema display back in and you can see that they are in yet a different arrangement. So, I don't think this is an Accordance issue.

 

One tip that I use when going back and forth is to use the grow button on the main workspace (green +) with my palettes and Library Window arranged around the 'border' of where I want the workspace window to grow to. This at least minimized the time spent in dragging the main workspace window.

 

HTH

[R. Mansfield]

Ok, permissions and disc are fine, but you lost me on "home folder".

I have no folder in Accordance program named home that I can find.

I am an old Pc guy, just been on a Mac less than two years-glad I switched, but I still understand "windows" more than Osx.

 

Rusty, in the root directory of your hard drive, you have a Users folder. Inside that users folder, you have your home directory. It's probably based on your name. Mine is Rmansfield, for instance.

 

Find that folder, right click on it, and choose Get Info.

 

At the bottom of the info window, you'll see a section called Sharing & Permissions. If the lock in the bottom right hand corner of the window is closed (and it probably is), click on it and enter your password so that you can make changes.

 

You should see your user ID listed under the name category, and more than likely you have Read & Write access. Select your name so that it is highlighted and then choose the little gear drop down box underneath. Choose "Apply to Enclosed Items" and your read and write permissions will propagate down to all your enclosed folders.

 

See if that fixes your problem.

 

 

I bring this up because I had a similar problem when I first started trying to use Devonthink Pro. I don't actually remember now what it wouldn't do, but one of the significant functions of the software wouldn't work for me. I was almost at the point of getting my money back, when I tried this and suddenly everything worked. If this is your issue, it's a permissions issue with your Accordance preferences. And while we could pinpoint just those folders, odds are, if you're having this problem there, you're probably having it elsewhere, too, so this will fix the issue for all your files and folders.

[Joe Weaks]

Rusty+,

 

Accordance is not the culprit here. You will see the same results with another app that has several windows and palettes open when you switch between no external monitor, a 20" one, and a 23" one. (You also do not have permissions issues or read/write issues related to your Home folder.)

The problem is beyond Accordance and with the system itself. Every Mac user who juggles different external monitor configs has experienced the runaway windows issue. On a Mac, without a more complex solution, you can not put some of an application's window in the view of an external monitor and then sleep and awake with a different monitor of a different resolution and have the windows magically be in a similar position. The system can't automatically know: 1. put these windows here when not external monitor is connected, 2. put them here when the 20" display is connected, and 3. put them here when the 23" one is connected.

 

Within Accordance, the menu item Window/Arrange/Title or Stack (and their keyboard equivalents) will reclaim the "regular" window for you, positioning them in helpful places. That will, unfortunately, not take care of the palettes that you keep open.

 

There could be a scripting solution to this problem, but I'd have to investigate if that would work with Accordance (which is not a very scriptable app).

 

One thing I would do for sure, especially if you like to keep more than one window open, especially if one is on the external display, is have 3 different saved sessions.

Unplug your externals.

Set things up how you want them.

Save that session with a unique name: "AccordNoMonitors"

 

Plug in the 20" one.

Set things up how you want them.

Save that session as: "Accord20"

 

Do the same for the 23" monitor.

 

Then, when you launch Accordance, if the windows are not set up right, do the close all windows command, and then open the appropriate saved session.

Problem is, that still won't help with the palettes. The palette positions aren't part of a saved session. This should be remedied if the palettes are always kept on the main display.

 

Joe

[mikes]

I have this same problem... I have 2 sessions saved that take care of my workspace windows, but the palettes... every time I go from laptop alone, to laptop on 24"+laptop, I have to rearrange and resize the palettes.

 

Admittedly, this is an issue with other programs (Pages, PowerPoint, Keynote, anything with a floating palette), but the placement and number of palettes in accordance is FAR more then any other app I use regularly.

 

I wonder if there's a way for applescript to show (if hidden), then resize, then move palettes as a single command?

 

Ideally, there would be kind of "save session" that included palettes.

[Fr. Rusty]

Thank you all so much, I think you guys have got me up and running better now.

On the Macbook, everything now comes back up pretty close to the way I closed it, so we are good there.

I will try again now to save a set of settings for each monitor understanding that they will not be perfect, but closer, and that will help in saving me some time and concentration.

 

I understand it is the "floating palettes" that give the issues when moving from one screen size to another, so, now I have another question , and it's just a question with perhaps a hint of suggestion.

 

I have other study programs that do not have this issue, they come up the same no matter what they are on, I can also customize the work area ( not as much admittedly ).

 

My "guess" is that these programs have everything working "inside a workspace" ( so to speak ) and thus you can move things around inside that space, but the space itself, is what changes due to screen size.

 

Am I making any sense?

 

I think it would be nice if Accordance "ran inside" a workspace ( so to speak ), yet you could still decide how much room to give the resource palette, instant details, library, and so forth, or, decide which of those to use or not, as we do now.

 

Would this not allow us to have settings for whatever situation we are in are far as external monitors, as well as laptops and even perhaps ipads or the like?

 

At any rate, just my thoughts.

 

Again, very thankful for everyones help.

Customer support called me back late today, (very helpful and was going to look into this as well), but I really think you folks have taken care of this for me and helped a great deal.

 

May God bless you all with His Grace and Peace,

 

Rusty+

[Joe Weaks]

I just finished a proof-of-concept script. I had a look at the code, and I have a working script that when run will place the three palettes back in the specific place I would want them.

So, it is possible to have a script (which can be set up as a simple key command) that will locate the palettes (and regular windows, of course) where you would want them.

 

Joe

[Fr. Rusty]

Ok, I'll bite-smile.

Is that a "mac thing" or an "Accordance thing".

 

I would not want to do anything that would put me out of favor with either company.

That said, I am interested in knowing more as this sounds like it would make my study life, well, easier.

 

Rusty+

[Rick Bennett]

Ok, I'll bite-smile.

Is that a "mac thing" or an "Accordance thing".

 

I would not want to do anything that would put me out of favor with either company.

That said, I am interested in knowing more as this sounds like it would make my study life, well, easier.

 

Rusty+

 

It's a 'Mac thing', but if you ask nice, Joe might write a short blog post about it and post the script under his downloads section.

 

Speaking of 'Mac things', your interface suggestion is a predominantly Windows thing! If you take a look at some other Mac apps (Adobe, Quark, iWork, Office, etc.) you will see that floating palettes are pretty consistent (though there are exceptions).

[Fr. Rusty]

smiling- Yep, guess my years on windows is still there-smile.

 

Still though, as you said, I have many programs that do not have the "floats' outside, but rather inside of the movable desktop.

 

Yes, interested in that "script" , yet, overall much happier now that things are working better for me on my macbook and may just try putting ( floating palettes on macbook with word processor) and workspace on the larger screens.

 

At any rate, everyone has been really helpful and things are working better for me.

 

Many thanks,

 

Rusty+

[Joe Weaks]

[mikes]

One would need to customize the script to meet their own display setup.

Thanks a million for jumping on this!