(Note to admins: I will also email this to Omnigraffle Support, but I post it here in case other users want to chime in.)
Edited: 2nd paragraph now less whiny.
My previous feature request compendia were on
May 2008 and
April 2009. Below are 7 new ones, and 17 from before which still exist. Sorted into Priority 1-3, where 1 is the most important.
While I remain a fan of Omnigraffle and use it nearly daily, it is annoying that so many relatively easy to fix user interface issues and bugs are allowed to persist for year upon year. Most of them I've been told have been "added to the existing feature request for this" -- and there they remain.
Top 3 requests: 6. Canvas numbers; 21. Duplicate-constrain, 22. Paste in Place
New feature requests:
1. Bullet lists behave brokenly (Priority: 2)
This is when using the bullet list from the Lists dropdown.
a) Bug: Try pasting a bulleted item in-between other bulleted items. Phantom extra bullets appear, which take a lot of effort to clean up.
b) It appears to be impossible to create new bullet styles, and easily apply them to existing text. (E.g. I prefer a space-saving bullet list style with no tab before the bullet.
2. Why are Guides per-canvas? Is there a way to make them global? (Priority: 2)
Perhaps guides could be per layer, so that you could add guides to a shared layer?
3. When Cmd-F finding, populate the Search field with the selected text (Priority: 2)
Most good text editors do this. It's for the common use case where both the Find and Replace strings are quite long. As you can only have one item on the clipboard, you're forced to type in (rather than paste) one of them. This feature avoids having to do that.
4. Bug: When you change Version (a variable), you can't Undo that change (Priority: 3)
5. Bug: Fit-to-screen zoom "jumps" to slightly different zoom when editing (Priority: 3)
Go to View: Zoom: Fit in Window. Then double-click to edit a text box. The zoom level increases slightly.
This happens for me with a custom canvas size of 55.88 x 86.36 cm. The "Fit in Window" zoom setting, for some reason, has a slight gap between the canvas and the rulers. This gap disappears when the zoom level adjusts.
6. Bug: Text reflows sporadically in text boxes, when text goes right against edge (Priority: 3)
If, when editing inside a text box, text abuts the right-hand edge exactly, it will often reflow when you exit the text box.
Related: Positioning a right-alignment tab against right-hand edge also causes the line to wrap. The tab has to be positioned slightly forward of the right-hand edge.
7. Need another doc-switching hotkeys, which toggles rather than cycles
Currently there is a single hotkey: Cmd-(Shift)-\, which
cycles through open documents. A few applications are helpful enough to include a second hotkey, which mimicks the behaviour of the OS-level hotkey (Cmd-Tab), which
toggles between the current and last one. This is actually what you usually want.
Please consider adding Ctrl-Tab (currently unused) for the new doc-switch behaviour.
From my previous feature request (Apr 2009):
8. Canvas numbers in sidebar: please! (Priority: 1)
First reported
here. See my rationale
here.
"Existing feature request"
9. Cumbersome to select colours (Priority: 1)
Why is it necessary to click the swatch in a Style inspector first, before clicking on a colour in the Colors palette? Why not just let a click on a colour take effect on the currently-active Style of the selected object?
You explained this is because it's possible to show several style palettes at once. What bothers me is that it's possible to
*deselect* the swatch in the palette, making a click in the Colors palette have no effect. (Happens constantly.)
How about
*always* having a swatch selected? (The last one you used, except if it's on an invisible palette, in which case the last open one you used which is visible.)
This would be a great time-saver over your suggestions that involve dragging swatches to objects.
10. Allow user to set page zoom across multiple canvases simultaneously. (Priority: 1)
Also reported
here.
"Existing feature request"
11. Back/Forward Canvas (Priority: 1)
Need keyboard shortcuts (or toolbar buttons) for Back/Forward Canvas - the previous/next one
viewed, not the previous/next in the stack. This would save me an enormous amount of scrolling over the sidebar. (Made worse by lack of canvas numbers.)
Follow-up argument
here.
12. The system for cropping a bitmap image in OG is unusable. (Priority: 1)
The intuitive way would be a mode where you crop an image by dragging its edges.
Discussed
here. The AppleScript mentioned there unfortunately did not help.
13. Working with Guides has several problems (Priority: 2):
Please make Guides work like Photoshop's, where they snap to object edges.
Follow-up argument
here.
14. In the Line Spacing dialog box, let Enter submit. (Priority: 2)
Allow user to accept changes and dismiss dialog using Enter key (not just OK button).
JKT explained this is default OS behaviour, but would it be so hard to make things a little easier for users?
15. Bug: Search/Replace doesn't include Canvas titles. (Priority: 2)
This is a major oversight and has wasted a lot of my time.
"Added to ticket #23324"
16. After a Search & Replace, confirm somewhere how many replacements were made (Priority: 3)
"Added to ticket #23324"
17. Provide a Thumbnails view of all canvases (Priority: 2)
Like Powerpoint's "slide sorter" view, with configurable thumbnail sizes.
Follow-up argument here:
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost...19&postcount=9
16. The behaviour of Locked elements is confusing and counter-intuitive (Priority: 3)
They can't be moved or deleted, but they can still be selected and copied and pasted. I don't see the rationale for this.
Follow-up argument
here.
18. Copy Object Style (Ctrl-Alt-C) should not clear the normal clipboard buffer. (Priority: 3)
Also reported
here.
Follow-up argument
here.
19. Would like a "Regroup" command (Priority: 3)
This is a useful feature found in Powerpoint. An object remembers what's the last group it was part of.
"Added as new request"
20. Can't duplicate a line using Cmd-Alt-arrow (Priority: 3)
For some reason you can't duplicate lines like you can duplicate every other kind of object.
Follow-up argument
here.
From my first feature request compendium (May 2008):
21. Shift-drag constrains. Alt-drag copies. Why can't I combine them? (Priority: 1)
This is a baffling omission and very frustrating. Support claimed, "Indeed, this does work in OmniGraffle 5." But it doesn't.
Follow-up argument
here.
JKT claimed it works
here. But I tested again, and weirdly, it works about 1 times in 10. That just makes it buggy as well as useless.
22. Paste in Place makes no sense (Priority: 1)
To paste in place on OG, I have to copy, paste, undo, copy again, and paste again. This is just weird and a huge time-waster.
"Existing feature request"
23. After an undo operation, the previous selection should still be selected so that you don't have to re-select (Priority: 1)
Something Powerpoint does right. It's annoying to have to repeat a complicated selection.
Support claimed, "Most of the time, this is the case, although there are some bugs related to this, particularly with tables."
But it's not mostly the case. For example: select multiple items, duplicate them, and undo. The selection is gone.
24. Home / End with nothing selected should go to first / last canvas (Priority: 3)
*Please* do this one. It's not complicated. At the moment, to get to the title page of my document, it takes a lot of scrolling over the sidebar and a click.
"Existing feature request"