Pages 1.0.x: Scrolls back to the left when starting a new page
Posted by Pierre Igot in: PagesAugust 4th, 2005 • 3:02 pm
One of the most irritating aspects of Pages is that it only has one “WYSIWYG” view mode and that, in that view mode, by default the left margin is fully visible in the document window, even if that margin does not contain anything.
This is irritating especially for users like me, who often need to work with several document windows side by side. This left margin takes up a lot of space for absolutely no purpose (except to make the page look like an actual page). Given that the Styles drawer already takes up valuable horizontal space on the right-hand side of the window, this is a major problem in terms of window width.
There are strategies to minimize the problem. For example, after you’ve created a new document or opened an existing document, you can scroll horizontally to the right in order to align the left indent with the left edge of the window and effectively hide the left margin.
Fortunately, this horizontal scrolling position is preserved when you save the document. In other words, if you close the document and open it again, the position will be preserved.
Unfortunately, Pages’ behaviour when starting a new page completely disrupts this. If you have carefully positioned the document inside the window so that the left margin is hidden, and you type text and the text becomes long enough that Pages needs to start a new page, as soon as Pages starts the new page, it scrolls back to the left and makes the left margin visible again!
Grrr.
August 8th, 2005 at Aug 08, 05 | 3:54 pm
“One of the most irritating aspects of Pages is that it only has one ‘WYSIWYG’ view mode”…
And one of the most irritating aspects of chicken eggs is they only come from chickens…lol.
OK, I can see how the view changing with each new page is irritating and a problem for your workflow. However, complaining about WYSIWYG showing the complete document is like complaning that a dog barks while barking. (OK, not the best metaphor) WYSIWYG is supposed to show a person what the page will look like when printed, the whole page, not what it will look like if you cover the left margin. Perhaps what all layout and word processing apps need is a custom view, that allows the user to hide certain aspects of the document.
Can you make the window cover the right margin? I’ll have to open Pages when I get home later today. I just had to say something about that opening line..lol.
Chuck
August 8th, 2005 at Aug 08, 05 | 5:54 pm
I agree that I might have phrased my opening line better… The irritation comes from the flaws in the design of the WYSIWYG view, which prevent the user from using it with the margins hidden.
You can indeed make the window cover the right margin as well, but again, this causes a fair amount of uncontrollable hopping to the left and to the right that makes things unusable.