Sorting/alphabetizing

Feature requests, and in-depth discussions of features and the way Mellel works

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KevinR
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Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by KevinR »

I have searched the guide and there appears to be no way sort/alphabetize a selected list of words.

It would be nice to have this feature, with options, e.g., , sort selected order: (choose) English, Turkish, French, Arabic (choose order--standard Arabic (h, w, y) or Persian (w, h, y)).

Thanks
Kevin
Reiner
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Post by Reiner »

Mellel has no sorting-function until now.

But you can use the free wordservices from DEVONtechnologies to sort your paragraphs. (it does work very well but not if your paragraphs use different styles.)

http://www.devon-technologies.com/files/WordService.tgz
Reiner
linmel
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Re: Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by linmel »

Saw that as of 2005 there was no sort/alphabetize feature in Mellel. Is this still true? If so, is the Devon Technologies word service still the best patch?
rpcameron
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Re: Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by rpcameron »

Yes on both accounts.
donb
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Re: Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by donb »

If you are using the Snow Leopard, there is a very simple way to do this. In the Mellel Menu, click on Services Preferences, and when Snow Leopard's Services Preferences setup appears, under Keyboard Shortcuts you'll find an item called Services. This will bring up a long list of items of which can be used in Mellel. Scroll down to "sort ascending" or "sort descending", as you prefer. Change the shortcut listed to control-option-command-A and then shut the window. You will now find that that keyboard command works fine in Mellel to sort words or lines. (You need to make the change of shortcut because the one listed by default in Services, command-option-A, in Mellel is used by to open the applications menu.)

Don Broadribb
Bill
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Re: Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by Bill »

I created a glossary of terms, sorted alphabetically.

To do that, I followed the advice on this forum, first installing DevonThink's WordService utility, and then using the Mellel/Services menu to sort my list.

OK, the exercise wasn't too painful. But, my example of creating an alphabetized glossary of terms illustrates a word processing task that ought to be handled by a word processing program.

So here is another vote for Mellel to add line sorting to its feature list.
Bill
donb
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Re: Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by donb »

But the whole point of having the Services provision in Snow Leopard is to make tasks available for any or all programs without programmers having to specially incorporate the task into their program. This was/is intended to be a special Mac facility. When the System itself makes provision for such a task as alphabetizing, why duplicate it in individual programs? You can choose the System keyboard shortcut for the task, and having highlighted the list you want to alphabetize in your Mellel document, simply press the keyboard shortcut. Isn't this the most rational way to approach things?

Don Broadribb
Bill
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Re: Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by Bill »

Thanks for offering your perspective.

Now that I downloaded Devon Technolgies Wordservices, it's quite easy to use the Mellel/Services menu to sort lines.

But Wordservices is a third party program and, as far as I can tell, the sort functionality does not exist in the Mellel/Services menu without it. I looked in the list of available Services before I installed the Devon Technologies program, and I didn't find any sorting options. (OSX 10.6.4)

While I think it's perfectly reasonable for software developers to take advantage of System tools in designing their programs, I'm not sure that it's a good idea for developers to rely on third party software to provide core functionality. It leaves the developers' programs vulnerable to whatever changes the third party makes, and the developers have given up some control over how users interact with their programs.

So back to our specific example, I think it would be better to sort lines in Mellel, without being dependent on the graciousness of the folks at Devon Technologies.
Bill
donb
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Re: Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by donb »

You did not look in the right place. Look in the Mellel Menu (right next to the Apple Menu, in Mellel); select services and then services preferences; then Keyboard shortcuts; then services; then scroll down to text; then scroll down to Sort lines ascending & sort lines descending.
rpcameron
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Re: Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by rpcameron »

donb wrote:You did not look in the right place. Look in the Mellel Menu (right next to the Apple Menu, in Mellel); select services and then services preferences; then Keyboard shortcuts; then services; then scroll down to text; then scroll down to Sort lines ascending & sort lines descending.
Don, you must have something else installed, because those sort option services do not appear in the Services listing of my 10.6.4 installation. I believe those might be services that DevonTechnologies' WordService has installed on your system, and that is why you are seeing them.
— Robert Cameron
donb
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Re: Sorting/alphabetizing

Post by donb »

I apologize; it is indeed possible that I did install the Devon Technologies' Wordservices but had forgotten that I did so.

Don
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