...or lows, in irritating customers.
Previously, many complained about the "Save for Web" dialog not being able to remember the last used format (gif, lpeg, png-8, png-24). While they seem to have corrected that, if one selects jpg, the "quality" is always set to zero. I'm not sure that qualifies as "quality!"
So, in version 9, Adobe managed to break a couple of other things. There is a setting that causes the file name extension to never, always, or ask the user if she wants it added. If it wanted, then it can be in lower or UPPER-case letters. The default is to always include/add the extension in lower-case letters. That's fine and what most people seem to want.
Most people also like to be able to see all the images that might be open. Back-in-the-days, Elements only allowed one image to be open at a time. Even Adobe realized that was pretty dumb so they changed that. But, in case some people wanted to view only one at a time, there is a setting that is labeled "Allow Floating Documents in Full Edit Mode" (Caps added by Adobe...maybe they are going to write a book by that title?). Only one small problem. No matter whether that choice is selected (default setting) or not, it doesn't work. Great job Adobe!
What's worse, when the user realizes this and opens the prefs (using command-k, of course, rather than the command-comma that every single other app uses
) not only does changing the check box not have any effect whatsoever, the user has just changed, permanently, no less, the setting for the extension on a file name!!! That setting is not set to "Never." And re-setting it will not work!
The only "solution" is to open Elements and immediately press shift-option-command. One will then get a dialog with an option to reset/remove/delete all settings, obviously including any you may have set yourself. Well, there is another way, you can manually move/remove any plist you can find...but what about that .psp file? Is that really a list of settings or what?
Basically, if you like the settings Adobe provides as defaults, don't even open the Preferences file. Absolutely DO NOT change anything in them! Either way, there's about a 99% chance that you'll lose even the few items that you do like! And the only way to get them back is to remove all the lists (and there are several).
I don't know about you, but programming is not magic. It is a sometimes extremely complicated exercise, but it is basically breaking down the overall job into discrete, separate tasks and then building each one. There are literally thousands of individual developers just working on Mac apps. There are probably hundreds of two/three-man companies doing the same. Then there are a few dozen really large companies like Adobe. I find it inconceivable that there are so many great apps designed and maintained by these single or very small groups. And that seem to have almost no problems in creating useful and reliable apps. And yet a company like Adobe cannot even design one that manages bot to destroy its own preferences files. Frankly, I don't know how to describe that lack of skill other than to call it simple incompetence.
I think the main reason, in Adobe's case is the shear refusal to use the built-in capabilities of the OS, he API's Apple makes available to every developer. It seems to be a case of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Sure, the work Elements can do can be extremely complicated, even difficult to understand when building certain functions in the app. But writing a simple XML file is not 'rocket-science.' But then, Adobe doesn't like to just write a standard 'plist' file. They seem to be more like highbred machine-readable values that depend on their location in columns and rows to be usable in the app.
It just doesn't make sense to me that the basic ability to write/read a plain text file cannot be done by a multi-million dollar company. Surely they can hire a few interns fresh out of high-school that could show their other 'programmers' how to do that. It's beyond absurd, in my humble opinion. However that absurdity is completely match by their disregard for their customers. Perhaps they got confused by the "insanely great" slogan and thought it meant "absurdly stupid?"
