[TxMt] What I _really_ want in TM2

[Kenneth McDonald]

Well, there are a few obvious points that (most) everyone wants, better 
performance on networked files for example. There are (approximately) 
five such Really Obvious(tm) requests (hey, I won't say what they 
are--after all, they're Really Obvious(tm), right?), and even for those 
that don't affect me personally, it's pretty obvious they need to be 
taken care of.

Past that, what _I'd_ like (yes, I'm unique, and possibly completely out 
of touch with the rest of the universe :-) ) is--simplicity. I'd like 
Alan to concentrate a significant part of his design and programming 
prowess on making TM not more powerful, but more obvious.

My canonical example of this is the whole keybindings issue. Currently, 
dealing with keybindings in TM involves searching through bundles, using 
the Keyboard and Mouse Preferences Panel, and using a keybinding utility 
such as KBE. This is just too much info for my little head. I'd like it 
all in one place, and if not in one place, at least simpler.

My belief is that TM is currently at a level where (for me) 
concentrating on increasing uniformity and simplicity would in real 
terms _add_ features to the application, because I suspect that there is 
a lot of power I'm not using because I don't have the time to consider 
the special cases or esoteric knowledge needed to use already existing 
features.

So my real request for TM2 is--don't worry too much about new stuff. 
Concentrate on making TM easier to use (keybindings as described above; 
optional help strings for bundle items and a streamlined bundle editor; 
UI improvements; etc.), and I'll still feel my money is well spent.

(This may have something to do with age. At 43, the days when I both had 
the time and the desire to learn about cool "new" features, keybindings, 
etc, are long gone. In the last five years, the only truly worthwhile UI 
innovation I've come across are: The technique that Quicksilver and 
Launchbar use for identifying commands/files, and that TM uses when 
moving between files, i.e. type in a not-necessarily-contiguous 
substring of a name to identify a command/file/whatever; And 
tab-completion in TM. And the second could easily be subsumed in the first.)

Just my $0.02,
Ken