New "Navigate" pane, and other exciting enhancements - SI BETA 4.5.3

(as always, click heading or 'read more' link for the full post, this is just a summary.) If you use SpecsIntact very much and are interested in trying a very cool new release before it get pushed out in 2015, this one is really worth taking a look at. SEE ALL NOTES BEFORE USING, AND EMAIL SUPPORT TO SIGN UP FOR INTERIM UPDATES.

My favorite new feature is the "Navigate" pane.

Notes from the developers:

SI Tip of the Day: Easy way to undelete

If you want to undelete something, often the easiest way is to just delete the tag.

You have to have tags turned on. You have to have Revisions tracking turned off.


Then you can delete any beginning or ending DEL tag with the backspace or the delete key, to undelete the struck text.

SI Tip of the Day: Shift+Delete Keystroke to Delete Blocks of Text

TIP: A little-known keystroke Shift+Delete can be used when your cursor is at beginning of an XML tag such as SPT, TXT, LST, ITM, to instantly and correctly delete everything enclosed by the start tag and its associated end tag.

Screenshots - Before:

After:

Still a good idea to use Alt, T, V to check validity. 

AND BE AWARE that any nested subparts will also be deleted if you delete a parent SPT tag and all that is within it using Shift+Delete.

(This information is found in the built-in help system, under SpecsIntact Editor > Using the SI Editor > Tips & Techniques. Along with a lot of other good tips & techniques ;)

Finding reference standard if you don't know how the Organization is abbreviated

What do you do if you don't know the abbreviation that SpecsIntact's system uses for a reference organization? ASTM and ANSI are pretty easy to find, but how about the American's with Disabilities Act? What is it filed under? There is not Architectural Transportation Board organization listed. There are lots of U.S. agencies listed, but non appear to include the ADAAG. No organization seems to be listed that is intuitively related to accessibility.

Hmmm... what can you do to quickly & easily find it? You know it's gotta be in there SOMEWHERE. Try using your UMRL file to find it.

1. Go to C:\Program Files\SpecsIntact (or wherever you installed the SpecsIntact program to).

2. Open \UMRL\umrl.ref.

3. Use Ctrl+F, adaag, whole word. Voilà! It is under one of those CFR's, specifically 36 CFR 1191. Scroll up to find the organization. Turns out to be U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION (NARA)

4. So now go back to the dialog box, and look under NARA! After dealing with the fact they do not sort in a logical numerical order, you can easily add it to your section.