OS X forces CMD-Q to the Quit command. Those of you who are still using "CMD-QWER" for Find First/Next/Previous/Last (from back in the Double Helix days) will have to change your key commands.

Dynamic Popups in OS X Helix recalculate when a menu item that relies on lookup data senses a change in the lookup target relation. Classic Helix continues to ignore those changes, just like before.

Carbon includes code to upgrade stored printing information from OS 9 to OS X, but there is no way to go back from OS X to OS 9. Helix stores your Page Setup and Print dialog setting so it can retrieve them during sequence playback. During the transition, Helix will use the stored information but changes will not be saved for subsequent print jobs. Anything that is entered in the Page Setup or Print dialog with be remembered as long as the collection remains open (or visited), but it will not be saved. The next time the collection is accessed, it will revert back to the last settings defined under OS 9.

Classic Helix continues to use the Font, Size, Style, and Color menu items as it always has.

OS X Helix uses the font panel as provided by the System. In the user menu, the list of fonts is replaced by a single Fonts… item, which opens the font panel. If you had placed the Color, Size or Style commands in a User Mode menu, they will be disabled, as all of those functions are accessed from the System's font panel in OS X.

Using the font panel:

• The font panel is modal. To use it, select the text you want to change, open the Font Panel, make the changes, and then close the Font panel. The changes will be applied to the selected text. (To make the font panel work as an inspector, allowing changes to flow both ways (i.e. select text and it changes the font panel, select a new style and it changes the selected text) is a major project, and is slated for a subsequent release.)
• You can drag colors from the color wheel into the swatch palette. We don't yet know what this does inside of Helix. We think (we hope!) it updates the internal color table. Be careful.
• What else?

Classic Helix insets text in data rectangles by 4 pixels. OS X Helix reduces this inset to 2 pixels.

In Classic Helix an undefined picture field has a white background. In OS X an undefined picture field shows the specified background color.

This issue only applies to rectangles where the Scale Picture attribute is turned off.

The traditional PICT format stores images at 72 pixels/inch. However, PICT files created in OS X are (always?) 256 pixels/inch. These varying resolutions can cause display discrepancies when switching from Classic to OS X native Helix.

Helix uses the PICT format in three places:

• Graphics pasted into label rectangles
• Pictures pasted into Picture fields
• Pictures created when a document containing an image is rendered via the Picture tile

For the purpose of this note, these various uses are together referred to as PICT resources.

Classic Helix always displays PICT resources using either the traditional 72 pixels/inch rule, or the embedded EPS resolution. In OS X However, Helix is able display the full resolution of the PICT resource, expanding PICT resources with greater resolution to display at every pixel. (The same size as when viewed at Actual Size in the Preview application.) The result is a display that can be a different size as compared to its Classic counterpart.

In order to make PICT resources appear the same size in both Classic and Mac OS X Helix, OS X Helix resizes PICT resources to 72 pixel/inch before displaying them. This change of resolution results in PICT resources that display at a consistent size across Classic and OS X Helix.

If you wish to turn off this behavior, the HxClassicPictureCompatibility preference allows you to do so. With this preference set to No, a picture in OS X Helix displays at its full resolution. Working with a picture intended for use in this way will be difficult in Classic Helix, as it is resized to 72 pixels/inch, thereby appearing larger than expected.

This situation is further complicated by the fact that the Classic Mac OS (Mac OS 9 and earlier) also has the ability to embed EPS graphics of any resolution in a PICT file. In that case, OS X Helix is able to display more image detail, resulting in a larger image. If your PICT resources are of this type, turning the HxClassicPictureCompatibility preference off should result in display at the expected size.

See this page for more information on preferences in Helix.

When specifying a background color for a popup menu (dynamic or static), Classic Helix uses that color for the menu itself. In OS X Helix, the color of the popup menu is controlled by OS X, so the background color is applied only to the actual background area.

In Classic Helix if you press a key when no windows are open, you get a Why? message telling you that Command key is not active. In OS X Helix, those key presses are ignored, and no Why? message is given.

In Classic Helix if you press a key that can not be handled when a window is open, you get a Why? message telling you either that the Command key is not active or that there is nothing selected to type into. In OS X Helix, the Why? message always says there is nothing selected to type into.