Printed output is currently created at 72 dpi.

Because keyboard focus (Full Keyboard Access) is not yet implemented, sequences that rely on tab field commands that move through popup menu, checkbox, and radio button fields will fail.

In addition, turning Full Keyboard Access on can result in crashes as Mac OS X attempts to activate controls that wxWidgets can not handle. See this technote for more information.

Because OS X renders field rectangles with a 3D effect, it steals an extra 2 pixels from the area where text would normally appear. The result is that text no longer fits into rectangles that were trimmed to the minimum vertical height allowed for a particular point size, when designing templates in RADE.

Because the 'content' area of the rectangles is smaller in OS X, leaving the text at its intended size would result in character descenders are chopped off.

In order to resolve this problem, Helix reduces fonts by 0.90, rounding down. For example, 12 point text is reduced to 10 point. (12 * 0.90 = 10.8, resulting in 10 point with the fractional part dropped)

To minimize the impact of this on small sizes, open the System Preferences -> Appearance panel and set Font Smoothing to a value small enough to allow OS X to smooth out the reduced size fonts.

The only long-term solution to this problem is to go into RADE and adjust the design of your templates to use larger font sizes.

Certain fonts (Helvetica is a prime example) are available in multiple versions (bitmap, TrueType, PostScript, dfont, etc.) and the translation from one to the other sometimes goes very badly. If this is happening to you, make sure you do not have multiple versions of that font installed. (Apple’s Font Book application can show you where duplicates exists.)

While a sequence is running, it is possible to put Helix in the background, but this will almost certainly cause the sequence to fail when it moves from one step to the next. Be careful not to put Helix in the background while a sequence is running.

After opening a collection, Helix may appear to be ready, but is not. Attempts to select a menu item in this situation may result in an OS X delay cursor (spinning beach ball) for 5-10 seconds. This does not happen in all collections.

In Classic Helix when you open a list, the window immediately opens, then there is a delay while the contents are gathered. In the case of asynchronous lists, you can do other things while waiting for the list to complete.

In OS X Helix, the window does not open until the contents are ready to be displayed. In the case of list that should be asynchronous (defined as any list without summary tiles outside the repeat rectangle), nothing can be done until the list is complete and the window opened.

Non-text fields (popups, checkboxes, radio buttons) ignore the Allow Tab option, and must be set via mouse click.

The OS X preference that allows control elements to obtain focus (Full Keyboard Access) is currently ignored.

It is currently impossible to set the attributes of styled text in a dynamic popup that allows typing.

The first implementation of the font panel in Helix has a number of problems.

• The font panel is modal: you must open the panel, choose your font/size/color, then close the panel to continue editing the record. You can't simply leave it open and edit like you can in other OS X applications.
• You must type some text in the styled text field before opening the font panel. After typing, select the text you want to change, then open the font panel and make your changes.
• The style changes being made are not always seen in the field being edited. Changing the size of the styled text updates both the font and size. Changing the font does not update the field until the font panel is closed, the size is changed, or the color panel is opened.
• Changing the color of styled text updates the color when the color panel is closed.
• After you have set the style of some text, that style is applied to all additional text typed in that field. That style is not retained when tabbing to another styled text field: the default style for that field is used.
• When typing in a new record, the last color that was viewed in each styled text field is retained, but the last font and size are not.
• Some fonts (Lithos for me) simply do not register when selected.
• Fonts with multiple typefaces are not always applied as expected.

A field with a horizontal scroll bar (and Word Wrap turned off) doesn't activate the scroll bar when it should.

In Mac OS X 10.4.x typing past the right edge of the field moves the selection point out of sight and you can't see what is being typed. There is no way to see that text other than copying it and using Show Clipboard.

In Mac OS X 10.5.x the horizontal scroll bar is still permanently inactive. However the field does scroll so you can always see the selection point. This is consistent with the way Classic scrolled the field to show the cursor; the difference being that the horizontal scroll bar is disabled, giving you no way to move left and right other than moving the selection point.

This is a known bug in OS X. Until Apple addresses it or we find a workaround, you should avoid the use of horizontal scroll bars in text fields.

Also, when both word wrap and horizontal scroll bar are turned on you have confused settings: the text wraps, so the horizontal scroll bar can never activate. OS X Helix detects this confusion and turns the horizontal scroll bar off altogether.

In certain rare situations Classic Helix fails to print the button name (or picture), printing only the frame.

If a data rectangle has Word Wrap turned off and Center or Right alignment, the data rectangle appears to be empty.

This problem is caused by a limitation in OS X, so until Apple addresses it, we must work around it.

The workaround: In OS X Helix, a rectangle with Word Wrap turned off and Right or Center alignment respects the alignment and turns Word Wrap on, regardless of the user specification.

Popup menus that are set to allow typing ignore text alignment settings. OS X popup menus are always left aligned.

The Allow Menu to Resize to Data attribute is ignored: popup menus always resize.

The cursor changes (to a hand pointing upwards or to the right) that occur when hovering over a button or list respectively are currently non-functional.

The cursor change (to a Command symbol) that occurs when Helix is executing a sequence or other long operation is no longer supported.