Save as in TextEdit?

Yes, pretty much everyone knows that.

When you have years of muscle memory set to Command+Shift+S, it's greatly annoying to have the keystroke move. Try Command+Shift+S and then Command+Option+Shift+S - both with one hand. The first is very easy to do and I can hit those keys without even looking at the keyboard. The "new" way can't be done. I've tried shifting my left hand every which way, and you can't perform that keystroke with one hand.

Apple was long a proponent of the "Human Interface" rules. There's a reason opening a file is always Command+O, closing an item is Command+W, etc. They idea is for uniformity so you don't have to think about the most commonly used commands. The desktop and your apps all behave the same way, which speeds up your workflow by not having to memorize different commands for the same thing every time you use a different app. Then Apple suddenly decides not to follow its own rules and breaks over two decades of interface function.

Apple was deluged with angry users about this change (and others) in Lion. Mountain brought back a way to revert Save As to Command+Shift+S. It can all be done in the System Preferences. No need for lengthy Terminal commands or other under-the-hood tricks. It isn't documented, though. You either have to discover it yourself, or look up the solution online.

The lack of 'Save As' in the new TextEdit makes for an unnecessary palaver.

Having to 'Duplicate' and then 'Save' is one action more than necessary. I think they should bring back 'Save As' to make iife simple and easier.

Did they ever fix this issue in the latest OS and go back to the more Mac-intuitive "save as"? (I'm still on Mavericks) I still screw up every time trying to figure out how to "duplicate". The easiest solution is to simply command-d the file in the finder and then edit that one.

I'm also wondering if Apple wasn't doing this to gauge how people would respond to them eliminating "save as" and replacing it with "duplicate" for all programs in future OS'...

Read here.

If you follow the steps in the link I posted, you can make Mountain Lion through Mavericks behave the same as Snow Leopard and earlier. Autosave/Versions will still be active, but Save As… will be where you expect it in all apps, and the original file will not have the same changes as the Save As… file up to the point you create the offshoot.

Thanks, Kurt - helpful but would be so much easier to see it back in the menu.
It's unfortunate that with every new OS or virtually any major software program, there is always a tradeoff between gaining something in one area, and losing something important in another. :-)

TextEdit is no longer the wonderful simple program it used to be, too many added steps to do simple things just so they could load it with more features - some many don't even want or need. I often use it as a repository for cutting and pasting text between programs like Word and Adobe AI or ID so that formatting gets stripped, and it's quite cumbersome now.

The last version in Snow Leopard was probably TextEdit's pinnacle.

Thanks, Kurt - helpful but would be so much easier to see it back in the menu.

That's the whole point of the outline. Save As… returns to its traditional spot in the menus of all apps and works with the normal Command+Shift+S keystroke instead of having to add the Option key.

TextEdit is no longer the wonderful simple program it used to be,

You can change that, too. It's what I do on every Mac we use.

1) Create a folder named Applications in your user account.

2) Copy TextEdit from Snow Leopard into this new folder.

3) Use Terminal to delete the version of TextEdit that comes with Lion or later from the root Applications folder. You can also open the Get Info dialogue on it and change all permissions to Read/Write. Then you can put the newer version of TextEdit in the trash from the desktop without the OS telling you it's "required".

Since a version of TextEdit will still exist (in your user account), there's no need to change file associations. The reason for putting it in your user account is permissions. If you were to put it in the normal Applications folder, doing a Repair Permissions in Lion or later will destroy SL's versions of TextEdit, and you'll have to retrieve it from SL again. Repair Permissions doesn't do anything to user accounts, so it will remain untouched there. The SL version of TextEdit has no idea what versions or autosave is, so will behave as you're used to. That is, saving changes only when you tell it to.

Terminal.app If you are comfortable using Terminal.app, you can add a different keyboard shortcut this with one simple line. First, quit all your apps except Finder and Terminal. Then paste this command (as one line) into Terminal.app (and press Return):

That's it!

Exactly how I feel. Drives me crazy. All I want is a standard text editor with standard features. First I had to hunt around to just save in plain text. Then, instead of the universal "Save as" we now have "Duplicate" and unless you look for help or read the documentation, the method for saving as via "Duplicate" is unclear at best. Apple seems to insist on being different whether it's useful to be different or not. Standardization is actually useful for human interfaces.

Thank you. Worked like a charm.

It only somewhat works, which is why I don't suggest that Terminal command. Open an image in Preview. Save As… will have disappeared from Preview. The only commands in the menu to save any file will be Save or Export.

At least, that's how the command used to affect Preview.

I tested preview and still had Save As I've had zero problems since the cmd was eliminated.

Oh! Sorry, wrong command. Yes, that one does the same thing as entering Save As… in the System Preferences. I was thinking of a similar topic about killing Autosave/Versions.

I recommend that Apple allow the user to adjust menu operations using "preferences". I would love a global method of setting what menus have in them. Even using the terminal app would be okay for setting "global menu preferences". I dislike losing "Save As" as a standard menu item.

99guspuppet aka Gus Calabrese in Denver