Linked List: June 22, 2022

Wednesday, 22 June 2022

Mail Merge Returns to Pages After Nine Years 

Dan Moren, writing at Six Colors:

After almost a decade, I guess it’s time to pack in my posters, stickers, and Tim Cook and Craig Federighi phone call scripts for the “Bring Mail Merge back to Pages!” campaign and declare victory. Because, yes, Mail Merge has returned to Pages.

The feature was originally included in Apple’s word processing software, but got the axe in 2013’s version 5.0, when Apple redesigned its iWork suite to give even footing across the iOS, iPadOS, and macOS platforms. In the interim, Mail Merge remained possible only via workarounds like Sal Soghoian’s Pages Data Merge app.

Version 12.1, released today, brings a brand new implementation, however, which lets you populate a template document either from your contacts or a spreadsheet.

Two discrete thoughts on this. First, nine years is a long time, but Apple seemingly remains very committed to the iWork suite. They added some cool new features in all three apps this week.

Second, the fact that workarounds like Soghoian’s Pages Data Merge were even possible in the interim shows the essential nature of good automation/scripting support in serious apps. Automation isn’t so much about letting all users script apps, because we all know most users aren’t scripters. But automation lets the users who are scripters provide solutions for the whole community of users.

Kottke, on Sabbatical 

Jason Kottke, six weeks ago:

Does what I do here make a difference in other people’s lives? In my life? Is this still scratching the creative itch that it used to? And if not, what needs to change? Where does kottke.org end and Jason begin? Who am I without my work? Is the validation I get from the site healthy? Is having to be active on social media healthy? Is having to read the horrible news every day healthy? What else could I be doing here? What could I be doing somewhere else? What good is a blog without a thriving community of other blogs? I’ve tried thinking about these and many other questions while continuing my work here, but I haven’t made much progress; I need time away to gain perspective.

So. The plan, as it currently stands, is to take 5-6 months away from the site. I will not be posting anything new here. I won’t be publishing the newsletter. There won’t be a guest editor either — if someone else was publishing here, it would still be on my mind and I’m looking for total awayness here.

Six weeks in and I miss his words dearly, but I’m happy for him. They say you should hydrate before you get thirsty. I suspect the same is true for taking sabbaticals — you should take one before you know you need one. That’s hard to figure out, though.

A friend once asked me what’s been the longest stretch between posts on DF since I started. I told him the truth: I don’t know.

Update: Well, now I know, thanks to a nifty Ruby script from DF reader Henrik Nyh. I took a 12-day break around Christmas in 2003. Since I started the Linked List (shorter link posts) in 2004, the longest gap is 8 days, from 29 December 2019 to 6 January 2020. The longest stretch between feature articles is 50 days, from 22 September to 11 November 2015.