I appreciate TextEdit so much that I think it (and Preview) should be in the Mac OS X dock by default. But like so many other aspects of Mac OS X it has some weird traits. First of all is that TextEdit, despite using RTF as its native format, does not support some of RTF's most important and needed features.
Everyone Loves RTF
RTF has most of the features that word processing needs, and not much more. Had I not known better I would have guessed that Apple invented it and not Microsoft. One of the features RTF has, that is often needed is headers. Headers are very important, because (for example) the guidelines for my papers mandated that each page had my last name and page number in the upper right corner. There was just one problem: TextEdit does not support headers and footers. It supports something complex like tables, but not something simple like headers.
Toolbar Tussles TextEdit is a very basic application. It has two major UI components: the toolbar and the ruler. But wait! That isn't a toolbar. I can't hide it like I can hide other toolbars. Nor can I customise it like other toolbars. Much like with Safari, Apple has once again had some problem with its toolbar division. This is, once again, a simple problem to fix, so why don't they?
Tables are Formatted Text In the latest version of Mac OS X TextEdit has the ability to edit tables and lists, however the former is something of a hidden feature. Here's why: in order to get to the Spacing, Link, List or Table Dialogues you have to go to the Text sub-menu of the Format menu. This is not a very logical location for these items. Moreover, everything except Tables is a sheet. I think that the Spacing, List and Table menu items should be moved to the Window menu and tuned into Utility windows. They will be much more discoverable. Personally, I think that all windows for all applications should be present in the Window menu to aid discoverability.
Lists of Problems
This brings up another problem: lists. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I really can't figure out how to make them work. What I mean is I know how to shift to a child list, but I have no idea how to go out it the parent list. In Appleworks there was a key combo that moved you back and forth in the list hierarchy, but there is no such combo in the menus of TextEdit. This makes anything more single level lists impossible in this App.
That Zoom Button Again?
These next two things with TextEdit are simply oversights on Apple's part. One is annoying, and the other made me download NeoOffice in order to get documents done. The first one has to do with the Zoom button. When you click the Zoom button it cuts the bottom margin of the page out of the window when it resizes. This means that the scrollbar still shows up even though almost the entire page is visible. Also, when you are in Wrap to Page mode and have zoomed in or out of the page, the Zoom button still treats the page like it was not scaled at all!
The thing that made me get NeoOffice has to do with margins. When you change the margins of the page in the Page Setup dialogue, those settings are not reflected in the wrap to page mode. This means you can't see how you page will look like when it is printed. And a word processor that isn't wysiwyg is useless.
Check that Spellcheck! One of the many things that make Mac OS X much better than Windows XP is a system-wide spell check. This feature is immensely useful. Now, hopefully you will have picked up that there are numerous places where the system-wide spellcheck isn't so system-wide (see the contextual menus page). However, there is another problem I have had with spellcheck. Whenever you change languages, the checker does not go back over the words it had previously thought were spelled wrong. So, I have to manually click each individual word in order to have the checker recheck it, and not have it underlined red.
Moreover, there is another problem with spellcheck. It does not include a grammar check. When it is 3am and I have a paper due the next day, I find this feature quite useful. Frankly, I have no idea how grammar check works, and where I have seen it used it only has an about 50% success rate. But that doesn’t change that it is useful. And because all applications should use the same system services, the fact that there is no grammar check here means that there is no grammar check in Pages. I certainly wouldn’t pay for something like that. Apple should add grammer check, that way I would rite real grood.
Inspector While I'm on Word Processors, you may have noticed that there are no pages here on Pages or Keynote. There is a very good reason for this: these two Apps do a relatively good job of holding to HIG guidelines. It is true that there are a couple non-compliant things, like that the toolbar buttons for Styles and Play aren't unique shapes, but really, Apple has done a wonderful job with these applications. There is just one small improvement I would make: have the toolbars in the Inspector and Media Browser be a real toolbar that you can hide with a toolbar widget. Apple already does this with the colours utility window, so I think that the Inspector and Media Browser could benefit from it.