I couldn't agree with you more, Paul.

The changes to Tinderbox 4.5 (from 4.2.3) are just what the doctor (of philosophy ordered. I find Tinderbox indispensable for my work and every update makes it that much more mind-blowing.

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Oh, snap! Buried in the "minor" portion of the release notes: "Improved Find Window"

Why so subtle? The updated Find window ROCKS the HOUSE!!

w00t!

Thanks, Eastgate.

Dividers: make an adornment. Now, make it very narrow.  It turns into a divider.

Dividers are drawn in the adornment layer, but they have a height (or width) of zero and are all border.

Why drop shadows?

First, they open up some new opportunities for low-contrast color schemes.  Cutting down on the graphic noisiness of Tinderbox maps can help emphasize the really distinctive notes.  In some cases, though, you wind up with ivory-on-white (or black on black); a bit of drop shadow makes a big difference.

Second, they're yet another dimension you can use as a visualization tool.  For example, tying ShadowDistance to (say) $WordCount might make overly-long sections really pop out from the map.  Of course, you've got lots of dimensions already -- color, shape, border, typeface, type size, type color.  But having an extra tool helps.

Third, people like drop shadows.

You can turn them off easily; just change the default value of Shadow to false.

Showing text in map icons came in with v4.0 IIRC, v4.5 adds tabular data and variable title bar width for containers. See http://www.markbernstein.org/Aug0801/ComingAttractionsInsidethe.html that demonstates the latter.  If you drag an ordinary note map icon larger or drag a v4.5 container title height larger (and you're not using tabular data display) you'll see some/all of your note's text displayed beneath the title. Such text display is only available for rectangular (default) shaped icons - you can resize rectangles but is you use an entire;y different v4+ Shape for the icon the body text can't be dislayed. MapBodyTextSize sets the (point) size of the body text shown in map icons.

I, too, have no idea whether this is the appropriate place to say this, but here goes.

I may use less than 10% of the capabilities, as someone said, but the addition of word wrap for notes titles and the ability to edit those inline expands my use greatly.

Now, if I could easily and smoothly print to well formatted outlines. But I'll take what I can get.

Thanks from me, too, Mark.

To Johnnie:
Would you mind sharing offline some ways you are using TB in your work? I am starting an Ed.D in educational leadership and social justice and would love to manage my research with it. I am already using Nvivo via VM Fusion as well as Word and Endnotes on the Mac side.
Thanks,
Patrick

@Michael Fitzhugh:  I was referring to being able to see text in map views, as you suggested. I was just thinking back over recent developments in Tinderbox -- that one isn't new in 4.5 -- and realizing how far along it has come.

What we now need is for Apple to link all apps to ~/Applications.  Then I could have an account which only had Tinderbox available, and maybe I'd get some work done...