Since Pages '09 (v4.3) ended, Pages 5–current version hasn't supported non-contiguous text selection (see a picture here on Dropbox if you're not sure what this means). As anyone who regularly edits word processing documents (especially long ones) knows, this is a big inconvenience.
There are tons of reports of this being a problem for many people. And I am sure there are other features from Pages '09 that didn't get imported.
However, after literally years of submitting feedback reports to Apple on this and seeing exactly nothing change, I am wondering if anyone knows a way that might be possible to run macOS Mojave (the last version that supports Pages '09) in some kind of virtual machine on macOS versions going forward. I know the popular Windows VM apps like Parallels Desktop and VMWareFusion support modes where you can run a Windows app as if it were its own macOS app, which is really handy, as opposed to having to visibly boot the entire Windows machine and operate within that.
Does anyone know of a good method like this that we could use for running macOS in a VM so I could run Pages '09 on future versions of macOS? I know VirtualBox supports macOS booting, but I believe it only supports it in the traditional "boot into the whole OS and not a specific app" mode.
Or is there some way to like put the Pages '09 app into some kind of container that will let it run? I know Catalina officially killed support for 32-bit apps, which is why I haven't upgraded to that either.
I am planning to just stick to Mojave on my current machines for as long as physically (softwarily?) possible, but I'm not sure these will last another 6–8 years.
Responses to Common "Solutions":
"Just use Microsoft Word" — No. Microsoft Word sucks in its own ways and is generally very slow, no matter what Mac I have used. Pages '09 is the fastest solution that is both simple to use but advanced enough in what I need to do.
"Just use the new Pages" — No; it lacks features I need, as said in this post.
"Submit feedback to Apple" — Yep, been doing that for literally years, sometimes every single day for a period of a few weeks. No results so far.
There are tons of reports of this being a problem for many people. And I am sure there are other features from Pages '09 that didn't get imported.
However, after literally years of submitting feedback reports to Apple on this and seeing exactly nothing change, I am wondering if anyone knows a way that might be possible to run macOS Mojave (the last version that supports Pages '09) in some kind of virtual machine on macOS versions going forward. I know the popular Windows VM apps like Parallels Desktop and VMWareFusion support modes where you can run a Windows app as if it were its own macOS app, which is really handy, as opposed to having to visibly boot the entire Windows machine and operate within that.
Does anyone know of a good method like this that we could use for running macOS in a VM so I could run Pages '09 on future versions of macOS? I know VirtualBox supports macOS booting, but I believe it only supports it in the traditional "boot into the whole OS and not a specific app" mode.
Or is there some way to like put the Pages '09 app into some kind of container that will let it run? I know Catalina officially killed support for 32-bit apps, which is why I haven't upgraded to that either.
I am planning to just stick to Mojave on my current machines for as long as physically (softwarily?) possible, but I'm not sure these will last another 6–8 years.
Responses to Common "Solutions":
"Just use Microsoft Word" — No. Microsoft Word sucks in its own ways and is generally very slow, no matter what Mac I have used. Pages '09 is the fastest solution that is both simple to use but advanced enough in what I need to do.
"Just use the new Pages" — No; it lacks features I need, as said in this post.
"Submit feedback to Apple" — Yep, been doing that for literally years, sometimes every single day for a period of a few weeks. No results so far.