Does anyone know why, sometimes, it isn’t possible to edit fields in the Quick Edit tab (Endnote X4)? Sometimes it works fine, but at other times any attempt to type in a field is greeted with an error beep. Closing EndNote and re-launching clears the problem.
Did you install the patch which upgrades X4 to X4.0.2? The patch adddresses a number of issues including one which regarding “minor UI improvements” for Quick Edit. Instructions and download info is available at:
Thanks; yes, I’m at 4.0.2. Looks like there’s another minor UI improvement that’s needed 
There are other oddities as well: sometimes, when saving a reference, I get instead a message that implies that I was trying to close the reference without saving, and do I want to save it nevertheless?
I don’t recall other users reporting such a problem on the forum. If you’ve installed X4 over a prior version, you might try unstalling both versions, clean the registry, then reinstall X4 with the patch (but backup all .enl and .xml files, .DATA folders, and modified styles and reference templates first).
Also suggest contacting tech support: http://www.endnote.com/support/entechform.asp
Thanks again. Actually, this is the first version of EndNote I’ve owned, so I don’t think it can be the result of detritus from previous versions getting in the way. Perhaps I should contact the tech support people, as you suggest.
This is very likley becuase you have an individual EndNote record window open in the background somewhere. The Quick Edit pane only allows edits when there are no other dialogs/windows open to avoid possible saving/overwrite issues. This is by design and should be documented in Help somewhere. If not, then it seems like it might be a good idea for us to add a note about this behavior.
I hope this helps.
Jason Rollins, the EndNote team
The odd thing about the message is that it only pops up sometimes. For most of the time when I’m editing a reference and click Ctrl+S or select File–Save, it just saves the reference and leaves it open so I can continue editing. But every so often it gives this other dialog, and when I answer yes, I do want to save the reference, it saves it and closes the reference. There has to be a pattern to explain the difference, but I haven’t spotted it yet.
I can see the need for only having one reference in editable condition – that makes perfect sense. I’ll look for what you suggest, although I don’t think an edit window has been open at the same time. Presumably EndNote sets a flag when a reference is opened for editing, and I’m wondering whether, sometimes, the flag doesn’t get properly reset when the reference is closed. That would produce the behaviour I’m describing.