Well, I must have been dreaming…I suppose I am thinking about bygone times. I hardly ever use the file menu since most of the commands I use are similar across apps (cmd-S, shift cmd-S, etc.). Now in Pages and Numbers, the word “edited” is displayed beside the file name and remains there until a save is performed. So, I was wrong. You are right. Thanks!
A grey menu item means that the command is unavailable.
It has always been possible to force a new save to an unchanged document on MacOS (going back to the Classic Beige era), and so for that reason the Save menu command is always shown.
I can’t find an application that behaves differently. Dorico 5 also shows the Save menu item after saving, and the document can be continually resaved.
On Windows, there are some apps which follow this convention (Save is grayed out when file has no unsaved changes), but many that don’t. Personally, I’ve never looked in the File menu of any application to see if my file is dirty, because there’s always something visible in the editing window itself.
Using Dorico 6.2.30 on an Intel Mac with Sequoia OS 15.7.7, an unsaved document has the dot in the red button at the top left of the window and a grayed-out small program icon to the left of the document name. Some other programs, notably from Apple, append an “-- Edited” after the document name to an unsaved file. Many years ago, a saved document would have a grayed-out “Save” command on the File menu. I think the “-- Edited” choice is best since it’s easiest to see. Feature request?
I thought I recalled that “greyed out” as an Apple practice at some point. The years have passed so quickly, I didn’t realize it was so long ago.
I agree with the “edited” beside the filename as the better option since it is consistent with other Apple programs (except Logic Pro, apparently, which has its own development team by my understanding as does Filemaker).