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NWX 2.7 does not work in Leopard

Posted: 2007-11-02 07:41:30
by chrlymacq
Nisus Writer 2.7 does not work in Leopard. I'm sure I'm not the first person having this issue.
It will try to open, and then hang indefinitely. It takes me two rounds of Force Quit to get it to finally shut down.
NWX 3 works fine. At least in demo.

I've been a Nisus user since the first Nisus came out oh so many years ago. I'm not going to get all pissy about it, but I'm just not going to upgrade to 3.0. If there was a 2.7 fix to get it to work in Leopard, then I would use it. I've been considering NWP, but both Mariner Write and Mellel work in Leopard with no upgrade. So, again, no attitude, it just doesn't make sense to pay 30 bucks to get Nisus to work when two other word processors work fine. Especially after the $129 for Leopard.

I'm not trying to tell Nisus how to run their business. I'll still keep tabs on them, and maybe upgrade to Pro if I'm not getting what I need from those other programs.
I just wanted to relate my experience.

thanks.

Posted: 2007-11-03 01:39:58
by HeatherKay
I have to say I think I agree.

While upgrading and new features are generally worth paying for, if NWE 2.7 works more than adequately for folk (including me) there's no real compulsion to move upwards.

It would be great if the Nisus guys could make 2.7 Leopard compatible. I use the app every day, and eventually I'm going to have to move to Leopard. Although the NWE upgrade price is very reasonable, there are no features in version 3 that I really have to have, so I'd prefer to keep 2.7 if I could.

Consider this asking nicely to please make a patch to keep 2.7 running in Leopard. I don't care about Cover Flow compatibility or anything fancy. I just don't want it to crash when I launch it.

Thank you.

agreed

Posted: 2007-11-05 09:24:48
by soulbarn
I find it incredibly annoying to be asked to pay $30 for what is basically a compatibility upgrade. It feels - I'm not saying this is true, but this is how it feels - that Nisus is simply trying to take advantage of the situation by forcing an upgrade. I also find the two different versions of Nisus to be incredibly confusing. Is the new express really a 3.0 version - or is it 2.8, with a version number bump to justify the price.

I love Nisus. I have been using it for over a decade. But this situation feels a bit dodgy to me. Others might disagree, of course.

Re: agreed

Posted: 2007-11-06 00:53:14
by HeatherKay
soulbarn wrote:But this situation feels a bit dodgy to me. Others might disagree, of course.
This has been covered in other topics, but I don't think it's dodgy. I bought NWE1, and I don't remember paying for upgrades until now. That's over three years that I can recall. (Anything further back is beginning to become hazy, but that's just my age, I think!)

I don't object to having to pay what is a small upgrade fee - consider that to upgrade my copy of Photoshop 7 (another app which breaks under Leopard) to the CS3 Design Standard suite Adobe wants me to shell out almost the same amount of money as buying the full package in the first place. My only beef is that I don't really need all the bells and whistles of NWE3, and I'd be fairly happy to remain with 2.7.

When I feel it's right, or some job requires the extra features (some hope!), then I'll happily shell out for the upgrade.

Posted: 2007-11-06 03:00:46
by soulbarn
all well and good, but my copy of nisus is dead in leopard. I'm not really being given a choice to stay in 2.7 (unless I "choose" to keep my entire system in a monolithic state.)

There's a level of calculation in all the versions and pricing. The other wp programs for mac don't compare; the ms office upgrade is still months out (and will be pricier.) With few workable options, the folks at Nisus know that their market has little option but to bear the cost of the upgrade. That's supply and demand - but I'd argue that a big gamble is being taken in terms if goodwill and long-term sales.

Respectfully,

Dan

Re: agreed

Posted: 2007-11-06 05:12:39
by samuelas
This has been covered in other topics, but I don't think it's dodgy. I bought NWE1, and I don't remember paying for upgrades until now. That's over three years that I can recall. (Anything further back is beginning to become hazy, but that's just my age, I think!)
Yes, but in fairness NWE 1 lacked basic functionality. It wasn't until around 2.5 that it seemed like a usable product--and how big of an upgrade is 3 from 2.5?

Mellel lets you upgrade free for two years. It's something like a contract with their customers. I appreciate this kind of transparency and I wish Nisus would adopt a similar approach. Indeed, as an outsider, it seems rather arbitrary the decision to have two separate apps NWE and NWP, as well as this immediate jump from 2.7 to 3.

Posted: 2007-11-07 14:30:28
by soulbarn
It feels dodgier and dodgier to me, on thinking about it. By timing the upgrade to coincide with the release of the new OS, Nisus has compounded the problem - and made me feel that they care little for existing customers. Anyone who uses Nisus and upgrades to Leopard finds, automatically, that their existing files are close to inaccessible.

(Yes, Text Edit works. But that's like saying that users of Photoshop - which also, I'm told, chokes on Leopard - have no right to complain because Preview can open their files.)

You buy a tool to do a job. The tool we bought was taken arbitrarily, and we've been told - by Nisus's actions - that purchasing a different tool is mandatory just to access the work we've completed with the bought-and-paid for original tool.

No matter how you feel about the company's right to charge for an upgrade, I can't see how anybody could describe this action as fair. It is never right or smart to force your customers into a purchase decision. It should be something they want to do. It should be something that comes not just from need, but from desire, goodwill and community.

I see little of that here, and perhaps a hint of calculation, or at least pressuring, as well. Not fair. Not cool.

Simple solution: make 2.7 work. Make 3.0 express a compelling enough upgrade that those who use 2.7 with Leopard will feel appreciated enough to make the purchase.

And regarding Pages: it may be that 3.0 as an upgrade is a "bargain" compared to Apple's word processor. It may be that Apple's no-upgrade-discount policy at all is a lot worse than what's going on here. None of this should distract from the fact that every customer who decides to use Pages, or WriteRoom, or MS Word, or even MultiMate (bonus points if you know what that is) instead upgrading Nisus is a lost customer for Nisus. That's what the company should be worrying about.

Please make 2.7 work. Don't give us the new features. Let us decide on those separately. It's the right thing to do.

Posted: 2007-11-08 06:37:43
by samuelas
soulbarn wrote: I see little of that here, and perhaps a hint of calculation, or at least pressuring, as well. Not fair. Not cool.
Unfortunately, this doesn't surprise me. This is the norm, I think. The only way to get around this stuff--as I've been tempted to do many, many times in situations just like this--is go FLOSS/GNU Linux.

Posted: 2007-11-08 08:57:06
by HeatherKay
soulbarn wrote:Please make 2.7 work. Don't give us the new features. Let us decide on those separately. It's the right thing to do.
It may well be the right thing to do. However, there may be various factors at play here.

For a start, Nisus have put a lot of time and resources into providing a Pro version (something I believe there had been a fair amount of clamour for), and have effectively brought NWE up to version 3 for parity. Nisus is not a large company like Adobe. They have limited resources at their disposal, so have to make them work as best they can. We've not had a paid-for update to NWE for four years or so.

Secondly, I'm not a developer. I can't write the code for toffee, so I don't know what goes on at the coal face when Apple releases a new OS. Who's to say whether the first release of Leopard hasn't broken things sufficiently in the Nisus world that it's a lot of time and effort to actually make what is now, in effect, a legacy application work with the new OS. Would Quark make XPress 4 run on OSX if we all shouted loud enough? No, I didn't think so.

I think the timing of all this is a coincidence. Bad timing, for sure, but I don't think it's anything anyone at Nisus HQ had control over. Sadly, I think the guys at Nisus have had to make a very tough decision between supporting 2.7 in Leopard, or pressing ahead with 3.0.

I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. I'm sure they are not happy about having to make such a decision, knowing they are likely to upset some very loyal users out here.

Posted: 2007-11-08 09:29:56
by soulbarn
Heather, that may very well be true. In fact, it sounds plausible. And - if somebody from Nisus had volunteered to say exactly that, it would have been such a huge way to garner goodwill. I would have instantly bought the upgrade as a way of supporting a company that treats its customers with openness.

In fact, I don't think it's too late. Nisus?

Posted: 2007-11-09 15:09:23
by martin
I can definitely say that this situation is not a calculated way to get users to upgrade unwillingly. It honestly just ended up being bad timing with respect to the release of Leopard.

So far we've given away 4+ years of free upgrades for Express. Even if you bought version 2.0 when it was released that's still nearly 2 years of free upgrades. In the end we've got to pay for our work and hence charge for upgrades at some point. In this case it just happened that we had moved on to Express 3.0 before Leopard had been released.

As you probably know, we're a small company, and there's only so many pieces of software we can support with our resources. Updating a product so it runs properly on Leopard isn't free. We're very tightly coupled to Apple's layout system, so when things move around in the system it can be quite a bit of work.

Anyways, I hope this helps you better understand our position.

Posted: 2007-11-10 08:04:01
by overthinker
Some users need to get some perspective: it is not like Nisus is adding DRM to your files or making key components of the interface translucent! Other companies are more deserving of your vitriol. I admit I was disappointed not to get a compatibility upgrade for 2.7, but then, it's been quite a while since I paid for a license. And, pace soulbarn, you do not need to upgrade "just to access the work [you've] completed." Your files are in RTF format so can be opened simply with TextEdit.

But this touches on something that really concerns me: as Nisus adds more sophisticated features, I question whether their extensions to RTF are truly open. Open a Nisus document in a text editor and you see codes like "\nisusnoteplacement0 \nisusreferencestyle8"; presumably other word processors won't know what that means.

I was hoping Nisus would move toward implementing ODF instead of increasingly complex extensions to RTF. Part of this is ideological -- I want to see a competitor to Microsoft's format succeed -- but, also, a lean, fast Cocoa ODF editor would be a strong competitor in the Mac market, given the complexity and slowness of Open Office/NeoOffice. Unfortunately Nisus has not chosen to go in this direction, so, for now, I think I can get by with TextEdit (which is damn fast, at least) and NeoOffice for more complex documents. I hope I can support this company again in the future, but our interests are just not lining up now.

But credit to Nisus for allowing such criticism in the forums; quite possibly Apple would have censored an equivalent thread on its forums.

Posted: 2007-11-10 09:32:58
by gemboy27
I feel a little compassion for those who have resisted moving up...

but I look at it like you decided to get a PC, you wouldn't expect your software to work on that system???

Posted: 2007-11-10 10:29:15
by MacSailor
martin wrote: So far we've given away 4+ years of free upgrades for Express. Even if you bought version 2.0 when it was released that's still nearly 2 years of free upgrades. In the end we've got to pay for our work and hence charge for upgrades at some point. In this case it just happened that we had moved on to Express 3.0 before Leopard had been released.
I understand your situation fully. I really have appreciated your goodwill over the years, giving free updates for four years or more. I believe this is quite unique among the software companies around the globe (now I'm not counting any freeware applications). Thank you guys!

I for myself, have not decided yet if I'm going to upgrade to NWP or not. Right now I'm quite satisfied working with Mellel as my primary writing tool. I will probably not upgrade to NWE 3.0 and if I'll continue to use Nisus Writer, I'll definitely go for the Pro version.

What I have read in this thread, NWE 2.7 is not working well together with Leopard which I have just upgraded to (got my new MBP four days ago as a replacement for my now deceased PB Pismo. RIP.)

It would be great if NWP should be able to open and save in the ODF format as well as the present RTF format. I believe that RTF will be a dead end in a couple of years or so and that ODF is more likely to survive.

Posted: 2007-11-10 12:49:41
by Elbrecht
Well -
just had to open an ".odt" file and was at a loss.
Googled: OpenOffice/NeoOffice/AbiWord will open.
As AbiWord did the trick for me chances are Nisus will implement Save/Open (as) AbiWord ODT next!?

BTW: The most common filename extensions used for OpenDocument documents are:
.odt for word processing (text) documents
.ods for spreadsheets
.odp for presentations
.odg for graphics
.odf for formulae, mathematical equations
... so talking about ODF is a bit misleading I think!

HE