Express Sneak Peek Feedback Thread

Have a problem? A question? This is the place for answers from other Express users.
JBL
Posts: 170
Joined: 2003-04-25 14:33:59

Post by JBL »

charles wrote:If we added another icon button that would pop-up custom palette group names, would that do the trick for those of you who miss creating your own palette groups?
So you would have four buttons that were just buttons and a fifth one that was a pop up menu? Maybe I am just missing something but I am having trouble seeing this as an improvement over the old system with just one pop up menu.
joao
Posts: 55
Joined: 2003-04-25 04:42:14

Post by joao »

charles wrote:Hi everyone:

Thanks for your feedback on the palette groups. If we added another icon button that would pop-up custom palette group names, would that do the trick for those of you who miss creating your own palette groups?

-Charles
I really like things the way they are, since the current icons for the palette groups don't necessarily represent what I want to use them for.

Perhaps a preference for icon-based palette groups or menu-based ones? That does sound like a lot of messing about from a programming angle.

What you suggest is a decent compromise, but my own feeling is that what exists isn't broken and isn't in need of fixing.

I'm curious if other users have found the current palette list to be distracting or in some way not useful. I liked using the feature to the extent where it never occurred to me that it could be "improved" on. ;-)
niklas
Posts: 18
Joined: 2004-05-03 05:31:20
Location: Sweden

Post by niklas »

JBL wrote: So you would have four buttons that were just buttons and a fifth one that was a pop up menu? Maybe I am just missing something but I am having trouble seeing this as an improvement over the old system with just one pop up menu.
Because it's faster to click a button than to choose an item from a menu?

Perhaps also because the buttons are there all the time so that you can see what's available... I am normally not a big fan of buttons, they waste too much space on the screen, but these buttons don't take up more space than the old menu, so I prefer the buttons over the menu. Especially if you can squeeze in a button-menu there for additional groups.

Still, for me, keyboard shortcuts would be best in the long run, and I don't see a way to assign shortcuts to palette groups (to individual palettes yes, but they are too many to remember...).
Meuh
Posts: 16
Joined: 2003-02-18 14:18:28

Post by Meuh »

joao wrote:I really like things the way they are, since the current icons for the palette groups don't necessarily represent what I want to use them for.

Perhaps a preference for icon-based palette groups or menu-based ones? That does sound like a lot of messing about from a programming angle.

What you suggest is a decent compromise, but my own feeling is that what exists isn't broken and isn't in need of fixing.

I'm curious if other users have found the current palette list to be distracting or in some way not useful. I liked using the feature to the extent where it never occurred to me that it could be "improved" on. ;-)
I couldn't agree more. I think the icons are a) distracting - there's already enough icon action going on at the top of the document window - and b) limiting. Why abandon a totally flexible system of customing palette groups in favour of a more limited/more cluttered approach?
lyonelk
Posts: 7
Joined: 2003-05-23 23:32:10

Express Sneak Peek Feedback Thread

Post by lyonelk »

Personally, with the risk to add a confusion, I prefer the icons for the choice of the pallets. More especially as they are personnalisables. I will choose the addition of a "personal" pallet.
philippe99
Posts: 26
Joined: 2004-07-28 01:27:49
Location: Tilff, Belgium
Contact:

Post by philippe99 »

Hi Dave
I've just test the beta on my french 10.3.8 os.
After having loaded the fonts, NWX does not open the main window but displays an "internal error" message with no more information.
"Fichier/Nouveau" displays the same message.

Is there somewhere a log I can email you for more details on the problem ?

Philippe
bbrowncashdollar
Posts: 19
Joined: 2003-05-19 17:33:34

Post by bbrowncashdollar »

Meuh wrote:
joao wrote:I really like things the way they are, since the current icons for the palette groups don't necessarily represent what I want to use them for.

Perhaps a preference for icon-based palette groups or menu-based ones? That does sound like a lot of messing about from a programming angle.

What you suggest is a decent compromise, but my own feeling is that what exists isn't broken and isn't in need of fixing.

I'm curious if other users have found the current palette list to be distracting or in some way not useful. I liked using the feature to the extent where it never occurred to me that it could be "improved" on. ;-)
I couldn't agree more. I think the icons are a) distracting - there's already enough icon action going on at the top of the document window - and b) limiting. Why abandon a totally flexible system of customing palette groups in favour of a more limited/more cluttered approach?
I personally don't find them distracting and I think it add to the overall ease of use and accessibility for a wider range of users. I tried to set a couple or relatively novice users up on NWE and they had a good deal of difficulty locating all of the features in the drawer. I think this will make it easier. I find NWE UI the least intrusive of the word processing apps I've tried.
cchapin
Posts: 424
Joined: 2004-02-25 18:28:40
Location: Nagoya, Japan

Tool drawer icons versus menu

Post by cchapin »

I would vote to keep the icons at the top of the tool drawer -- because I do find it significantly easier to switch between palette groups using them -- but I'd also vote to add a pseudo flippy triangle (disclosure triangle) to their right for user-created palette groups.

This would preserve the simplicity and convenience of the icons while giving customizers (who seem not to mind the pop-up menu) the option of adding more palette groups.

Though I suggested a fifth icon earlier, I think a simple triangle would work better. It would save space, not confuse novices, and not create unnecessary clutter if the user chooses not to create new palette groups. Plus it means you don't have to come with an icon for who-knows-what.

--Craig
charles
Posts: 481
Joined: 2002-11-26 11:40:35
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:

Post by charles »

We found that many users never discovered palette groups–and all the palettes they needed in these others groups-because of the pop-up menu. Even if they did know about the feature, many users would end up placing most of their palettes into a single palette group so they would not have to change groups all the time.

The icons definitely clean this up. It makes the feature more visible and changing palette groups is much faster now as well. We think the feature will get used a lot more now and people will have an easier time finding the palettes they need.

On the other hand, having only a fixed set of icons takes away the flexibility of having your own palette groups. We will fix that though. Adding shortcut options for these palette groups is also a great idea. I will add this to our list of things to do.

Thanks again everyone for you feedback!

-Charles
Charles Jolley
Nisus Software, Inc.
midwinter
Posts: 333
Joined: 2004-09-09 18:07:11
Location: Utah
Contact:

Post by midwinter »

hey guys...am I blind, or is there no easy way to convert between endnotes and footnotes? Often, in my writing, I need to move back and forth between them depending upon the requirements of a journal. This feature in Word is one of the main things that keeps me using it, which is ironic, since word has all kinds of orphan problems. Grr!

Can we have this feature? Pretty-please?
charles
Posts: 481
Joined: 2002-11-26 11:40:35
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:

Post by charles »

midwinter:

1. Select the note text you want to change (or click in the note area and choose "select all" to change all of them.)

2. Choose Format->Style->Endnotes to change to endnotes and Format->Style->Footnotes to change to footnotes.


-Charles
Charles Jolley
Nisus Software, Inc.
midwinter
Posts: 333
Joined: 2004-09-09 18:07:11
Location: Utah
Contact:

Post by midwinter »

charles wrote:midwinter:

1. Select the note text you want to change (or click in the note area and choose "select all" to change all of them.)

2. Choose Format->Style->Endnotes to change to endnotes and Format->Style->Footnotes to change to footnotes.


-Charles
Ah. Great. May I request that you guys stick that in the "convert" menu item?
JBL
Posts: 170
Joined: 2003-04-25 14:33:59

Post by JBL »

NWE 2.5a1 seems remarkably stable for something marked as an alpha release. However, I have been having quite a few glitches. I haven't been reporting them because seem to fix themselves and then I can't reproduce them. Still they are annoying. I am interested if others are having similar experiences. For example:
1. I opened a file created with NWE 2.1.1 and the indent problem was still there. Editing the file would correct all the indents after the edit.
2. Opened a file created with TextEdit. Tab stops were not correctly recognized. Opened the file in 2.1.1 and saved it and then 2.5 recognized the tabs correctly.
3. Created a new file in 2.5. Pasted in a paragraph from Eudora. Attempted to put quotes around this paragraph. The closing quote kept wanting to be on a line all by itself. Closed and saved the document and when I reopened it it was fine.
Weird.
GBeurlen
Posts: 19
Joined: 2004-06-02 08:27:02

Style Sheet

Post by GBeurlen »

The difficulties in formatting paragraphs in the StyleSheet I had with NWExpress 2.1.1are still there in NWE 2.5.

The right margin changes in accordance of the width of the open window.

Indentation typed into the tab window are not saved correctly.

At least this was what happened to me when I had a quck look to this alpha version.

G. Beurlen
GBeurlen
Posts: 19
Joined: 2004-06-02 08:27:02

Problems with Preferences

Post by GBeurlen »

Sorry, I posted this to the wrong thread:

Accesseing Preferences other than <General> in NWExpress alpha, causes an error: the Type Setting window opens and the only way to get rid of it is to force a quit of the program.


G. Beurlen
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