NisusWriter Pro

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nspy
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NisusWriter Pro

Post by nspy »

Please please please tell us that MailMerge is also in.
Please please please tell us that invisible text style is also in.

And, oh, will the pro version read Classic TOC and index formats? What about the graphics layer?

Rick
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jbravo556
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No Track Changes?

Post by jbravo556 »

One of the most important features and the one that I know that everyone around me needs in order to use a word processor is 'Track changes' for collaborative writing/Editing.

It's been promised before for Nisus, and yet here we have Nisus 'Pro' and no track changes. Is it really that hard to implement?

How disappointing...
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joehardy
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Re: NisusWriter Pro

Post by joehardy »

nspy wrote:Please please please tell us that MailMerge is also in.
Please please please tell us that invisible text style is also in.

And, oh, will the pro version read Classic TOC and index formats? What about the graphics layer?

Rick
I suspect Pro will eventually have more features, but I'm thrilled with what it will have.
Track Changes would be my next request, but I have Word 2004 and Pages 2 for that at the moment.
TOC is a major step and will now allow me to transfer a lot of my creative writing from Word over to Nisus.
Yay!
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midwinter
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Post by midwinter »

I'M SO INCREDIBLY PISSED THAT PRO DOESN'T MAKE TOAST!!! GRR!!! NISUS IS USELESS TO ME UNLESS IT MAKES TOAST!!! :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:
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scottwhitlock
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Post by scottwhitlock »

midwinter wrote:I'M SO INCREDIBLY PISSED THAT PRO DOESN'T MAKE TOAST!!! GRR!!! NISUS IS USELESS TO ME UNLESS IT MAKES TOAST!!! :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:
hehehehe...Microsoft just revealed that Office 2008, in addition to being a Universal Binary, having a new file format, and coming with a new, industry-standard brain chip implant that will automatically read your intentions and translate those onto screen (after, of course, you activate your brain chip in order for it to work and wait a year or so for it to really work as promised), will in fact make you toast...untasty, stale, crippled (but thick and copious) toast...

It will only cost you $499*!!!

*$499 purchase price only applicable if you include your soul and does not include surgeon fees. Only surgeons working for Microsoft are allowed to transplant chip into head. Although it will be permanently fused to the brain and will transmit anonymous date back to Microsoft, Microsoft retains sole ownership of the chip and reserves the right to remove it at any time or make it obsolete by the release of a newer, more industry-standard chip which will do more amazing stuff that you do not really need, but will require the addition of a new chip.

Nutritional Information for Toast:
Serving Size: 1 slice.
Carbohydrates: 85g
Fat: 3g
Protein: 1g
Bloat: 88g
Bugs: 10g
Speed: 0g
MacBook Pro 15
2.66 Ghz Core i7
8GB RAM
10.8.3
NWP 2.0.4
iPad 3
soliphint
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outline

Post by soliphint »

I bought Nisus Express with the promise that outlines were just around the corner. Now, not only are they not mentioned, but it looks like the upgrade requires buying an entirely new itiration.
JBL
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Re: NisusWriter Pro

Post by JBL »

nspy wrote:Please please please tell us that MailMerge is also in.
With the improved macros it looks like it really shouldn't be too hard to write a mail merge macro. Of course, we will see what we get when it ships.
foobar
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Post by foobar »

soliphint wrote:I bought Nisus Express with the promise that outlines were just around the corner. Now, not only are they not mentioned, but it looks like the upgrade requires buying an entirely new iteration.
I agree with this sentiment, and I'm somewhat bothered that the pricing and upgrade path are not spelled out in the announcement. This leaves me to hope that user feedback can have an impact here (as many of us bought NWX under the not-promised-but-strongly-hinted expectation from these forums that TOC/indexing would be added to a later no-cost upgrade). But I guess that it's likely I'm going to need to assess whether I can spend more money to buy features that I expected to have coming with my *last* purchase. Can we please at least know the price for this "Pro" version, upgrade and full version, academic and mass-market?
JBL
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Re: outline

Post by JBL »

soliphint wrote:I bought Nisus Express with the promise that outlines were just around the corner. Now, not only are they not mentioned, but it looks like the upgrade requires buying an entirely new itiration.
On the screen capture it looks like the left drawer has an outline view. That is perfect for me. I don't know why it didn't make it onto the list of features they highlight.
dshan
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All New Or Just Improved?

Post by dshan »

Releasing a new version of an existing product as a "new product" (look, new name! New features! It's version 1.x!) so you can justify charging your existing users to upgrade to it always sounds good in theory (to sales and marketing). The problem with this approach is however what do you now do with the "old" product? Usually the "old" product hangs around like a zombie for a while, no heartbeat, no new versions, but still listed in the brochures and on the website, before finally disappearing one day when no one's looking.

A more straightforward approach is to admit that the new product is simply a new version (it's version 3.0!) of the existing product that, due to the significant feature enhancements it contains, will require an upgrade fee. Engineering usually likes this approach and version numbers the the new release accordingly in development. Until just before the company's ready to go public about it when suddenly marketing demand the new release be given a new name and that everyone pretend it's a new product.

Which is how you can end up with screenshots like this in your pre-release PR - look, the docs say Nisus Writer Pro internally but the filename says v3!

Of course there's at least one circumstance where releasing a new version as a new product makes some sense - when the new version requires a new foundation/architecture from someone else to operate (e.g. a new OS, new hardware, etc.) and so you have to keep the old version available until everyone's upgraded to the new foundation environment or risk looking like you're abandoning customers who can't (or won't) be upgrading their foundation just yet.

Hmm, I wonder what the OS and h/w requirements for Nisus Writer Pro will be? I'm betting OS X 10.5 is likely required, and there's an outside (hopefully very outside) chance it's Intel-only too.

It does look nice and shiny though, with lots of nice new stuff to play with!
ozmodiar
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Re: All New Or Just Improved?

Post by ozmodiar »

dshan wrote:Releasing a new version of an existing product as a "new product" (look, new name! New features! It's version 1.x!) so you can justify charging your existing users to upgrade to it always sounds good in theory (to sales and marketing). The problem with this approach is however what do you now do with the "old" product? Usually the "old" product hangs around like a zombie for a while, no heartbeat, no new versions, but still listed in the brochures and on the website, before finally disappearing one day when no one's looking.
As I recall, when what we now call NW Classic was current, there was a free version with more limited functionality (maybe a 4.x version?) available for download.

So I am very curious to see what happens to the pricing structure, if "Pro" is effectively the new version (relegating Express to obscurity) or if they are moving to a permanent, two-tiered structure. If the former, your criticism is apt; if the latter, they will need to differentiate Express and give people a reason to buy it.

For example I bought the standard edition of Omni Outliner, thinking the "Professional" edition's features were neat, but unnecessary. By contrast many of the features in NS Writer Pro are not whiz-bang, professional sounding features, but features one would naturally expect to see added in the development process of any word processor (widow/orphan control... hello?).

If this is Nisus' way of making us pay for the next version, that's fine with me; I'll still probably buy it. I just hope they aren't trying to rationalize a big price hike.
Hmm, I wonder what the OS and h/w requirements for Nisus Writer Pro will be? I'm betting OS X 10.5 is likely required, and there's an outside (hopefully very outside) chance it's Intel-only too.
No way -- both NW Pro and Leopard are scheduled for spring. Bad idea to make customers buy an OS that has just barely been released -- assuming it has been released!
midwinter
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Post by midwinter »

I like the part where it hasn't been released yet and we don't know what the price is going to be.
ozmodiar
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Post by ozmodiar »

midwinter wrote:I like the part where it hasn't been released yet and we don't know what the price is going to be.
Not what I said.
midwinter
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Post by midwinter »

ozmodiar wrote:Not what I said.
Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't responding to you, but instead to the general tenor of the thread. I've never been one to cotton to threads complaining about speculation about the pricing or features of unreleased products. The problem with an app like Writer is that everyone has a pet feature, and so no one will ever be completely happy. Hell, we're all here for one reason or other—I hate using Word, can't stand the text display and lack of inline spell check in Appleworks, and using Mellel makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

Of the new features listed on the site, I only care about widow/orphan control. Maybe, down the road, I'll have use for indexing. My pet issue for this release was table spacing and cell padding. Also a preference for "make my writing suck less." I don't see them on the site. Is that a deal-breaker? Nah. I'm already using Writer and will continue to do so.
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xiamenese
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Post by xiamenese »

midwinter wrote:
ozmodiar wrote:Not what I said.
Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't responding to you, but instead to the general tenor of the thread. I've never been one to cotton to threads complaining about speculation about the pricing or features of unreleased products. The problem with an app like Writer is that everyone has a pet feature, and so no one will ever be completely happy. Hell, we're all here for one reason or other—I hate using Word, can't stand the text display and lack of inline spell check in Appleworks, and using Mellel makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

Of the new features listed on the site, I only care about widow/orphan control. Maybe, down the road, I'll have use for indexing. My pet issue for this release was table spacing and cell padding. Also a preference for "make my writing suck less." I don't see them on the site. Is that a deal-breaker? Nah. I'm already using Writer and will continue to do so.
I'm with Midwinter here. Everyone has their pet features, and so many people seem to be outraged that their pet feature has not been at the top of the list--"It can't be difficult to program change-tracking" (i.e. why hasn't it been done?)--erm, excuse me? are you a programmer who knows the ins-and-outs of Nisus code to know that it must be easy? I'm not and I'm sure the reason that the Nisus guys have not done it in NWP yet is that it's not sufficiently easy for them to get that and all the other stuff that people are demanding in at the same time as coping with the "How long is this taking you guys?" complaints, and, I imagine, wanting to get something out around the time of MacWorld.
And then people get outraged about having to pay for an upgrade which adds significant features ... Hello? Do you want Nisus to continue to exist and produce improved product? Of course they need to charge ... I remember when YazSoft rewrote SpeedDownload with a completely new engine a few years back, and were greeted with howls of abuse from some of their users who swore they were never going to use the software again as YazSoft were asking something like a $10 upgrade fee! That was half-a-dozen Big Macs, guys!
Then there's a chap on the OmniOutliner forum who's started a thread on what should be removed from OO--including the clippings service and sound recording--on the grounds that he doesn't use them and he thinks that the existence of those unused features makes his user experience worse! Perhaps I should start a thread on what should be removed from NWP on the grounds that I don't use those features!
I use, and will continue to use Nisus 'cos I really like using it ... I can't get on with Mellel, I've never liked AppleWorks, and although I loved Word 5.1, no later version has been anywhere near as good and I can't run that on my MBP ... and I'm certainly not going to shell out the sponduliks for a current version of Office! But I really ENJOY using Nisus. There's lots I won't be using in NWP ... at least not for the foreseeable future, including TOC, indexing, multi-page footnotes, and I don't really need change-tracking, though I can see how many people do and it will be great when the Nisus people get round to implementing it. But I will definitely be upgrading to Pro, and not just 'cos it has my pet feature, text-flow round graphics.
On the other hand, unlike Midwinter, I don't seem to have a problem with table spacing and cell padding ... used cell padding the other day and it did what I wanted just fine.
Mark
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