NWE slowing down

Have a problem? A question? This is the place for answers from other Express users.
Post Reply
ralph strauch
Posts: 31
Joined: 2003-08-14 08:27:57
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

NWE slowing down

Post by ralph strauch »

I've been recently having a problem with the rate that NWE accepts incoming text slowing way down. It won't keep up with my typing, and becomes a real pain to use. I didn't have this problem with either of the betas, and I don't think it was there initially in NWE.

I'm still using NWE in demo mode, and wondering if this is a "feature" to encourage me to buy the product. If so, it's having the opposite effect. I was planning on purchasing a license this week, but given the difficulties I'm having with it, I'm not sure now that's a good decision.

I've been using Nisus for years, and playing with NWE since the first beta. I'm disappointed with NWE right now, but willing to wait and give it a chance, if I can get this slowdown to go away.

Running 10.2.6 on a Tibook 667 DVI.

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

Post by charles »

Hi Ralph:

Nisus Writer certainly should not be slowing down on you. We would never add such a feature, even in the demo mode. How long is your document? We have observed that as some people create very long documents, the application will slow down. That should improve in 1.1, due out in about a month.

-Charles
ralph strauch
Posts: 31
Joined: 2003-08-14 08:27:57
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

Post by ralph strauch »

Charles,

These are short and simple documents, generally not more than 3-4 pages and sometimes shorter. They are client records where I make a paragraph of notes after I see a client. RTF format with all text in a single font, often Geneva, usually 12pt, with 10-12pt space after the paragraph. (I'm using space after rather than space before because the latter doesn't seem to work properly in NWE.) I've got the magnification cranked up a bit to cater to my aging eyes, if that makes any difference.

If you can suggest specific things to look for when it happens again, I'll try to collect more data.

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

Post by charles »

ralph strauch wrote:RTF format with all text in a single font, often Geneva, usually 12pt, with 10-12pt space after the paragraph. (I'm using space after rather than space before because the latter doesn't seem to work properly in NWE.)
Let me make sure I understand here...instead of using a return character separate paragraphs, you are just typing a bunch of spaces? Or do you mean that you are inserting blank lines (using the return character) because the paragraph spacing is not working correctly?

With the length of documents you are describing, you certainly should not be having any trouble.

If you continue having problems, Nisus Writer Express 1.1, due out in about a month, will include some significant improvements in speed so maybe that will help you as well.

-Charles
thfarrell
Posts: 6
Joined: 2003-05-10 12:36:37

paragraph format ??

Post by thfarrell »

Hi...

> instead of using a return character separate paragraphs,
> you are just typing a bunch of spaces?

Perhaps he's using the paragraph formatting available in NWE ??

tom
jwx1
Posts: 35
Joined: 2003-05-12 08:48:44

Space before paragraph

Post by jwx1 »

I concur that Space before paragraph doesn't work correctly, and has been seen to crash the program/
John
ralph strauch
Posts: 31
Joined: 2003-08-14 08:27:57
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

Post by ralph strauch »

Let me make sure I understand here...instead of using a return character separate paragraphs, you are just typing a bunch of spaces?
No, as Tom Farrell noted above, I was talking about using the "space before paragraph" and "space after paragraph" formatting built into NWE, and commenting that I was using "space after" because I found the "space before" option flakey and unreliable in NWE.

I doubt that relates to my slowdown problem, though. I included it just to give you a complete description of the enviornment in which the problem was occuring. It looks to me now the the problem is related to my having the page magnification zoomed to between 125% and 150% when I'm writing, as the slowdown seems to go away when I go back to 100%. That's not really a solution for me, though, because my middle aged eyes see the Tibook screen much better when it's magnified. That feature seems to work without causing a slowdown in many other apps, so it should work in NWE as well.

While I've got your attention, another minor feature I'd like to see iwould be for NWE to recognize the powerbook equivalents of the HOME and END keys, <fn-leftarrow> and <fn-right arrow>. NWE recognizes the fn-up and down arrow keys as PGUP and PGDOWN, and it should recognize HOME and END as well. I reported this with each beta, but it never got corrected.

Ralph
thfarrell
Posts: 6
Joined: 2003-05-10 12:36:37

Post by thfarrell »

Hi...

You say that:

> It looks to me now the the problem is
> related to my having the page magnification
> zoomed to between 125% and 150%

As an experiment, is "System Preferences / General" set to turn off smoothing for sizes 12 and smaller? If not, try it, set your document font to size 12 and see if things speed up. Perhaps it's not the Zoom, but the extra math, etc, needed to smooth the fonts at that zoomed-display size.

Worth a try...

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

Post by charles »

ralph strauch wrote:No, as Tom Farrell noted above, I was talking about using the "space before paragraph" and "space after paragraph" formatting built into NWE, and commenting that I was using "space after" because I found the "space before" option flakey and unreliable in NWE.
Ok. I misunderstood you...thanks.
ralph strauch wrote:I doubt that relates to my slowdown problem, though. I included it just to give you a complete description of the enviornment in which the problem was occuring. It looks to me now the the problem is related to my having the page magnification zoomed to between 125% and 150% when I'm writing, as the slowdown seems to go away when I go back to 100%. That's not really a solution for me, though, because my middle aged eyes see the Tibook screen much better when it's magnified. That feature seems to work without causing a slowdown in many other apps, so it should work in NWE as well.
It should be working for you in Nisus Writer as well. I will see if we can reproduce this at the office. It may be a bug, though we haven't had it reported yet. In any event, I will make sure to test for it in 1.1.
ralph strauch wrote:While I've got your attention, another minor feature I'd like to see iwould be for NWE to recognize the powerbook equivalents of the HOME and END keys, <fn-leftarrow> and <fn-right arrow>. NWE recognizes the fn-up and down arrow keys as PGUP and PGDOWN, and it should recognize HOME and END as well. I reported this with each beta, but it never got corrected.
Should be there in 1.1.

-Charles
ralph strauch
Posts: 31
Joined: 2003-08-14 08:27:57
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

Post by ralph strauch »

Tom Farrell wrote
As an experiment, is "System Preferences / General" set to turn off smoothing for sizes 12 and smaller? If not, try it, set your document font to size 12 and see if things speed up. Perhaps it's not the Zoom, but the extra math, etc, needed to smooth the fonts at that zoomed-display size.
That doesn't seem to help, but in the playing around I did when I tried it I think I found a solution, or a least have more isolated the problem. It only occurs with oddball zoom percentages.

NWE slows down for me when I'm zooming the text to something like 144% or 157%, but not when I zoom to 150%. I guess there's a lot less calculation to do with an easy to calculate multiple.

But why would I want to zoom to something like 144% in the first place, you might ask? That seems like a silly number to pick. Is would be, if I were actually choosing that number. I've ended up with numbers like that because of the difficulty in getting an even number like 150% using the slider control that NWE provides. It's easier to just get somewhere in the neighborhood with the slider. But I guess now I'll be more careful and type in an even percentage. :^)

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Ralph Strauch
drjdg
Posts: 17
Joined: 2003-04-27 17:44:08

Odd Zoom Percentages

Post by drjdg »

Ralph writes:

"But why would I want to zoom to something like 144% in the first place, you might ask? That seems like a silly number to pick. Is would be, if I were actually choosing that number. I've ended up with numbers like that because of the difficulty in getting an even number like 150% using the slider control that NWE provides."

One way of working around the slider is to just select the percentage and type in the number you want directly and hit 'enter'. It's saved me a lot of cursing .... :-)
charles
Posts: 481
Joined: 2002-11-26 11:40:35
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:

Post by charles »

ralph strauch wrote:NWE slows down for me when I'm zooming the text to something like 144% or 157%, but not when I zoom to 150%. I guess there's a lot less calculation to do with an easy to calculate multiple.
Hi Ralph:

I've filled this as a bug. You should not be experiencing this problem. Be sure to try out 1.1 as we will have some major speed improvements in place.

-Charles
Post Reply