Desired NWP1.2 Features

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craigminah
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by craigminah »

I find that I can accidentally click and drag the page margins (and header/footer sizes) and resize them in inadvertently. This seems to happen far too often while I edit documents. I'd love for this behavior to be "fixed."
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greenmorpher
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by greenmorpher »

Absolutely, Craig. We have put forward a number of variations of this one previously. Good for this nuisance to be raised AGAIN!!! :x

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes", the secrets of how type can help you to sell or influence, and "How to Start and Produce a magazine or Newsletter", now at the new low price of $29.95. See these books and more at http://www.worsleypress.com or Amazon.
Groucho
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by Groucho »

As I said elsewhere, margins should not be draggable when visibility is turned off.
By the way, may I harp on about an old feature request of mine? Well, I think space before a paragraph should not be inter-paragraph space only, but act as a real space before when a paragraph occurs after a break of any kind.
Well, I said it. Now I feel slightly better.

Cheers, Henry.
craigminah
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by craigminah »

Groucho wrote:As I said elsewhere, margins should not be draggable when visibility is turned off.
By the way, may I harp on about an old feature request of mine? Well, I think space before a paragraph should not be inter-paragraph space only, but act as a real space before when a paragraph occurs after a break of any kind.
Well, I said it. Now I feel slightly better.

Cheers, Henry.
I turned off the visibility option for this and could still drag the margins. I closed the document and created a new document and could still drag the margins. After a restart of NWP the margins were still draggable...
Groucho
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by Groucho »

I meant that margins are draggable anyway, but they should hopefully not be so. I did not make myself very clear. Sorry.

Cheers, Henry.
craigminah
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by craigminah »

Groucho wrote:I meant that margins are draggable anyway, but they should hopefully not be so. I did not make myself very clear. Sorry.

Cheers, Henry.
I thought for a second I missed something. Other than that fix to the draggable margins, I can't think of any additions to NWP I need.
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mrennie
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by mrennie »

Here are some features I would like to see in Nisus Writer Pro at some point. Note that I do not expect each and every one of them in the 1.2 release; some of them can be kept for 1.3... :P
  • references to built-in styles. This has already been mentioned at some point in this thread, but I should I should mention it to add my voice to the chorus. Most cross-references I create in a document refer to headings, and since I already use a heading style for these, it would be great if these headings were listed automatically in the cross-references dialogue.
  • split windows. This feature, which I believe was available in Nisus Writer Classic, would allow me to compare two sections of the same document at once (verifying footnotes and the bibliography, for instance).
  • paragraph borders and shading. This would allow me to create borders around a paragraph instead of having to use one-cell tables as a rather inelegant workaround. As for shading: I find that it can make content stand out visually. Right now, we do have background colours (in the Format menu), but try colorising a paragraph and then applying a bullet style, or a first line indent, to that paragraph, and you will see why this feature is not the same as proper paragraph shading.
  • outlining capabilities. More specifically, I would like to be able to drag items, such as headings and the following paragraph, around the document. When creating test questionnaires for pupils, I used to do this quite frequently in Microsoft Word if I needed to change the order of the exercises.
  • fields. I am not sure how to call this feature, so let me use Microsoft Word terminology instead. A field is a piece of code that can be used for various purposes: cross-references, dates, page numbers etc. This feature is to some extent already present in Nisus Writer Pro; if you insert a page count, for instance, the number updates dynamically if you add more pages to the document. I would love to see support for more fields, such as a dynamically updating date field, or a Heading field that would allow you to have the name of the section you are currently working in displayed in the header. Or even a Document Name field that would allow you to insert the name of the document and other items, such as its location on your hard disk, to a document. This can be done via macro right now, but the values inserted do not update dynamically.
  • preserve links and hyperlinks in PDF files. This would be a very useful feature to make PDF documents generated by Nisus Writer Pro more interactive.
  • track changes. The Nisus guys managed to add Comments, so now is the time to jump through the next hoop on the way to feature parity.
  • Oh, and vertical rulers for Geoff!
Right, these are the major wanted features I can think of right now. As I've said, I don't mind if some features, such as Track Changes, only make it into app as of version 1.3, or perhaps 1.4.
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greenmorpher
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by greenmorpher »

Two things:

1) OUTLINING

At present, you can set up an outline of heads, but if you insert some body text attached to the heads, you lose the hierarchical heads structure -- they no longer are automatically numbered. You CAN set up a working outline which can incorporate body text and retain the autonumbering capability, but you msut use Lists > Heads for that, not Lists > Outline.

I would like to see the Outline list retain the autonumbering capability when body text is added, as the Heads list does.

As already mentioned, we also need a process for gluing body text to heads.

2) PARAGRAPH STYLES "PACKAGES"

I have a number of .dot files with different Paragraph Style structures. If I had all my Paragraph Styles in a single .dot file, the Styles menu would be hopelessly large and unhandy. In addition, I have assigned the same names and the same keyboard shortcuts to different Styles with a similar function/status in the different documents so I have to remember only one set of shortcuts.

Now, what about setting up the Styles palette at two levels so that we can set up bundles of Styles and activate the bundle we want to apply in a given document or part of a document.

The way I envisage it, the Styles palette would have two windows. The upper one would be smaller; it would list the Style bundles. The lower one would be the same as the present one, and it would show the Styles within the Style Bundle selected. The selection of a Style Bundle would totally deactivate other Style Bundles, so that styles could have the same name and the same keyboard shortcut within different bundles but have different attributes.

When setting up new Styles, you would have the option of including it in a default "General" bundle, or selecting a bundle already created or creating and naming a new bundle in which it would be included.

When you think about it, this should be possible because it is much the same structure as in the Lists palette.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes", the secrets of how type can help you to sell or influence, and "How to Start and Produce a magazine or Newsletter", now at the new low price of $29.95. See these books and more at http://www.worsleypress.com or Amazon.
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greenmorpher
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by greenmorpher »

Bugger, forgot to mention vertical rulers. :lol:

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes", the secrets of how type can help you to sell or influence, and "How to Start and Produce a magazine or Newsletter", now at the new low price of $29.95. See these books and more at http://www.worsleypress.com or Amazon.
kcheney
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by kcheney »

Another vote for a vertical ruler option. You are not alone, Geoff!

I was just making a little form, two-up, and would have liked to have had a precise visual marker of the center of the page.


Cynthia Cheney
gemboy27
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by gemboy27 »

I am following up an earlier post..

Is there a reason why NWP doesn't have the ability to start a file with selected text via services?
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education/Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Groucho
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by Groucho »

Will you be content with merely knowing why?

Henry
gemboy27
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by gemboy27 »

Groucho wrote:Will you be content with merely knowing why?

Henry
if this is addressed to me, yes.

I thought that is how I asked..maybe I wasn't clear
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education/Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Groucho
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by Groucho »

I was just kidding, Gemboy.
I guess you are thinking of something of the kind TextEdit already does, in Leopard at least. I think a script with Apple Script would do. It is just a matter of copy, open file and paste.

Cheers, Henry.
gemboy27
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Re: Desired NWP1.2 Features

Post by gemboy27 »

yes --- lots or programs do it (yes in leapord) Journler for one
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education/Mark Twain (1835-1910)
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