Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Everything related to our flagship word processor.
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martin
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Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by martin »

Hello Everyone,

Nisus Writer Pro version 1.3 is now available for download.

You can read about all the changes in the release notes. There's quite a lot of changes and fixes in this free update- naturally not everyone can be happy (no vertical ruler yet), but we think this is a very good update. Hopefully you do too!

Cheers,
~Martin
Agnostus
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by Agnostus »

What?! No vertical ruler?

Seriously, I have now come across several occasions myself where that would have helped. And it certainly wouldn't hurt, or would it?

Otherwise great realease. Am particularly excited about the option to save styles in the document manager.

Martin
BothBarsOn
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by BothBarsOn »

"Check for updates ..." still tells me that 1.2 is current. Looks like a nice release though!
BothBarsOn
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by BothBarsOn »

Just got it via regular download. The ability to add a toolbar icon for any menu item is sooo sweet.
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martin
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by martin »

Agnostus wrote:What?! No vertical ruler?

Seriously, I have now come across several occasions myself where that would have helped. And it certainly wouldn't hurt, or would it?
Adding a vertical ruler is a feature that is under serious consideration. I was just joking about it, since it seems to be a running forum gag :P
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martin
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by martin »

BothBarsOn wrote:"Check for updates ..." still tells me that 1.2 is current. Looks like a nice release though!
There's nothing to worry about there- we always stagger the update a bit. The automatic update mechanism is made aware of new versions about a day after release.
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greenmorpher
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by greenmorpher »

The running joke, Martin, is that Nisus hasn't produced the ruler. Nisus Writer introduced a vertical ruler to Word Processing. Everyone else copied it -- for good reason, it is very useful. But now we have Nisus without it. Huh. :-(

From the point of view of most of us, I suspect, this is virtually a maintenance release. An excellent release in those terms, but nothing to get excited about. Stuff has been tweaked a bit with nice tweaks, there's a huge number of fixes. All good, but still no ruler, no ability to set table cell sizes by measurement, tables over multiple pages don't carry the headers over to each page, no advance in outlining on my pseudo-outliner styles.

---

Memory sounds: Nisus beeps after it has saved? Huh? Does it fail to save? Never has for me, but maybe my documents aren't big and complex enough.

But what does *not* beeping mean? I can think of seven possibilities:

* The feature is turned off
* NWPro is still saving
* NWPro has a bug which has stopped the sound happening
* NWPro has frozen overall
* NWPro is still running but has failed to save
* The sound is muted
* That unusual, gurgling sound was the brand new Mac just disappearing down the toilet with NWPro still running and the file possibly saved, or not.

Now, since there is no sound, what am I going to do about it?

Some people might like the reassurance that saving has succeeded. Fine. Not for me.

What I would like is a bit of a return to the good old days again. This has actually been nagging at me for ages, but I keep forgetting to raise it.

What's wanted, Martin, is a warning when saving has NOT occurred in the case of a new document, or WILL occur in the case of a re-opened document -- in other words, a positive message.

1) BEEP AND SAVE DIALOG WHEN I HAVE NOT SAVED

In the former NW, if you had autosave set (then an exclusive NW feature, way ahead of the field, like the vertical ruler), NW would beep and a SAVE dialog would appear after the set autosave interval of work on a new document. Used to drive me nuts, but ensured I saved. THAT'S when I want a "save" sound. Yesterday afternoon I wrote 2969 words (yes, really, using my set of pseudo-outliner styles) of a major proposal before I remembered to save. Good grief. That was with v.1.2. I don't think I've ever lost a word in NWPro through failure to save, but it would be nice to be reminded to make that initial save because if it isn't made, the Autosave feature is not working even when it is turned on in Preferences.

2) BEEP AND SAVE/SAVE AS DIALOG WHEN ABOUT TO AUTOSAVE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A DOCUMENT THAT HAS BEEN RE-OPENED

Now this is where I have lost work and particularly archived material. I've opened a completed document which I either want to use as a template or to update/change for another use, then forgotten to "save as". Autosave means I overwrite the existing document. 500 words and 50% of the former document over-ridden later, I suddenly realize my error. Too late. So what about a warning beep and a SAVE OR SAVE AS dialog when the first autosave is due after a document has been re-opened?

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad Doctor Online

Win business with the recession-busting "How to make great ads for (sm)all business: 99 real world advertising ideas to kickstart *your* business today". See http://www.worsleypress.com
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martin
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by martin »

greenmorpher wrote:Some people might like the reassurance that saving has succeeded.
That's all the new option is meant to satisfy. If NWP can't save for whatever reason, it will prompt you, regardless of your preferences.
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by greenmorpher »

Hi Martin

I have autosave on, but NWPro hasn't prompted me to save when I haven't saved except when I have tried to quit without saving. The only reason why I have not lost a lot of material is that NWPro has been rock solid for the kind of work I do -- a positive feature which has not escaped me. :o

For all that, I really w9ould appreciate the "belt and braces" reassurance given by the first suggestion I made -- not my suggestion at all, of course, it was standard on the old NW.

The second situation, of overtyping an existing document, is an all-too-common occurrence, and I really would appreciate a hurdle that would stop me doing it.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad Doctor Online

Win business with the recession-busting "How to make great ads for (sm)all business: 99 real world advertising ideas to kickstart *your* business today". See http://www.worsleypress.com
talaivan
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by talaivan »

The update looks superb -- thanks. I've been trying to help a colleague who's using Word and now appreciate NWP even more. One thing that would be VERY useful: bring back the ability to split the screen so that you can see and edit different views of the same document. As far as I can see, you can't even open a read-only version of a document so that you can see a different part than you are editing (well, I suppose you could use TextEdit). Thanks again for the update and wonderful program.
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by ptram »

Talaivan,

Maybe making a copy of the document, and opening it in another window may be a solution?

Paolo
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martin
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by martin »

ptram wrote:Maybe making a copy of the document, and opening it in another window may be a solution?
That's a low-tech solution that can be macroized:

Code: Select all

$doc = Document.active
If $doc
	$doc = $doc.copy
End
Kino
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by Kino »

greenmorpher wrote:Now this is where I have lost work and particularly archived material. I've opened a completed document which I either want to use as a template or to update/change for another use, then forgotten to "save as". Autosave means I overwrite the existing document. 500 words and 50% of the former document over-ridden later, I suddenly realize my error. Too late.
In Finder’s Info panel, you can make a document unwritable. Then, your attempt to save such a document will fail with "Couldn't save document." Here is a barbarous macro which toggles the writability of the frontmost document.

Code: Select all

 ### Toggle Writable/Unwritable ###

Require Pro Version 1.1

$doc = Document.active
if $doc == undefined
	exit
end

$path = $doc.filePath
if $path == undefined
	exit 'Unsaved document, exit...'
end

$writable = File.canWriteToPath $path

if $writable == true
	begin Perl
		`chmod u-w "$path"`;
	end
	$message = 'Now unwritable.'
else
	begin Perl
		`chmod u+w "$path"`;
	end
	$message = 'Now writable.'
end

exit $message

### end of macro ###
I think this would not be a bad solution if something indicating the writability of the document were available in the tool bar or in the status bar... (feature request ! ;-)
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Hamid
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by Hamid »

Kino wrote: I think this would not be a bad solution if something indicating the writability of the document were available in the tool bar or in the status bar... (feature request ! ;-)
The proxy icon (in the document window's title bar) shows a padlock when a document is read only.
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Re: Nisus Writer Pro 1.3 is now available

Post by greenmorpher »

Hello Kino

Nice work -- that's one way of achieving a result. The problem is that it relies on me remembering to do something -- lock documents when I have saved them -- when my failing to do something simple -- or save when starting work on a new document or "save as" the moment I open documents I am about to alter -- is the cause of my problem.

I suffer from mental tunnel vision 9and it is getting worse as I get older). When I sit down to write, I just focus on writing. It makes me terrible at routine, so I like to rely on the computer to do the routine, repetitive stuff -- since that's what computers are perfect for.

So I would like to see NWPro warn me to save when I start work on a new document -- as the old Nisus Writer did -- but also offer me a choice to "save as" or simply save, when autosave is about to kick in after I had re-opened a document and begun changing it.

I can't see that doing either of these would be terribly hard, they would serve a useful purpose for many users, I suspect, and they would be doing the kind of stuff computers do pretty much infallibly while allowing we users to concentrate on our work.

Can we make them a feature request, please, Martin?

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad Doctor Online

Win business with the recession-busting "How to make great ads for (sm)all business: 99 real world advertising ideas to kickstart *your* business today". See http://www.worsleypress.com
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