And here's the other thread! Styles.

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HeatherKay
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And here's the other thread! Styles.

Post by HeatherKay »

Testing NWE2 yesterday I wanted to set my own preferences for the new document styles. I opened the prefs with no document open and proceeded to edit.

I found that styles just didn't stick. I'd change the font for Normal, switch to Header to edit, switch back to Normal and find it's the same as Header now. :?

I tried all sorts of combinations, but each time I came back to previous styles, the only thing to have stuck was the font. Size and bold/italic seemed to propagate to other styles at random.:shock:

Now, I would like to use styles but if I'm going to be balked at the first hurdle I'll probably just go back to copy and paste format! :roll:

Any ideas?
dennisg
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Location: Seattle, WA

Post by dennisg »

HeatherKay,

I could easily be wrong about this, but I thought the key to what you said was that you were tinkering with the style prefs "with no document open." My understanding of how styles work is that they are attached to specific documents. So, in your case, with no document open, no saved styles.

In my case, I opened a new document, went to style prefs and adjusted things to the way I wanted them, then saved the blank document as a template. That way, whenever I want to have those styles, I fire up the template and it opens as an Untitled doc with my styles attached.

Of course, if I completely misunderstood your post, then what I just explained may be ridiculously obvious to you, in which case I apologize in advance.

- Dennis in Seattle
- Dennis

"Is that your little friend in the wood chipper?"
gemboy27
Posts: 355
Joined: 2003-09-30 21:33:58

To follow up with what dennisg was thinking

Post by gemboy27 »

To follow up with what dennisg was thinking.

If you want the styles to be 'global' on all new files, you need to go into preferences (I don't think a document has to be open at the time), go to 'new document, click on the 'advance' button and in that file that opens with the '.dot' extention is the one you want to adjust the styles and create new ones.

Saving of course is important

OR - and I haven't done this yet.

Open a file, make it how you want (style and format -wise) then 'save as' (for example heather.dot)

but of course you will have to go into preferences and make that your new file default

or once Nisus is open, then you find that heather.dot and open it (which means you have to remember where it is), it will open a new file....

take care
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education/Mark Twain (1835-1910)
cchapin
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Location: Nagoya, Japan

Post by cchapin »

There is something kind of odd about editing styles, but I haven't experimented enough to nail it down precisely. Going back to play with it briefly, here's something I noticed. If I change a value in a palette text box, then either switch to draft of page view or click directly in a different style in the style sheet, the change is reflected in what appears, but when I go back to the first style, the change is not reflected in the style definition. When I use other controls, the change is reflected immediately in the style definition.

I'll tinker with this some more and see if I come up with anything else.

--Craig
cchapin
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Joined: 2004-02-25 18:28:40
Location: Nagoya, Japan

Post by cchapin »

Related to my last posting, I noticed that if you make a change to a style in a palette text box and then jump to another style, the change affects the second style, not the first. Sometimes nothing happens until you press the Tab key or perhaps move to another palette control in some other way; sometimes the change took effect immediately.

--Craig
cchapin
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Joined: 2004-02-25 18:28:40
Location: Nagoya, Japan

Post by cchapin »

Heather, I assume that you have noticed the "Based on" option to the left of the each style definition in the style sheet. If not, you might see whether unwanted dependencies were contributing to your problem. If Normal got changed so that it was based on Header (or on something else that was based on Header), that might explain why Normal changed when you changed Header. I doubt that's an issue for you -- especially since Nisus has guarded us from circular dependencies -- but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Another peculiarity in editing styles is that new style names don't always stick. If you edit the name, then press Tab or Return, click Next Style or click in a palette text field, the new name seems to register. Other actions seem to cause it to revert to the prior name. Again, something related to text fields. You didn't complain of this; I'm just mentioning it for the record.

--Craig
HeatherKay
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Location: Chatham, UK
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Post by HeatherKay »

Actually folks, since I posted I've experimented further and actually read the Help files!

What I needed to do was create an alternative 'standard' document and select it as my base one in the Prefs.

Having now edited the styles to work the way I want (from the Style Sheet pop-up at the top left), I saved the page in my User>Library>Application Support>Nisus Writer and selected it with the Preferences.

Everything is sweet and nice now. Still think it was a bit confusing to anyone starting out. Why allow styles to be adjusted in the Prefs when they don't actually work properly? I mean, work the way I expect them to (I come from a design/DTP background and use NWE for text input and editing in the main).
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