Nisus is an elegant tool for writing. Unfortunately in its present state it is not stable enough to trust for any other purpose than to write an email. It has too many gremlins and crashes unpredictably. There are many problems, none of which are related at all to long documents.
As I write this message in Nisus, several of the lines of text above have a white line that strikes through them. Whole lines of text are jumping as I type. If I enter text above another line of text, the line below has the top 25 percent chopped off. Scrolling rarely works, and I wouldn’t dare venture into the style sheets or .dot file because the results would be predictable. The list goes on. Check spelling as you type is off. Yes, I have forwarded six detailed crash reports to Nisus.
I’ve also reinstalled Nisus numerous times after removing all old files. Even downloaded fresh copies. I run a clean system and do maintenance regularly. No Haxies or Ape. Heavy weight programs that have traditionally given me headaches like Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, GoLive etc. in Classic Mac, behave very nicely in OSX. The only other programs that has ever crashed on this system were Safari and StickyBrains. Both were initial releases and fixes were available within a reasonable time frame. So I can say with some assurance that it’s NOT my system, it’s Nisus. Forget about future feature enhancements people. Get NWE stable first.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I feel much, much better. Nisus has always been a responsible and responsive customer oriented company. I really hope that’s not changing.
Problems NOT related to long docs
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Robin Hood
- Posts: 7
- Joined: 2004-11-25 06:33:26
Thank you for replying Robin Hood. Using the latest 2.1 version. Didn’t experience any of the jumping, chopped off lines of text, or white strike through lines in 2.0.1. Just a lot of spinning beach balls that required a force quit. I should however mention that the above text gremlins only appear in Draft view. Others have mentioned the white strike through lines but not the missing tops of lines of texts. Just wondering if there is a fix forth coming?
Something that I find humorous now, that I didn’t at the time is the behavior of the Send Feedback form. In version 2.0.1 when I copied and pasted a description of the problems directly from Nisus in to the Feedback form, the spinning beach ball of death appeared. Now, in version 2.1 when I copy and paste into the Feedback form Nisus simply quits. I’m not sure if eliminating the extra step of having to force quit was an intended improvement in version 2.1 or not. javascript:emoticon('
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Something that I find humorous now, that I didn’t at the time is the behavior of the Send Feedback form. In version 2.0.1 when I copied and pasted a description of the problems directly from Nisus in to the Feedback form, the spinning beach ball of death appeared. Now, in version 2.1 when I copy and paste into the Feedback form Nisus simply quits. I’m not sure if eliminating the extra step of having to force quit was an intended improvement in version 2.1 or not. javascript:emoticon('
')Not only long docs
I've been using computer for 23 years and have never had such a half- baked program on my hard drive. I've used Nisus classic for years now, and while there was a bit of a learning curve, it mostly worked.
There is so much wrong with NWX that I won't even bother writing it in to them. Manyare so arcane that it's alomst impossible for me to descibe them. I'll wait for some future fixes. I already wasted 2 hours today, so it's on to something else.
Pity – it looks so nice. How can one release software that is supposed to be an improvement on a previous version, that's missing some of the earlier versions' features, and answer the issue by claiming it will be incorporated in future releases?
Oh, the house is finished being built. "I really do understand that you've become unaccustomed to using an outhouse. (You spoiled rich kid.) We'll install the indoor plumbing sometime in the near future."
Call me when the pipes are installed.
Aryeh
There is so much wrong with NWX that I won't even bother writing it in to them. Manyare so arcane that it's alomst impossible for me to descibe them. I'll wait for some future fixes. I already wasted 2 hours today, so it's on to something else.
Pity – it looks so nice. How can one release software that is supposed to be an improvement on a previous version, that's missing some of the earlier versions' features, and answer the issue by claiming it will be incorporated in future releases?
Oh, the house is finished being built. "I really do understand that you've become unaccustomed to using an outhouse. (You spoiled rich kid.) We'll install the indoor plumbing sometime in the near future."
Call me when the pipes are installed.
Aryeh
Flakey NWX 2.1 Behaviour
irev,
I don't normally use Draft View so after reading of your problems I switched it on and updated some existing documents of mine, I also tried creating new documents. I get no jumping text, no white-line strike thrus, no chopped off characters, no crashes. NWX 2.1 runs perfectly smoothly for me in either draft or page view, Courier or Times New Roman fonts, single spaced or double spaced lines.
I'm running NWX 2.1 with OS X 10.3.6 on a Al PowerBook G4.
A thought - have you run Disk Utility->First Aid->Repair Disk Permissions recently? I've seen incorrectly set permissions after several Apple software upgrades cause weird application behaviour including crashes. I run repair disk permissions regularly, usually after installing any Apple upgrades.
Also, in your original posting you said you had reinstalled NWX several times after deleting all the previous files - did you remove ~/Library/Preferences/com.nisus.NisusWriter.plist (and com.nisus.NisusThesaurus.plist if you're using NT)? Corrupt preferences files usually cause problems at launch time but it's worth checking.
I don't normally use Draft View so after reading of your problems I switched it on and updated some existing documents of mine, I also tried creating new documents. I get no jumping text, no white-line strike thrus, no chopped off characters, no crashes. NWX 2.1 runs perfectly smoothly for me in either draft or page view, Courier or Times New Roman fonts, single spaced or double spaced lines.
I'm running NWX 2.1 with OS X 10.3.6 on a Al PowerBook G4.
A thought - have you run Disk Utility->First Aid->Repair Disk Permissions recently? I've seen incorrectly set permissions after several Apple software upgrades cause weird application behaviour including crashes. I run repair disk permissions regularly, usually after installing any Apple upgrades.
Also, in your original posting you said you had reinstalled NWX several times after deleting all the previous files - did you remove ~/Library/Preferences/com.nisus.NisusWriter.plist (and com.nisus.NisusThesaurus.plist if you're using NT)? Corrupt preferences files usually cause problems at launch time but it's worth checking.
dshan,
Thank you for your help and thoughtful post. Yes, I do run Repair Disk Permissions regularly along with Mac Janitor, Preferential Treatment, Cache Out X, Disk Warrior, and fsck etc. I also remove the Preference plist file each install.
The weird text behavior just started in version 2.1. The scrolling has never worked in previous versions and only occasionally works now. The to often occurring spinning beach balls in 2.0.1 have changed to program quits in 2.1.
All in all, I’m just thankful that the resource gobbling Adobe programs on my hard drive are behaving properly. I look towards Spring for Nisus to have ironed out most of their problems. Its back to Mariner till then. Speaking of Spring, it’s in full bloom in your part of the World. Enjoy.
Thank you for your help and thoughtful post. Yes, I do run Repair Disk Permissions regularly along with Mac Janitor, Preferential Treatment, Cache Out X, Disk Warrior, and fsck etc. I also remove the Preference plist file each install.
The weird text behavior just started in version 2.1. The scrolling has never worked in previous versions and only occasionally works now. The to often occurring spinning beach balls in 2.0.1 have changed to program quits in 2.1.
All in all, I’m just thankful that the resource gobbling Adobe programs on my hard drive are behaving properly. I look towards Spring for Nisus to have ironed out most of their problems. Its back to Mariner till then. Speaking of Spring, it’s in full bloom in your part of the World. Enjoy.
Hi:
I wanted to let all of you know that the white lines and the crashes are you experiencing are bugs related to the optimizations we did for 2.1. We will put out an update soon with the fixes. Sorry for an inconvenience. We are looking at some new procedures to ensure that these kinds of bugs to not get out again.
-Charles
I wanted to let all of you know that the white lines and the crashes are you experiencing are bugs related to the optimizations we did for 2.1. We will put out an update soon with the fixes. Sorry for an inconvenience. We are looking at some new procedures to ensure that these kinds of bugs to not get out again.
-Charles
Charles Jolley
Nisus Software, Inc.
Nisus Software, Inc.