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footnotes do not stay on bottom if page has two sections?

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:22 pm
by psychomachine
Hi,

I just ran into a problem -- I hope I am actually doing something wrong so that I can fix this.

My footnotes are set to appear at the bottom of the page. Most of my text has 1 column (default) section. But there are places in it where I need to put a section break and have two columns, then return to one column after another section break.

The problem is that footnotes which are referenced to from the 1 column section move up the page as soon as I enter section break. Instead of having:

ONE COLUMN SECTION
TWO COLUMN SECTION
________
FOOTNOTES FROM THE ONE COLUMN SECTION

I get

ONE COLUMN SECTION
____________
FOOTNOTES FROM THE ONE COLUMN SECTION (in the middle of the page)
TWO COLUMN SECTION

This is not a desirable behavior -- I don't understand why footnotes don't stay at the bottom of the page and treat section breaks as if they were page breaks.

Please let me know if you have any tips about this.

All best
Psych

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:15 pm
by macsailor
I made a test after I read your post and, unfortunately, I got the same bizarre result. I really hope it's a bug and not a feature. :?

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:37 am
by Reiner
Bug or missing feature whatever. I think it is obvious that the note setting "end of section" is missing and "end of page" should do what it says even if you have multiple sections.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:46 am
by matthias
I agree absolutely. This is the most annoying feature/bug in Mellel! I have opened another thread on this some time ago (but can't find right now). I really hope the Redlers will fix this soon.

Matthias

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:51 am
by psychomachine
hey guys,

thanks for writing and confirming this, i really thought i was hit with the stupid stick because i couldn't figure out what i was doing wrong...

i also hope this will get fixed soon...

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 10:26 am
by Reiner
I added a poll for this feature request/bug at http://forum.redlers.com/viewtopic.php?t=1332

Re: footnotes do not stay on bottom if page has two sections

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:39 pm
by Ori Redler
psychomachine wrote: The problem is that footnotes which are referenced to from the 1 column section move up the page as soon as I enter section break. Instead of having:
That's neither a bug nor a feature -- it's just the way Mellel handles this right now: footnotes to a section appear at the bottom of the section, not at the bottom of the page.

The way this is usually done (e.g., with Word) is that when there are three sections in a page (as in this case: one column section, two column section, then one column again) and you have footnotes in each section, Word does this:

Before entering the footnotes:
Section one text
Section two text column one | column two
Section three text
======end of page=======

After entering the footnotes:
Section one text
------
Footnote
=====page break======
Section two text
------
Footnote
=====page break======
Section three text
------
Footnote
=====page break======

This is, of course, not acceptable, but the problem remains: how to enter footnotes for three different sections, without mixing them up? For example, if we put all the footnotes at the bottom of the page, we may have:

Section one text
Section two text column one | column two
Section three text
---------
1 bla
1 bla
2 bla
1 bla

without any real way of seeing which belongs where.
[/b]

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:04 pm
by macsailor
Hmm, I see. But if I instead of footnotes using endnotes, it will be working just as I want it to work.

One of the main problems with the way it's working with footnotes and section now, is if I want to have a section with two columns in the middle of the page. Then it's not possible to use footnotes (if you do not want it to be displayed as it's displayed now, and I for one, do not want this behaviour).

The solution, as I see it, for now, is to use either endnotes if I want to use sections, or use footnotes and forget to try use sections at the same time. Am I right or wrong?! :?

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:58 pm
by matthias
Ori,
I see your point. But I think Word gets it all "wrong", too. As macsailor pointed out, Mellel does get it "right" when using endnotes.

But the user should have control over the appearance of footnotes "between" section breaks. One option could be the way Mellel handles this right now. Another one – an I think this is what most people were asking for in this thread – would be to maintain the appearance of the footnotes. Don't let section affect the display or numbering of the notes. Section changes should be independent of the notes' flow. So irrespective of how many sections I have, my notes would just keep counting on and on according to the settings made in the notes preferences. That is either at the "end of the page" or at the "end the text". In any case I think this example should be avoided:
Section one text
Section two text column one | column two
Section three text
---------
1 bla
1 bla
2 bla
1 bla
If, for some reason, a user wishes to have such a mixture of different notes' flows, he or she could easily use two different notes' flows to this effect. But I think notes’ flow and section should not be linked the way they are right now.

Matthias[/quote]

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:48 am
by Reiner
As I already said I think that the additonal option "notes at end of section" and "notes at end of page" really printing them at the end of the page would solve the problem. Then user could decide which behaviour he wants to use. And if somebody wants to use notes at the end of page and restarts numbering per section this will be his own fault. But maybe it would be possible to forbid using "end of page" for notes when they are set to be numbered per section (which would be nice but not really necessary from my point of view).

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:06 am
by nicka
maybe it would be possible to forbid using "end of page" for notes when they are set to be numbered per section (which would be nice but not really necessary from my point of view).
That would be a bad idea. How would you get footnotes where the numbering restarts with every chapter?


The other part of your solution sounds better.

Another possibility is to let notes renumber at a certain auto-title level, rather than at a section break. More versatile, and at a stroke gets rid of the current problem -- where the fact that Mellel uses section breaks as column breaks and note breaks makes for very strange behaviour.
Another, less elegant solution, but even more versatile, would be to have footnote breaks separate from section breaks.

A rant, beware

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:18 am
by frvs
The option to link notes restart to a certain autotitle level could be interesting. But, as Reiner pointed out, introducing end-of-section notes and forcing the end-of-page option to do what it says would likely solve the problem.

Frankly, it irks me a bit that a program as complex (and nice) as Mellel still has no end-of-section notes. This is a rather basic feature; even Pages, which does not target academics, has it already. It is one among two or three missing features that will likely force me, in a month or so, to turn to Word to format a Ms in order to send the Camera Ready file to the publisher for printing. I had been looking forward to doing this final formatting with Mellel (my previous experience with Word was a nightmare). PLEASE, Redlers, do get your act together regarding endnotes and footnotes!

Re: A rant, beware

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 11:28 pm
by paul.auster
frvs wrote:The option to link notes restart to a certain autotitle level could be interesting. But, as Reiner pointed out, introducing end-of-section notes and forcing the end-of-page option to do what it says would likely solve the problem.

Frankly, it irks me a bit that a program as complex (and nice) as Mellel still has no end-of-section notes. This is a rather basic feature; even Pages, which does not target academics, has it already. It is one among two or three missing features that will likely force me, in a month or so, to turn to Word to format a Ms in order to send the Camera Ready file to the publisher for printing. I had been looking forward to doing this final formatting with Mellel (my previous experience with Word was a nightmare). PLEASE, Redlers, do get your act together regarding endnotes and footnotes!
All of the above…
and I'm quite disappointed
that this necessary feature
still isn't there after 3 years.