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MonEsVil
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Hello

Post by MonEsVil »

Hello, people.

This is my first post here, just to introduce myself. As I told to Ori Redler via email, I'm the happy owner of a brand new Mellel license. I'm just delighted with this software, which I plan to give a very important usage: I want to write my doctoral thesis with it.

Anyway, I want to post my first impressions about it. I have several comments about some features I miss. Many, if not all, have been already pointed out by other people in this forum, as far as I've seen. But I reproduce it, anyway, to show my support to those requests ;)

In general terms, the program is excellent. Every time I tried to do whatever I pleased, I found the way, sooner or later. But, as proyects grows also through critics…

Major requests
1. My very major request is related to the feature "all in small caps". Although I find it usefull, I believe that there is absolutely a "must" to introduce, also, the feature "small caps", so that the software respect the "normal" large caps. European investigators, and particulary Spanish ones, use a lot the small caps to write the surnames of the authors they mention or quote. It is very annoying to have to select all the letters of the name, except the first, and put it in small caps.

2. I found also very necessary to introduce the possibility of change the character spacing. I think this should be basic in a program like Mellel.

Minor requests
I would like also to see some other features, although I don't consider them strictly necessary. First, I would like that the shortcut [Cmd] [+] to produce the effect of enlarging the size of the text, and not the zoom view, just like in TextEdit and Pages. Second, I would like that the key [Esc] allow to exit some contextual windows, like the one of "Search and Replace". Finally, it would be nice also to have separate and different "invisible characters" for "space" and "non-breaking space". Apple Pages, for example, uses a bullet (•) for spaces and a bullet with circumflex accent (ˆ) for non-breaking spaces.


With all those features implemented, I would considerate Mellel 100% perfect, instead of only 99,9%, as I do now ;)


PS. Sorry for the ortographic mistakes. My mother tongue is Spanish, and not English.
ahankinson
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Re: Hello

Post by ahankinson »

For your first request, set up a character style (call it "Surname" or something like that), and set it to Small Caps. Assign it a keyboard shortcut in the Style Set dialogue (Style Set -> Edit style sets...). When you get to entering in a surname, use the keyboard shortcut to switch into the Surname character style, and spell it with a normal capital (i.e., hold down shift.) It will do the first letter in normal caps, and the rest in small caps.

If you assign a keyboard shortcut to your "normal" style, then you can just switch back to it and keep writing.

Character spacing is an oft-repeated request. Thanks for voicing your need for it too... :)

Changing the size of the text via shortcut goes against the use of styles, with the idea being that you set up a style for every size of font you want and then change to it when you need it. In Mellel, unlike Word or Pages, you should never be writing "out of style." Everything you write should be in a style, except for the very corner cases. So you should have a different character style for headers, titles, captions & figures, etc. For bold and italic you can set up character variants which you can switch to via the F-keys (F2, F3, etc.

The "Search and Replace" window is actually a window, not a dialogue, so that you can have it open and flip back and forth between it and your writing. CMD-W will close it.

As for SP vs. NBSP, I've never really encountered a time where I would like to tell the difference, but I am very curious about how you use that information. Maybe I can learn something new!

Welcome to the Mellel community!
MonEsVil
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Re: Hello

Post by MonEsVil »

Thank you for rapid and kind response.

About your first advice, I'm not sure if I understood it straightly, but I'm unable of doing so. I created the style and the shortcut. But when I follow the following path:

write in normal style --> change via shortcut to "Surname" style --> write the surname with the first in capitals

I only obtain a word entirely in small caps. I do get the expected results when I do the following:

write in normal style --> put the first letter in capitals in the normal style --> switch to "Surname" style and write the rest of the word in that style.

I don't know if that was what you was suggesting me. Anyway, this is easier than what I was doing, so I appreciate it and thank you.

The "non-breaking space" invisible character has the same usefulness than the rest of "invisible" characters: you know exactly what you are writing. And when you want to write something with non-breaking spaces (for example, the name and the number of a law, in my case), you can look backwards and be sure that you did it, so if you change the document size or any other feature, you won't obtain a mess, instead of the expected result.


The rest of the advices were very useful to me. And thank you for the welcome :D
jannuss
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Re: Hello

Post by jannuss »

ahankinson wrote:Changing the size of the text via shortcut goes against the use of styles, with the idea being that you set up a style for every size of font you want and then change to it when you need it. In Mellel, unlike Word or Pages, you should never be writing "out of style." Everything you write should be in a style, except for the very corner cases. So you should have a different character style for headers, titles, captions & figures, etc. For bold and italic you can set up character variants which you can switch to via the F-keys (F2, F3, etc.
There is a workaround that offers some flexibility with of sizes within the style framework. It's a bit of a cheat and may or may not suit your work method:

Each character style offers a fixed set of style variations. You could decide that "lighter font" means smaller and "heavier font" means larger. That way you will have three character sizes included in each font definition.

Janet
ahankinson
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Re: Hello

Post by ahankinson »

That's very strange, since I get this:

Image

Maybe check it with another font, just to be sure?
MonEsVil
Got the auto-title mojo working
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Re: Hello

Post by MonEsVil »

A picture speaks a thousand words!

We are talking about two different things. My fault, since I didn't specified it. It seems you are talking about the "false" small caps that Mellel — and most text processing programs — generate automatically. Instead, I was mentioning the "true" small caps that some high profile fonts incorporate, such as Adobe Caslon or Adobe Garamond. You can see the difference below (using A. Caslon):

Image

The last sentence correspond with the effect that I desire and, so far, I can get only using an illogical detour.

The problem that I talk about is also mentioned in this thread:
http://forum.redlers.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=805
DylanMuir
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Re: Hello

Post by DylanMuir »

Looks like ahankinson is using 2.9 beta, which supports true small caps. 2.8 does not.

DRM

PS Welcome MonEsVil! I wrote my entire doctoral thesis in Mellel, and it was a charm. Most of the typesetting that I needed (wanted) could be accomplished in Mellel. I would have liked letter-spacing justification, I would have liked figure/caption handling, but after some InDesign mock-ups I could reproduce almost everything in Mellel. It was beautiful.
MonEsVil
Got the auto-title mojo working
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Re: Hello

Post by MonEsVil »

Hi, DylanMuir, thank you for your welcoming, and your encouraging words.

At first sight, I don't think that ahankinson is using true small caps in the image he (or she) posted. The key to distinguish true and false small caps is in the "weight". Usually, false small caps are lighter than the ordinary lowercase letters, while true small caps have the same weight.

I'm using Mellel 2.8.2, which supports false small caps (Character Appearance> Case> Small Caps) and true small caps (Character Appearance> OpenType> All in small caps). The problem with the latter is that when you choose it, it puts all the letters in small caps, regardless that they were originally in Capitals or in lowercase (a behaviour totally different than if you use the first, false, small caps, that only convert in small capitals those letters that were previously in lowercase). My request is to have also this option with true small caps, so that you can get a word mixing caps and true small caps.
DylanMuir
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Re: Hello

Post by DylanMuir »

Looking again at the image, I think you're right. But I'm pretty sure that 2.9 will satisfy your needs in any case.

DRM
MonEsVil
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Re: Hello

Post by MonEsVil »

I hope so :D
ahankinson
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Re: Hello

Post by ahankinson »

I can confirm that I am running both 2.8 and 2.9 beta, but I didn't want to "let the cat out of the bag" because I don't know if the Redlers want to keep it under wraps.

That said: I have confirmed that Mellel 2.9 beta fixes your issue and that you can get true small caps with larger initials with the OpenType Features. I have filed a couple bugs with the Redlers, however: Currently you can't set it as a style (you can only control it in the Character Appearance panel) and I have asked for the OpenType "true caps" support be moved to the default behaviour of the Small Caps option (it's currently still using the False Small Caps technique).
nicka
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Re: Hello

Post by nicka »

Perhaps the Small Caps feature could use real OpenType small caps if the font has them, and fall back on fake small caps if not.

It would be cool if superscript and subscript worked this way too.

It would also be good to see the OP's second request:
2. I found also very necessary to introduce the possibility of change the character spacing. I think this should be basic in a program like Mellel
As I think I've said before, it's good practice (in most cases) to letter-space small caps. Bringhurst says: 'For abbreviations and acronyms in the midst of normal text, use [letter-]spaced small caps.' So it's lovely to have proper small caps, but for common uses of them, there is still something crucial lacking in Mellel.
MonEsVil
Got the auto-title mojo working
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Re: Hello

Post by MonEsVil »

DylanMuir wrote: But I'm pretty sure that 2.9 will satisfy your needs in any case.

DRM
You are right, the 2.9 version is perfect for me in this case. I haven't had time to explore it deeply, but I found the new Mellel excelent. I only miss now the character spacing. And I would also like to see differently the "space" and "non-breaking space" in Mellel, something like this:

Image
Hans-Reinhard Koch
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Re: Hello

Post by Hans-Reinhard Koch »

MonEsVil wrote: And I would also like to see differently the "space" and "non-breaking space" in Mellel
Yes, I would also appreciate this very much. And beyond that: When you write multilingual text with changing direction (e.g. English/Arabic) in one paragraph, you insert a "direction-breaking space" (=control + space). I would like to see whether I really inserted one or used a normal space by mistake. Therefore I would like a different symbol for the direction-breaking space as well. I asked for that a long time ago, but never got heard.
Hans-Reinhard
Hans-Reinhard Koch, Bonn, Germany
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