Eyal Redler wrote:We apologize for the delay, we hit a little snag at the last moment. Mellel 2.9 will be available in the next few hours for our non-Apple-Store customers.
The App Store version will be available as soon as Apple approves it (usually - within a week).
Thanks! It's downloading right now into my MBP.
Peter Edwardsson
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Truth is not always popular, but it is always right.
I got a question concerning the new feature LINE NUMBERING, which by the way looks very neat and certainly better than Open Office. Yet I am afraid I have already met with the limits of this feature, unless there is some hope in the SKIP-option mentioned in the announcement.
To specify my problem, I had better given a short description of my project. I am preparing a translation exercise of a short story from English to Irish and would like to provide the original alongside my translation neighbouring it as closely as possible. Therefore I chose a 2-column SECTION-STYLE (as opposed to e.g. a left-right-page text flow) and distributed the chunks to the columns on each page so they offer original and translation in a pseudo-parallel textflow. (I prepared the same thing in Open Office, where line numbering is a paragraph-feature, but am absolutely unhappy with the American style letter-spacing / kerning enhanced justified formatting they use).
When Mellel 2.9 arrived I started adding LINE-NUMBERING to my translation, but soon found myself unable to exclude the original or to at least give it its own numbering. In effect, the chunks of the parallel texts get virtually mixed up by line numbering.
I understand that both LINE NUMBERING and COLUMNS are SECTION-styles and as far as I can tell NUMBERING CHANNELS are so, too, which leaves me at a loss as I can neither end a section at the bottom of a column to continue through the next column without or with a different line-numbering nor tell Mellel to ignore the paragraphs or assign a different channel to them as that would again require to end the section an thus the column-style.
If there has been an oversight on my side and the SKIPPING-feature (or any other way) may provide a solution to my problem, I should be glad to learn about this.
Regards
tungsten66
@ Janet
Thanks for the correction and well-meant support. Yet, I beg to differ (actually I would have included a disclaimer concerning the general topic of text flow, but my post had become too long as it was, anyway). In my opinion, it is a bit much to ask from a wordprocessor (and most likely one step too far into dtp) that it should administer parallel textscrolls beyond a main body text, footnotes and (still hoping) marginal notes (mind that Mellel offers easy access to more than two columns per page).
I recognise that my issue and similar problems (like the in-margine notes) could be solved if the whole concept of sections was reformed to allow for independent text flows. But I am afraid that would require a completely new programme, most likely a completely different approach of editable page templates on which the user may draw columns and assign them to one of several text flows without the option of switching layout by simply starting a new section while you write. Personally I am not too fond of sections (one of the reasons I have never liked MS-Word), but I acknowledge that they come in handy for scientific, scholarly and journalist writers who do not wish do delve into dtp preliminaries.
As programs like Open Office (no sections but page templates a.f.a.I.k.) and Libre Office (sections messily override page templates) offer line numbering as a paragraph style my request would rather tend in the direction of either shifting the whole feature to paragraph styles, too (which is certainly a little too late to ask for) or to have a checkbox / radio button in the paragraph style definition that says "exclude paragraphs of this style from line numbering" or the like. This request, however, I should make very urgent, as the current way the feature has been implemented asks for section changes before and after headlines and sub-headlines – one might also consider the odd-inevitable linefeed.
So no offence meant (I myself would love to have a two or three scroll texttool), I had still rather go for a work around to ensure the usability of line numbering as soon as possible than wait for a major reprogramming.
regards
tungsten66
After doing some research on word processing software I have found that there seems to be indeed only one application that allows for independent / arbitrarily linked text flows within one document. K-WRITER, related to the KDE-branch of LINUX desktop software, however, seems to address computer geeks rather than philology freaks (at least from the latters' point of view) for users, has recently suffered from a split of the developers' team and last but not least is limited to LINUX as operating system.
Thus there seems to be a gap in the market of word processors and a huge one, too. Regarding the constantly growing demand for translations and the constantly decreasing willingness to spend money on the preparation of translations or commentaries, I am surprised at the perseverance of the gap after more than thirty years of word processing software development.
To clarify things to people outside this discussion: We are not (primarily) looking for a method to let otherwise complete texts run through framesets and to make them flow alongside each other by adding linefeeds or markers as one would do in the Quark, InDesign, iCalamus type of publishing software. While most publishing tools offer the feature in question in theory, none of them would offer quick, stable and inexpensive support for independent spell-checking, find and replace operations and on-a-click switching from one text stream to another. What we wish for is rather an on-line editing system in which you may import or write one text in one set of columns, create a commentary, marginal notes or/and a translation in another (or more) set(s) of columns, supported by a not-too-difficult-to-use set of tags (synoptic flags / markers) to link eg. paragraph starts, so the program can format the texts to bring markers bearing the same parameters on one line. At the same time it should always be possible to export each set separately.
Thus, if there is a motion to persuade the programmers of Mellel to turn it into such a tool, I subscribe.
Last edited by tungsten66 on Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thank you 'nicka'. FrameMaker might indeed be able to do a good part of the trick (or allow you to perform it).
Yet, there are drawbacks which render it quite unattractive to people who basically like Mellel.
(1) It lacks RTL support, as far as I know, and thus wouldn't suit people like 'januss'.
(2) It seems to require a good deal of coding skills, and the willingness to use them in between writing.
(3) It costs more than € 1200.-, an amount that I would not be persuaded by to switch to Windows if I was offered it instead of charged.
(4) It is produced by Adobe, who have recently set their teeth hard on making formerly fantastic software as quirky as possible, e.g. the GUI of Photoshop Elements 8 or the 'optimize scanned pdf'-function destroying documents for the third generation now in the MacOS-Version (Windows-Version has worked just fine ever since its implementation)
Actually the long-selling Mac OfficeSuite RagTime might also fulfill a good deal of the criteria by "pipelined frames" (and costs only half as much), but even in the days when there was a cheap and subsequently even free version, I could never get used to the way it requires to be used.
It's downloading right now into my MBP.
