3.0 Wish List

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DylanMuir
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by DylanMuir »

Hi Dan,

Do you use tables alone, or a combination of columns and tables? I can't see the cell borders in your attachment so it's hard to tell. If you use a single table, I didn't know that footnotes had that behaviour. That's a shame.

You could use a paragraph setup that had a tab stop where you want the start of the left-hard column. Then type the right line, hit tab and type the left line. The footnotes should work out then, I think. Or will the justification be an issue then?

DRM
jannuss
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by jannuss »

DylanMuir wrote: You could use a paragraph setup that had a tab stop where you want the start of the left-hard column. Then type the right line, hit tab and type the left line. The footnotes should work out then, I think. Or will the justification be an issue then?
I do something similar when typing classical Hebrew poetry -- tabs -- the problem arrises when you try to cut and paste text from another source. It's always a mess getting the lines correctly in place.

Below is an example from "The Song of the Sea," Exodus 15
[I'm in a hurry and suspect i didn't attach the image correctly -- will try later]

Janet

[img]/Users/admin/Desktop/Screen%20Shot%202011-12-08%20at%2011.53.57%20AM.png[/img]
dansheffield
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by dansheffield »

Hi Dylan and Janet,

Sorry that my previous image was unclear - I took it from a PDF rather than a screenshot. I only use one table, no columns. This should be a little more clear:
Image

I see now that I can get the footnotes to format correctly if I make every line into a row, rather than using multi-row cells for each section as I have been doing. The problem with this is that one also has to add a line feed after each line to force the justification, which effectively would force you to have an empty line in each cell. I suppose that I could then resize the added line of each cell to Font Size: .1 pt or something like that, but doing this for 1000+ lines of poetry seems cumbersome, to say the least.
Image

As for your suggestion Dylan, that's exactly what I would like to be able to do with tabs. As it is, if I set a tab for the second column and then enter a line feed, only what comes after the tab has kashida justification applied.
Image

Anyway, thanks for taking an interest in the problem!

All the best,

Dan
Last edited by dansheffield on Sun Dec 11, 2011 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jannuss
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by jannuss »

dansheffield wrote: As for your suggestion Dylan, that's exactly what I would like to be able to do with tabs. As it is, if I set a tab for the second column and then enter a line feed, only what comes after the tab has kashida justification applied.
Dan, I've read up a little on Kashida justification and I understand now that my solution with Hebrew poetry won't work for you.
[Sorry, I never did manage to post the image correctly]

How about the following work-around:
-- set up a 2-column section with the Balance option unchecked
-- enter your first line of text at the top of the right-hand column, but instead of a line feed, do Insert/Breaks/Column Break
-- this should jump you to the top of the left-hand column. Now continue: text, column break, text, column break
Does it work with Kashida justification?

Oooooops . . . just tried my solution and of course, it doesn't work. The second Column Break jumps to the next page!!

One last idea. This one Ishould be OK, but you may find it too awkward to use
-- set up a 2-column section only this time leave the Balanced option checked
-- type in a series of line feeds long enough to hold your text, for example 20 line feeds. You will now have two empty columns 10 lines long
-- type the first line of your text at the top of the right-hand column (without a line feed . . . the line feed is already in position)
-- move your curser to the top of the left-hand column and type in the next line (again, no line feed, of course)
-- now put the cursor on the second line of the right-hand column and continue
Please tell me this one works!

Janet
Last edited by jannuss on Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
dansheffield
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by dansheffield »

Hi Janet,

Well that's creative attempt! Unfortunately I don't think it will work - on the one hand, I still need to enter a line feed to force justification before the column break, so it's the same problem of having a blank line following each line ; secondly, when I do a column break in the second column, it takes me to the following page, not to the next line in the first column.

Anyway, I do appreciate you taking the time to look into this!
jannuss
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by jannuss »

dansheffield wrote: Well that's creative attempt! Unfortunately I don't think it will work
Correct, Dan, it doesn't work

I've added another idea to my post above. I've tested it as well as I can using Hebrew text and it seems like it might be OK

Janet
dansheffield
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by dansheffield »

Hi Janet,

Thanks again for the ideas. Unfortunately using two columns like this still doesn't solve the footnote issue - i.e., the footnotes are sequential from R1, R2, R3 […] L1, L2, L3 rather than R1-L1, R2-L2, R3-L3. See:
Image

In any case, thanks again for looking into this!

Dan
Last edited by dansheffield on Sun Dec 11, 2011 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
JFM
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by JFM »

DylanMuir wrote:I would add the old evergreen suggestion of tying captions and figures together
I do strongly second that! That was my only reason for not writing a recent 140 page long report with Mellel - instead, I had to do with Pages, and suffered!
dapenguin503
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by dapenguin503 »

harryhoffner wrote:I agree with those above who have requested language as a an attribute of character or paragraph styles.

But I would also like to see "script" as an attribute that could be used for search and replace. In working on a long book-length document containing Hebrew or Greek, I sometimes forget and use several different fonts to write these languages. It would be a god-send if I could search for all Hebrew script (or Greek script)—regardless of what font they appear in—and replace them all with a specific font. I can do this in Nisus and other programs, but not in Mellel.
Easy peasy:
Select all text and then change the Hebrew font. Only works if you have used the second font tools.
TCC:}
Boban
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by Boban »

I love Mellel and would become a plumber if I was forced to use MS Word. I'd like to add my name to the request for indexing. Seven years ago (or so?) when I converted to Mellel publishing houses were still doing indexing, but time have changed fast and even some of the big ones (I'm thinking of academic imprints at OUP, etc.) expect authors to do this.

That's the only biggie for me.

Diky,

B.
harryhoffner
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by harryhoffner »

I have requested these for earlier versions. Here's hoping that eventually we will have them.

-Discontiguous selection (to eliminate repetitive identical deleting or reformatting of non-identical character strings)
-Split screen for editing/viewing in different parts of a long document
macula
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by macula »

Backtracking a bit: are there any substantiated reasons to believe that a version 3.0 will ever exist?
ozean
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by ozean »

macula wrote:Backtracking a bit: are there any substantiated reasons to believe that a version 3.0 will ever exist?
Fearmongering, macula? :wink:

By now we know that updates to Mellel take longer than we would like (they did so since at least version 2.7.x, probably even earlier). BUT the updates will appear eventually.

As to your question, Ori stated already in September, that they are working on the next version. See this thread:
http://forum.redlers.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2624
euanmckay
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by euanmckay »

If Mellel worked with Mekentosj Papers2 new Manuscripts, offered autotitle captions associated with images, and had better support for multiple languages in single documents, I would come back from the world of pain that is TeX...
jannuss
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Re: 3.0 Wish List

Post by jannuss »

By the way -- in case you haven't been following other topics on this forum -- 3.0 is in Beta test

Janet
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