Mellel Tutorial for Beginners 2.1.1 Issue

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ÜberDybbuk
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Mellel Tutorial for Beginners 2.1.1 Issue

Post by ÜberDybbuk »

The Millel tutorial(Millel format) takes nearly a full minute to open, every time. And during that period, the launching process can't be cancelled or stopped.
Is this as God intended or is there a glitch somewhere?
The pdf version opens instantaneously, though.
Mart°n
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Re: Mellel Tutorial for Beginners 2.1.1 Issue

Post by Mart°n »

ÜberDybbuk wrote:The Millel tutorial(Millel format) takes nearly a full minute to open, every time. And during that period, the launching process can't be cancelled or stopped.
Is this as God intended or is there a glitch somewhere?
For whatever reason, I only could do some tests with the Mellel format because I havent’t found the Millel version yet.

On my Mac (PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz) the tutorial takes 9 seconds to open if Mellel doesn’t run and 4 seconds if Mellel already runs. So the behavior on your machine is neither God intended nor as it should be.

Could you see this effect only with the beginner’s tutorial or with other Mellel files too?

Which Mac causes the trouble (Processor, speed, memory…)

There’s already a thread about slow working Mellel, maybe you could find a solution there: http://forum.redlers.com/viewtopic.php?t=444
ÜberDybbuk
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Post by ÜberDybbuk »

I'm using a Powerbook G4 1.5GHz w/1.5GB RAM. OS 10.3.9.
During launch of the tutorial, the "spinning beach ball" occurs for the entire minute that it takes to launch. The spinning ball is evident only if the cursor is directly on the Millel logo; if it's beside it on my PB's screen, there's no spinning ball.
When I view Activity Monitor during tutorial's launch, I see that CPU usage for Millel stays at approximately 90% until tutorial launch is complete, afterwhich CPU usage for it returns to zero.
During launch, the Millel name in Activity Monitor changes from black to red and reads "Millel(hung)", which, I assume, means that Millel tutorial is hanging up during its launching process. Once it's fully launched, it works fine.

I tried downloading and launching "Outlining for Beginners" and "Three Ways to Type Uyg-Eng in Millel", both in Millel format, and both open immediately(normally).
I did a Permissions Repair, but no permissions required repair....all were in order.
Launching Millel app by itself is normal....it launches immediateley.
Mart°n
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Post by Mart°n »

ÜberDybbuk wrote:I'm using a Powerbook G4 1.5GHz w/1.5GB RAM. OS 10.3.9.
Seems like you have the same machine like me (but I use 10.4.7) so you should be able to open the document within the same time.
ÜberDybbuk wrote: During launch of the tutorial, the "spinning beach ball" occurs for the entire minute that it takes to launch. The spinning ball is evident only if the cursor is directly on the Millel logo; if it's beside it on my PB's screen, there's no spinning ball.
That’s the OS X standard behavior if a application hangs, the spinning beach ball only would be displayed if your mouse hovers over a window of that app.
ÜberDybbuk wrote: I tried downloading and launching "Outlining for Beginners" […] and both open immediately(normally).
I did a Permissions Repair, but no permissions required repair....all were in order.
Launching Millel app by itself is normal....it launches immediateley.
The app is still called Mellel (with an e), by the way.

The differences between the Beginner’s Tutorial and the other documents shouldn’t be big. The first uses some more pictures, more text and some fonts you may not have on your system (Warnock Pro, Minion Pro, Zapf Dingbats).

As I couldn’t see the solution for your problem in front of me, you should try the other tipps from the thread above:

Try creating a second user (via System Preferences › Accounts), log in as the other user and do the test again (you may copy the tutorial to the root folder of your hard disk to be able to access it from the second user account. Mellel may ask you again to enter your serial number, but the 30 day trial would be good enough to do the test.
If everything is fine here, the problem lays within your user’s account data (Library, Preferences, Fonts, Caches…) If this doesn’t work either, the problem lays somewhere else.

You also could try to delete the OS X and User’s cache data, along with the font caches (with ONYX, as described in the thread mentioned above), you could try to re-apply the OS 10.3.9 update and to delete Mellel’s preferences and Application Support data, also described in the thread mentioned above.

After each step, you should try to open the document again to see which one has shown an effect and which step didn’t. If you’ve found a solution by one of the mentioned steps, I’ll be glad to hear it.
ÜberDybbuk
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Post by ÜberDybbuk »

Ok, I installed Mellel app and Mellel Tutorial(Mellel format) on my other two Powerbooks, a G4 Aluminum 1GHz and a G4 Titanium 667MHz, and found that the Tutorial launch hang occurs on them, too.
On my 1 GHz Auminum PB, it takes 1 1/2 minutes for the Tutorial to launch, and on my 667MHz Titanium PB.....over 3 minutes(!!!!).
The longer launch times are due, no doubt, to those PBs' less powerful processors.
On both, just as on my primary 1.5GHz PB, Activity Monitor shows Mellel Tutorial hanging during the launching process.
Since all three PBs are running OS 10.3.9, and all have essentially the same "delicatessen" of installed software, I'm assuming that either the OS 10.3.9 or, possibly, one of my other installed software is causing the Millel Tutorial to hang during launch. On all three PBs, I've got all non English language localizations removed, as well as some fonts that I never use; these might very well be pertinent factors. (I assume that most other folks have no problem launching the Mellel formatted Tutorial)
At this point, I won't pursue the issue any further; Mellel Tutorial does eventually launch
and does run smoothly once launched on all three PBs. And Mellel app, itself, opens and runs without issues. I can use the pdf version of the Tutorial, which opens within a few seconds, if I don't want to put up with the Mellel formatted Tutorial's recalcitrant launching process.
Anyway, hugs and kisses from hyperspace! Bye bye, for now.
ÜberDybbuk
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Post by ÜberDybbuk »

There's another issue with the Mellel formatted tutorial. On many of the pages, the images don't appear; there's just a grey window where the image should be, with a question mark inside.
Why the images appear on some pages and not others is a mystery.
I'm not looking for a fix for this issue; I just want to document my experiences, here, with the Mellel formatted tutorial. I can always use the pdf version if I choose to. It's not a big deal.
donb
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Post by donb »

My general experience has been that the more chip memory your computer has available, the faster and better all applications run, and the more free chip memory the computer has makes a major difference. I.e., if Mellel is the only application running, it goes far more smoothly and faster than if some such program as PhotoShop is running. This may or may not be obvious if ordinary typing is involved, but when working in tables the difference can be enormous; similarly when making alterations to graphics: e.g. double clicking on a graphic, resizing a graphic. etc., in Mellel.

As a rule of thumb: if you computer has the maximum of chip memory it can hold, and Mellel is your only open application, Mellel works at its optimized best. The technical reasons center around the fact that the computer has almost nothing to do but run its operating program (i.e. OS X) and then enrich your Mellel experience. (Also true of any other program you might want to use, of course.)

If you have only 250 megabytes of chip memory installed in your computer, there is virtually no chip memory available for your program to use, since the OS X operating system takes nearly the whole 250 megabytes simply to run the computer. If you have 500 megabytes of chip memory, your computer has to constantly write to its hard drive and then retrieve what it has written to that drive, because your program also uses a lot of memory just to function, and there is mighty little vacant active chip memory left. Note that chip memory is many times faster for the computer to use than when it has to secretly write to the hard disk and then retrieve what it has written.

The Beginners Tutorial is nearly a full 24 megabytes in size. If your computer has trouble handling that much in active memory, it will slow down. It is just possible that this is the reason not all graphics show up for some people.

I attempted to ensure that unusual fonts (Warnock Pro, Minion Pro, and various others) appear only in graphics in the Tutorial, since most users will not have them installed. I'd appreciate having any exceptions to this pointed out to me, so I can correct them.
Mart°n
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Post by Mart°n »

donb wrote:My general experience has been that the more chip memory your computer has available, the faster and better all applications run
The things you’ve wrote are true, but ÜberDybbuk already mentioned, that his PowerBook has 1,5 GB of RAM which should be enought to run OS X, Mellel with the Tutorial and some other apps. My PowerBook does this without any problem and 256 MB less. Even if someone has only 512 MB or even less RAM installed, Mellel should always open a file and display all the images. It may take longer (or much longer) but it should be possible.

Could you (ÜberDybbuk) name some of the pictures that would not be displayed (e.g. Figure 2, 9, 132)? Maybe this helps us to find either a bug in Mellel or the thing that is wrong on your system.
donb wrote:I attempted to ensure that unusual fonts (Warnock Pro, Minion Pro, and various others) appear only in graphics in the Tutorial, since most users will not have them installed. I'd appreciate having any exceptions to this pointed out to me, so I can correct them.
I’ve not actually searched for specific sections, but I’ve taken a look at the „Replace Styles” menu and your „Character Styles” and there are still some occurrences of Warnock Pro, Minion Pro and Zapf Dingbats (the Character Style ›Chapter Title‹ has Minion Pro in some of its style variants selected).
Minion Pro is used on page:
18 (neither) first line after title
141 (Section Break) headline

Warnock Pro is used on page:
51 (Mellel: Warnock Pro regular Suzuki) first cell, first row of the table
51 (Mellel: Genuine Warnock Pro small caps Suzuki) first cell, second row of the table
162 (The Methods Used) headline

You could easily find those pieces with the new Find & Replace option.
donb
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Post by donb »

Martºn: Thanks very much for your suggestion. I have found the items you mentioned, and a few others, which I have now corrected for future version of the Tutorial. (Not enough to justify replacing the current version of the Tutorial at the Redlers site, though.)

There ought to be no problem with Zapf Dingbats, since they are automatically installed by OS X as a System Library font.

Don B
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Post by ÜberDybbuk »

Could you (ÜberDybbuk) name some of the pictures that would not be displayed (e.g. Figure 2, 9, 132)?
Ok, here are some: Figures > 1, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 106, 107, 109,110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118.
The Beginners Tutorial is nearly a full 24 megabytes in size.
Actually, it's 28.9mbs. I just did a software download that's 430 megabytes in size. It launches within a few seconds and works just fine......no glitches or missing images. So my Powerbook has no problems at all handling huge files. The issue with the Mellel tutorial is unique; possibly my Powerbook just has an allergic reaction to the tutorial? :roll: :D
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