NW Pro v1: with cross-references etc

[szxy12dml]

Nisus Writer Pro has been released, and has cross-references among other things.

There really isn't a replacement for framemaker on OSX, but Mellel has a foundation to be that replacement (because it does so well with huge e.g., 600+ page documents with lots of graphics, in my experience). But Mellel lacks cross-references and that is increasingly a deal-killer for me. There's been traffic on when cross-references will come out.

Any chance on an update?

btw, I will anticipate the typical replies regarding this question:
1) we should be happy Mellel is such a great product, even though a planned feature hasn't been brought to market yet (cross-references)
2) the developers are so careful etc that it's better to wait
3) if you really need cross-references or whatever other features, then you'll just have to go somewhere else if you need that today.

yes, Mellel is a great product. It may be possible that the perfect gets in the way of the good enough, and I hope this isn't causing cross-references to stall with Mellel. And I don't want to change to a different word processor, but would really like a planned feature to arrive within the time frame announced. Hasn't it been like a year since cross-references were coming?

I would appreciate any news on an update. I have a project that's 600+ pages long in Mellel, and it will likely get a bit larger. Cross references would really help, especially if they are preserved when exporting to pdf.

I don't know about anyone else, but I would gladly hand over cash for an upgrade with cross-references.

[nicka]

Nisus Writer Pro has been released, and has cross-references among other things.

Indeed, and the other things include indexing, an outline pane and text wrap around figures, not to mention scripting and export of styles to Word. So in theory it would be possible to use NWP for a cross-referenced long document. In practice, I'd rather not have to try. Mellel feels a lot more solid somehow -- and you can't drag headings in the outline pane in NWP. I tried and it just extends the selection. Very 1995...

That said, I am a getting a bit worried about Mellel, and I would also love to know when cross-references are expected: this year, next year, sometime, never? Aren't we due a Mellel newsletter soon anyway?

[Timotheus]

NWPro is certainly a nice, sympathic application. But it is not a good choice for those who work with very long documents. Like NWE, indeed, NWPro is terribly slow with long documents; and Mellel's outline pane is vastly superior to NWPro's. And outline panes, as we all know, are of fundamental importance for those who write long documents. That's why I won't buy it, though I really like it.

And yes, Nicka, I share your worries about Mellel. And not because we're still waiting for cross-references, but because the enthousiasm of recent times seems to have waned. And what's worse: the discussions on this forum have become rather useless, because they have lost any connection with the actual development of the program. What a difference (for instance) with Scrivener!

[nicka]

Agreed. There's a real buzz around Scrivener at the moment, something like Mellel a couple of years ago. Actually, I want to thank you for reminding me about it. I tried it in beta last year, but I didn't think I could use it because it didn't fully support import and export of footnotes and didn't talk to Bookends. The latest beta does both, so I'm giving it another go. (For those who are interested, the beta -- which is really a release candidate of 1.1 -- is available from the Scrivener forum. It makes a pretty good combination with Mellel now.)

About Mellel: I think a good deal of the excitement will return once it gets cross-references. But I'd really like to see a new newsletter with some information about how it is going.

[Ori Redler]

Any chance on an update?

A quick update regarding cross referencing and a sketchy outline of what's ahead there.

To start, it's already running (still in our 'labs' at alpha stage, but running).
As noted (much) earlier, there are several things we want to introduce with this feature:

1. A way to format the cross references properly (like FrameMaker, but in a more compassionate, humane way).
2. Find a way to add marks (or targets) while you're entering a reference, and make this work properly (i.e., save the time consuming 1-2-1 punch of 1-enter a reference, 2-oops, forgot about the target, let's enter a target. 3-now enter a reference pointing to this target).
3. Auto-updating of cross-references, especially with regards to relational information (e.g., above, below, next page, etc.).
4. Do it quickly and accurately.

Generally speaking, 3 and 4 are considered mutually exclusive, but we're doing our best to overcome this.

[szxy12dml]

Thanks so much for the update.

It's really exciting to hear it's running and progressing.

From my perspective, I would personally find it helpful if the development plan for cross-references perhaps occurred in phases.

Perhaps initially the basic functionality would exist, and perhaps not be optimized or be fast. It would work, be reliable, and not get corrupted (like that *other word processor* cough Word)

It's exciting to hear the vision for them, but personally I would counsel to not let the perfect (complete control over styles) be the enemy of the good. So, for example, it would completely work for me if cross references initially only existed in body style (or 1 style of the user's choice)

I would myself rather have cross-references, even if this is slow, and even if it made Mellel use more CPU cycles (in documents with cross-references). I'm happy to see optimization over time, but cross-references really are the "killer app" for me. (true: InDesign lets you do that, but really: you can't use InDesign as an everyday word processor--or at least I don't want to).

It's also great to hear thoughts about usability with cross references--after working with cross-references in InDesign lots, I think you've identified a weakness (not necessarily limited to that program, and you may not have even been thinking about that program).

I would probably rather see the ability to apply a specific discreet cross reference (a declared reference to *this* thing on p4 or whatever) first, before seeing support for "next" or "previous" etc. Other's may have different preferences, but I think it would be great to support at least the ability to create a reference to a specific thing on a specific page, and other stuff can come later, in my opinion, for what it's worth.

The update is really helpful. Thanks for taking time to share the news!

[ptram]

NWP is a powerful wordprocessor, where I could imagine myself writing. There are several things I like:

- complete set of features
- intuitive, wysiwyg editing of styles
- intuitive yet powerful Search and Replace
- decent exchange of documents with MS Word (including styles and illustrations)
- automatic opening of the document previously in edit

There is, however, something that I really don't like:

- the general appearance is a bit rough; too many colors, and not always following a color scheme; the addition of Mellel-like palettes is clearly a patchwork
- responsiveness is not very good, especially with long documents
- text display is not as nice and clear as in Mellel
- cross-references are not mature; I can't even find a way to search them; there is no way of using heading paragraphs as targets, and composite references (e.g., see "Title" on page 2354) are not allowed
- the outline pane is still very basic, not allowing for restructuring of the document
- not yet localized in my language
- the icon sucks!

Paolo

[Ori Redler]

Thanks so much for the update.

It's really exciting to hear it's running and progressing.

From my perspective, I would personally find it helpful if the development plan for cross-references perhaps occurred in phases.

Perhaps initially the basic functionality would exist, and perhaps not be optimized or be fast. It would work, be reliable, and not get corrupted (like that *other word processor* cough Word)

It's exciting to hear the vision for them, but personally I would counsel to not let the perfect (complete control over styles) be the enemy of the good. So, for example, it would completely work for me if cross references initially only existed in body style (or 1 style of the user's choice)

I wish it was so that we could separate the "fancy" stuff from the essentials, but it rarely works like that. In essence, there is a set of problems to overcome and there are standards we will not deviate from (speed, stability, accurate layout, etc.) and once those are kept, the rest is fairly an easy ride.

[spinningdoc]

I'd second the Mellel/Scrivener combination.

The quick and dirty description of Scrivener is that it's like MacJournal but with useful features (for instance, a screenplay mode, outliner and index card views, notes and annotations, wiki-esque links, snapshots, combining and splitting documents, and really strong exporting). You can also drag in pdf's and web pages which display in it, rather than as icons.

And like Mellel, it has a thriving website where your actual developer (one bloke from the UK, who, amazingly, does it part time) has real discussions.

[nicka]

In addition to the support for Bookends and for footnotes in the latest Scrivener beta, there is another promising development.
Scrivener also has support for MultiMarkdown (MMD), a sort of human-readable markup language with conventions for headings, footnotes, and tables. There are nascent efforts to write something that will convert Scrivener-produced MMD output to Mellel format. If that works out it will be possible to outline and draft in Scrivener, with notes and references, then export the lot into Mellel and style and set the document with a minimum of fuss.

[Babogaya]

Like many others here I have both Nisus (NWE) and Mellel. I don't think there's much doubt Nisus update quickly, but boy are they careless of their customers. I have used to plead with them about the way they do columns (no equal split, and far too fiddly). I did not get one reply from any Nisus official, but of course some support from other users. Now NW Pro is out, and guess what No change in the columns feature!
Mellel is slower in development, but it is rock solid, and it does what it says on the tin. I'm staying!

[Timotheus]

The truth is that Nisus has overplayed its hand. The company wanted to gain market share, and decided therefore to add to its standard product in one single, spectacular move TOC ànd Indexing ànd Bookmarks ànd Cross-references ànd Text around images ànd Line numbering ànd many other things. And it thought it possible to do so in a responsible way. It clearly is not.

[Phil82]

I agree. I've been working with NWE Pro for a week and I think it doesn't compare to Mellel. Mellel just ``feels'' so much better.

Still, I would like them cross references.

[ptram]

Still, I would like them cross references.

Yes, but please not the way they are implemented in NWP. They are nearly useless with long documents.

Paolo

[nicka]

I have my doubts about whether Nisus Writer's problems are solvable, but it might be worth letting the developers know the problems you have found, ptram, Timotheus, Phil82. I doubt they read the Mellel forum... And one of the Nisus people does read and respond to postings on the Nisus Pro forum.

I bet that Mellel has usable cross-references for long documents before NWP, though.