Wishlist for version 2.6

[laup]

Most urgent: 19 (Word integration), 1 (indexing)

Indexing is obviously hard, but it seems to me quite doable now that Mellel has cross references and a good search and replace capability.

As for Word "integration," much more would be readily possible than we now have. Pages and what some forum members have apparently done with Find sets illustrate this. The primary goals, I would think would be importing AND exporting styles recognized by Word, and markups.

[DCBerk]

Ability to associate a Level with a particular Paragraph Style, plus easier way to assign keystroke to Levels (and anything else) without having to go to System Preferences.

Auto-correct feature with ability to construct individualized glossary of abbreviations/completions. I have TextExpander, but it would be preferable to have this feature built in as it is a huge time-saver.

[Guntis]

7) Legal numbering - 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.2, 1.2.1, etc. When I work on legal documents (bylaws etc.), this is a must-have.

This is also a RTFM problem. It's already there. You might want to check the auto titles in the guide
Hans-Reinhard

Auto titles is not the solution. Whenever I need this type of numbering I have to start creating auto-titles which would have this type of numbering. Too much work to be useful. And auto titles appear in the Outline view, which is not what I want. Simple list of legal rules in the text should not appear in the Outline pane where section titles should be. Of course I can create template with this auto titles style already there, but then I have to know beforehad that I will need this type of numbering before I even start my document. In Pages it's already built in by default. If they already have all kinds of numbering, why not just add this one?

[Guntis]

5) Line spacing in points while rulers in cm mode.

You can change line spacing to points in the Allignment & Spacing palette and/or in the Paragraph style set.
I don't think the choice of lines or points should have any connection with the choice of inches or cm

Also, any place that requires a measurement, the information can be input in points. If your box says "1cm", and you want 12 points, just type "12pts" in the text field. When the field loses focus (or you press "Enter") the value will change from "12pts" to the equivalent in centimeters.

If I want to change paragraph spacing from 6 pt to 12 pt, I have to type in "12 pt" + Enter. In InDesign it takes two clicks. If I see paragraph spacing 0.282 cm, I have no idea what it is in points. I don't know any other word processor whcih wouldn't allow me to use points in spacing palettes and centimeters in rulers. Only Mellel has this restriction. If Mellel tries to be "InDesign for the rest of us", then I don't get why they keep this restriction. Or if it's not InDesign Jr, then I don't get why all those OpenType features and cross-references etc. Actually I'm confused where they are steering their development of Mellel. What in the end they want it to be? — something like InDesign? Or Word? Will it be DTP or word processor? It has something from both, but not really either one of them, and thus too often I run into problems with this app. It looks like it's been created for technical documentation, but suddenly I realise I can't create simple legal line numbering (1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc.). I start to use it in academic class setting, but then I find that it cannot hyphenate text properly because I have several languages mixed in one paragraph. I try to use it for sermon writing, but then I see that it doesn't display Hebrew font (Yehudit) properly. In Accordance it looks like serif font, in Mellel it's sans serif, and it doens't look exactly like in Accordance. It's very promising app, extremely stable, but very restrictive and stiff in some areas. For me this is love-and-hate relationships. I'd like to use it, but I constantly run into restrictions and problems with it.

In response to some of your other points:

• There are keyboard shortcuts for text alignment, but they are found under the Paragraph Style menu. This is because text alignment is a property of a paragraph style, and managed through there.

Sorry, in my Paragraph style menu alignment commands are not even listed. There are shortcuts only for paragraph styles. That means I have to create separate body style for each alignment type?! No way. I need one Body style and possibility to override default alignment with any other alignment by using Command+Shift+{ or } or | shortcuts.

• I fail to see why every input field that includes a value should have a slider or spinner—one of those buttons next to a text field with arrows at the top and bottom increment or decrement numbers—to facilitate its change. Wouldn't typing a value be much faster than repeatedly clicking on a spinner control? Also, having a spinner or slider control just takes up valuable room on the palette or in a dialog. I personally don't feel this would be a good interface decision.

Take a look at the InDesign CS3 interface. Extremely compact and easy to use. It takes very little real estate on my screen and still has much more controls than Mellel. And all input fields have incremental change widgets or sliders. In Photoshop sliders usually appear only when I click in the input field. If I need to chage setting by 1 pt, it's easier to do one click than insert cursor, select existing number, type in new one, pres Enter button.

• And finally, as far as your request to have styles follow the document, I believe you need to be a bit more specific. Perhaps you could start a new thread indicating exactly what the problem is—with the steps to accurately reproduce it—so that the developers or other users can help you discover if this is a bug in the program or let you know what you are doing incorrectly.

For example, now I open new Mellel document and it's styles are already not editable! When I click in the toolbar, I get this message: "Can't edit Paragraph Style. This style doesnt' belong to the current Style Set, you can't edit it." Thank you very much. I've never had such stupid messages in ANY other application. I've worked many years with PageMaker, InDesign, CorelDRAW and other DTP applications. Not even once I had a problem like this. Because full styleset is embedded in the document and document is not dependent on some style set residing somewhere in my computer. What if I change my style set and styles for the specific document purposes and then send that document to another user who has standard style set, for the review and editing? He/she won't be able to edit embedded styles. So all idea about styles becomes totally useless... This is because Mellel's styles are not really meant to be adjusted. They should be used "as is", but I've accustomed to change styles for each document accrding to my needs. And as soon as I do it, I have this problem of incompatibility with the "current style set", and again I complain...

[nicka]

I have been away, and look what happens...

A late vote:


Most urgent
-----------

4. Undo after saving
21. Clickable hyperlinks in PDF output -- these already exist in 2.5 for cross-references, but I'm voting for this option because I would like 'export to pdf' to generate a proper pdf table of contents (the thing that shows up in a drawer in Preview), and also to have in-text clickable table of contents, endnotes, footnotes as well as cross-references.
8. Better endnote handling: e.g. endnotes not necessarily at very end of text, but at specified places


Highly desirable
----------------
12. OpenType (large and) small caps, as well as sub- and superscripts
1. Indexing
17. Start chapter (or page range) on odd page and an option to suppress header/footer on an empty last even page of chapter or range


Would be very useful
--------------------
18. Invisible characters: different symbols for different kinds of space character (breaking, non-breaking, thin, normal-width, hairline etc.)
19. Improved WORD integration: import/export of style names. (It's the names that matter, NOT the way the text looks. As long as the logical styling is preserved, the text can be reformatted by being poured into a template. That's what styles are for!)
15. Improved image handling — especially TeX-like anchoring of images to text



And my contribution: a solution (ANY solution will do) to a problem that has been brought up several times on this forum -- that there's no way to have unnumbered and numbered autotitles at the same level, and no way to have only some of the autotitles at a given level in the table of contents. See http://forum.redlers.com/viewtopic.php? ... &sk=t&sd=a
It seems to me that this is a really fundamental problem that you run into with Mellel right away when you start putting together the structure for a thesis or an academic book. One solution for part of the problem is a tick-box on the auto-title dialogue: use in table of contents (defaults to 'on'). For the other part a deeper solution is necessary: the ability to put two different structural auto-title streams at the same level – and this could actually be used to solve both parts of the problem.

[Mart°n]

I have been away, and look what happens...

A late vote:

I hope the “poll” isn’t closed jet:

1. Most urgent:
15. Improved image handling (text float around images)
5. Improved language options: spellchecking, hyphenation and quotes as part of a language style
9. Better column handling: variable width columns, variable text float

2. Second choice:
41. GUI needs major change, resizeable windows/palettes, OS X Toolbar, floating inspector for images/tables
2. Split window and tabbed documents (drag & drop tabs like Safari)
12. OpenType (large and) small caps, as well as sub- and superscripts

3. Third choice:
14. Improved Table implementation (navigation, table headers, alternate colors, exact size)
21. Clickable hyperlinks in PDF output
4. Undo after saving (with a history panel)

Additional wish:
Customizable keyboard shortcuts. While the Mellel shortcuts worked well for me some years ago, the hard wired F-Keys system becomes more and more problematic with every new Mac/Mac OS. While my F-Keys are unused 3 years ago, today every new Mac likes to use them to control iTunes, Exposé, Spaces and if you install additional Software, some of them also like to grab an F-Key (Ultralingua for example) that could not be changed. So I like to freely assign the various Styles/Variations and other options (list controlling, auto-titles…)

[TomEck]

I would like to add another small feature request related to the Bookends and Sente interface. As far as I can see, the settings in the Mellel bibliography preferences effect the bibliography but not the in-text citation (either text body or footnotes). That means that both Bookends and Sente have to (or at least do) use ad hoc character styles rather than to apply the correct character style variation (in particular bold, italic and underlined).

That doesn't make sense in Mellels concept of styles not only in the bibliography but also for in-text citations; and it causes problems if you have to reformat the document after you have performed the reference scan. Of course, I can unscan the document first or replace the irregular ad hoc style settings manually but this could also result in trouble (see for example this thread) and/or unnecessary effort at least.

Both could be avoided with an extended preference pane to set up these options for in-text citations as it for the bibliography exits already. This includes the ability to predefine the paragraph style for in-text citations. In most of the cases the paragraph style of the text body and the in-text citation will be the same but there are also cases where it differs, such as for indention or centred in-text citations.

[keidan]

What about AAT fonts support, at least for the 3.0 version?

[Hyphenation1]

Most urgent for me: 5, 7, 10, 13 – and the ability to use "standard ligatures" containing "historical forms" (OpenType), which does not seem to be possible at the moment: for instance, none of the "long-s" ligatures in Adobe fonts (such as Garamond Premier Pro or Jenson Pro) work(s).

[Bruno]

Here are my suggestions for 2.6, or is the feature set already fixed and we can list our wishes for 2.7?

Most Urgent:

First additional feature request; Improved Autotitles and Outline Pane:
1.1) Text wrap in Outline Pane: as some Autotitles are longer than Chapter 1, Chapter 2; it would be nice to have the Autotitles wrap automatically in the Outline Pane instead of being cut off
1.2) For some serious outlining work: An option to close the main text window entirely and have only the Outline Pane open
1.3) being able to assign custom colour labels to the Autotitles like Draft, Finished, Position not fixed yet, etc.
1.4) being able to edit the character appearance of the Autotitles in the Outline Pane (and the background colour, as well)

Second additional feature request: Note Pane (instead of Marginalia or an extra Column of Side Notes): A Note Pane opens to the right of the main window. One can enter a title and some text or a simple to do list per note. The notes can be connected to the Autotitles or to any word in the main body of text with Xrefs. One could use the note function as a short synopsis for each chapter of a novel, for a to do list of what to include under an Autotitle heading, as Comments for collaboration, or...

Second Choice: 2, 5

Third Choice: 6

[mbywater]

My list:

URGENT
QuickLook
Word -compatible comments and change tracking

MOST DESIRABLE
Keyboard shortcuts for Insert Autotitle (so the Outline pane finally becomes something workable instead of a wrist-aching exercise in mousing.)
Save As... rtf, Word etc. No more "Export"ing
Undo after saving
Marginalia (not comments; marginalia are to occur in the final output.)

Some of the other stuff is great too; it's just that I never write anything that isn't typeset/published by someone else, so things like indexing are irrelevant to me, whereas they are probably crucial to some other users.

The word-compatible comments & change tracking are probably most crucial for Mellel itself. They are a deal-breaker as far as compatibility with the (benighted) rest of the world is concerned. If Mellel can offer that, given how slow Nisus can be on big documents, and how lamentably unsuited to anything over a 30 page "business" report Pages seems to me to be, I think the customers who've been holding off so far would come running.

[nalugu]

most urgent: two-pages view (3.)

[Yulaan]

Here is my ranking :

Most urgent : 1 (indexing) 7/8 (Better footnotes) 9/10 (better columns, escpecially for marginalia)
Second choice : 15 (Improved image handling) 36 (multiple bibliographies) 12/13 (Opentype)
Third choice : 21 (clickable hyperlinks in pdf) 19 (improved word integration) 25 (True live-updating of referenceswith Bookends)

One more feature : Integration of non breaking spaces (for the french typography)

[Yulaan]

And another feature which is important : Index of citation which are entered with bookends in the text, to know where each bibliographic references are.

[Oreny]

14. Improved Table implementation.

Maneuvering through the tableis so constrict!
Being able to jump through cells in a table with arrow keys is supposed to be a basic option.