Future Mellel Features

[Eyal Redler]

Dear Mellelers,

I'd like to share with you some features that I've been contemplating for future versions of Mellel. I would love to hear what you think, which one should get priority, am I missing something?

Some of these features are easy to do, some require more significant effort and there's no particular logic to the order of presentation.

Focus Mode
When this feature is on, clicking an outline item will "focus" on the selected part, showing only the of the part. Another way to put it, the document is divided into multiple sub-documents so you can focus on each as if it is the only thing.

Conditional Sections
Imagine being able to flick a checkbox in an outline item which causes this section not to be included in the document.

Devanagari Support
Properly support Devanagari and other Indic scripts.

Replacing Palettes with Inspector
Move away from floating palettes to a user interface that has all the control in one window. Similar to what Pages and many other applications do.

Multiple Bibliographies
Have a bibliography for each chapter or other major section of the document.

Emoji Support
Allow inserting Emoji characters into your Mellel documents.

Captions
Attach an autotitle/text area to an image to ensure the autotitle stays together with the image.

Publication Templates
Offer a wider variety of templates.

Synchronization
Allow synchronizing styles, templates and other settings between Mellel installations.

Web Like Navigation
Offer a back and forward buttons to jump between editing locations.

Styles Pane
Show an outline of styles on the side - a cross section of the document structure in terms of styles.

Markdown Export and Import
I think this one is self explanatory.

Import Changes
Import document changes from other documents. For example, send a docx document to a colleague using Word, get the revised document back and import the changes into the original Mellel document.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Icelander]

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Dear Eyal,
The suggestions are all good. I have tried to rearrange them according to what I would like to see prioritized.

1. Web Like Navigation
“Offer a back and forward buttons to jump between editing locations.”
This should have been implemented a long time ago. Accompany this with keyboard shortcuts. Other word processors use "COM [" and "COM ]" for this feature, so perhaps Mellel could use "SHIFT COM [" and "SHIFT COM ]" so it won't collide with the menu commands "Decrease One Level" and "Increase One Level".

2. Synchronization
“Allow synchronizing styles, templates and other settings between Mellel installations.”
Yes, this should be the normal behavior.

3. Captions
“Attach an autotitle/text area to an image to ensure the autotitle stays together with the image.”
I consider this to be indispensable. High priority.

4. Multiple Bibliographies
"Have a bibliography for each chapter or other major section of the document."
This feature should get priority, in my opinion. Much needed by those of us who write scholarly books in the humanities. I'm now writing schoolbooks where each chapter needs to have its own bibliography. For me, top priority.

5. Focus Mode
Very good idea.

6. Conditional Sections
Very good idea.

7. Replacing Palettes with Inspector
I usually keep all palettes on the right side of a document. That looks like as if they were glued to the document, which is what I want. When they get in the way, I use a keyboard shortcut to toggle the visibility. When one particular palette is needed for repetitive actions (for example, the bibliography, markers, etc.) it's good to be able to temporarily move them to another, more convenient location. Or in other words, I would still like to have floating palettes. I would not want them to be replaced with Inspector. Having Inspector, as an alternative choice, is all right with me.

8. Styles Pane
“Show an outline of styles on the side - a cross section of the document structure in terms of styles.”
Not exactly sure how that would look like. Would clicking on one style somehow highlight all text in that style? — I would like to be able to search for a paragraph style in the Find & Replace box. Now users can only search for a character style.

9. Publication Templates
"Offer a wider variety of templates."
I think everybody will welcome that. The templates in Mellel are all esthetically pleasing, and that makes them stand out compared to other word processors. I would like to see templates for the humanities: papers written according to the MLA, the Chicago Style and the APA Style.

10. Emoji Support
Yes, we have been waiting for this a long time. :–)

11. Markdown Export and Import
I never use markdown.

12. Import Changes
“Import document changes from other documents. For example, send a docx document to a colleague using Word, get the revised document back and import the changes into the original Mellel document.”
I have mixed feelings about this, so I put it at the end. I'm not sure why the colleague has to apply Track Changes to the Word document at all. Why not simply ask the colleague to write his or her changes as comments or inline comments, i.e. he or she hits the Return key, then writes the changes inside [[…]] in red or blue. That will be imported directly into Mellel. Problem resolved.

Edit:
Since yesterday, I have changed my mind regarding importing Track Changes from Word. Since changes can be accepted and rejected in Mellel with minimum effort, I think such an import feature could be very useful after all.

13. Devanagari Support
I don't need that. Therefore I put this at the end.

[Amontillado]

Wow - cool stuff!

Icelander, as is his wont, hits many nails on the head. Here's my spin.

In terms of productivity, Focus Mode plus Conditional Sections would be very nice, and that's a radical understatement. There could be sections for archiving stuff that didn't quite work and sections for research. Lots of context and history could be contained in a single document.

Focus Mode would let Mellel work like an extremely powerful two pane outliner. Auto-titles appearing in the Outline would serve as a topic list and each subdocument would be the body of a topic. I already use Mellel for an outliner in this fashion and it works great.

The Outline panel is high level context and the document window contains the topic note. I use auto-titles with page breaks to minimize seeing other sections.

Outlining in Mellel is very cool even though it's not an outliner. I like text boxes for "notes to self." With Conditional Sections, I could write the outline, deselect those sections from the output, and maintain the outline and the document in one file. Split screen would let me peruse the outline in one pane and work on the manuscript in the other. Every thumb up on those features!

Captions - if I had any thumbs left after Focus Mode and Conditional Sections, this would get them. I often include graphics in correspondence. A cover letter for a payment may have a thumbnail of the invoice and letters to family often get pictures of our outings. Binding a caption to an image would be great.

Styles Pane - great idea, particularly if it also displayed the style set structure. I have a Python script, not quite ready for prime time, that reads a Mellel document and writes a Markdown report of styles and dependencies. If I have a diamond (document local) style that I want to get rid of I don't spend much time looking for it. I run a report and discover where the extra style is. If a Styles Pane could put my script out of a job I'd be delighted!

Replacing Palettes with Inspector - you got me with Focus Mode and Conditional Sections. Count me as neutral on an inspector. I think the current UI is fine. Inspector panes are the norm in just about everything else. Anything that makes Mellel more approachable helps Mellel's community. An Inspector would probably do that.

Multiple Bibliographies - I think this sounds great, but I should defer to more academic writers. I have Bookends, I like the idea of Bibliographies, but I rarely use them. If you could have one bibliography for a research section of your document, un-checked for output, and another bibliography for the production part of your manuscript, that probably has possibilities. More flexibility is never a bad thing. This sounds cool.

Synchronization - This would be very useful. Chronosync keeps my laptop and desktop systems partially in lockstep. Better organization would be most welcome. It would be nice if the sync was done through files instead of a cloud API. That would let a USB drive handle syncing for those who don't like to rely on the cloud, or who write where Internet access isn't practical.

Synchronization sounds somewhat related to importing changes from Word documents, which would also be a powerful feature.

Publication Templates - More templates would be good. Even for those who obsess over customizing style sets, more ideas and examples would be great.

Emoji Support - worth including, but it's also easy enough to hit a shortcut to bring up the Mac's character viewer. Emojis are more useful than the name implies. Symbols like 𝛑 are serious things.

Markdown - I write in Markdown quite a bit. At work, I sometimes avoid Word by writing Markdown in vim, then pandoc to docx. Cumbersome? Yes. Not writing in Word? Priceless.

Mellel could serve as a great conduit from Markdown in, say, Obsidian, to real world formatting. Another great idea.

Web Like Navigation - this would be a nice convenience, particularly if the forward/backward history was separate between the panes of a split document.

Devanagari Support - it's a diverse world. Even if I never write in Devanagari, what makes Mellel more useful for others makes it a stronger tool for me.

By the way, one thing often heard among plain text advocates is their beloved ASCII is future proof. Mellel already writes plain text files. Markdown would preserve more formatting. Truth to tell, Mellel files appear to be designed for functionality, not obscurity. Mellel document files are already functionally future proof, but waving the Markdown flag wouldn't hurt.

Here are a couple of reasons why Mellel is my daily driver.

Auto-titles include control over both appearance in the manuscript and in the table of contents.

Style sets, which include page styles and header/footer layout, let me have one document I can present multiple ways. What Scrivener does with a complex compile phase, Mellel does by loading a different style set. Naming individual styles the same in alternate style sets makes "compiling" for a different audience as easy as selecting a style set and replacing styles by name.

Mellel's performance is also reassuring. My aging Mac will smoothly scroll through two million words of lorem ipsum. Finding a single unique word anywhere in million word documents is pretty much instantaneous.

The way Mellel wraps regular expressions with a menu driven dialog is also very cool.

Very excited.

[Icelander]

Emoji Support […] it's also easy enough to hit a shortcut to bring up the Mac's character viewer.

The problem here is that most colored emojis don't show up in Mellel, even if you use the Mac's character viewer.

The problem is discussed here:
viewtopic.php?p=19913

[Moises Zumaeta]

Eyal,

I agree with Icelander that all the new features suggested are very welcome. I will also follow Icelander’s logic and order your suggestions in accordance with what I would like to see prioritized.

1. Captions
I am pretty sure most of us consider this one of the highest priorities, since in our writings we make use of a number of graphics, including tables. Will this Captions feature also be available for tables?

2. Multiple Bibliographies
I believe this is a very important feature because some of our writing projects require that we produce a bibliography for individual chapters. Since I use Bookends for citations and bibliographies in Mellel, how would this feature work in tandem with Bookends?

3. Replacing Palettes with Inspector
For me, this is an important feature. I actually prefer to have an Inspector working specifically with the document at hand rather than a global floating palette. I realize that others have a different preference. While I would not miss the palettes, the Solomonic option is perhaps to make the palette “anchorable”—that is, having the ability to lock and unlock it to the document. That way, those who prefer their floating palettes could still have them, while those of us who prefer an Inspector would also get what we want.

I have the same sense as Amontillado that an Inspector would make Mellel “more approachable” to others because, in my opinion, it would make it more intuitive for those non-Mellel users we are trying to reach out to.

4. Web Like Navigation, Focus Mode, Conditional Sections, and Emoji Support
I know we would all be very grateful to have these options available.

5. Synchronization
I agree with Icelander that this should be a given.

6. Publication Templates and Style Pane
These are also welcome features. It never hurts to have more options regarding templates. The Style pane would also be helpful because it would enable us to more easily identify specific style types (or non-define styles) that we would like to replace.

7. Devanagari Support / Tertiary Language
Since I have never used Devanagari, this is not a priority for me. On another note, even though you have not proposed it as an option, it would be very nice to have support for a “tertiary” language. Some of us in the humanities often make use of three languages, and it would be nice to have a specific font type for, let’s say, Hebrew, Greek, and German. By the way, I rated this as number 7 because I don’t use Devanagari; however, a tertiary language ranks pretty high for me.

8. Markdown Export and Import and Import Changes
Like Devanagari, these are rated last because I don’t use these features. However, that does not mean that I don’t welcome them!

One again Eyal, thank you very much for your hard work!

[Eyal Redler]

Thanks for all the replies so far, don't consider my reply as a conversation stopper, do chime in and vote for your favorites.

I'll reply to a few issues that were raised here.

Regarding captions (which seems to be the most popular) and tables, yes, it is planned to allow captions for tables.

Multiple bibliographies and Bookends, I haven't yet thought about all the aspects of this but it seems to me it could work with Bookends just like it does today unless there is a requirement for doing things like different bibliography formats for each chapter or using multiple databases. Perhaps I'm missing some concern here?

Regarding Palettes<>Inspector. As I suspected it would, it is rather controversial, it is one of the more difficult issues (to decide upon) as it involves making a change in a very basic aspect of the UI, these types of changes have a high impact on the "feel" of the application.

The palettes are familiar for Mellel users but they look odd and make it harder for newcomers. I get quite a few support calls from new users who closed the palettes that closed them by mistake and can't figure out how to bring them up again. They also seem to many as old-fashioned (although I don't necessarily consider it a bad thing).

I think it is fair to say that the palettes are hampering the adoption of Mellel by giving a bad impression to newbies but beyond that, an inspector UI is easier to use not only because it is more familiar but because it is always close to the text and moves with the window (which is nice if you're using a multi-window setup).

The main disadvantage of the inspector ui in the Mellel context is that it poses a problem for formatting outside the main window which is something Mellel does a lot. For example, when you're editing an Auto-title format in the "Configure Auto-titles" window you need to access formatting options in the character and paragraph palette, if the inspector is part of the window, it will be hidden, disabled, behind the configuration window.

[Amontillado]

Here's another use case for focused mode - desktop publishing, particularly with Affinity Publisher (AP).

Mellel in focused mode would be an ideal companion to AP.

Your published AP document is probably a mix of graphics, attributes like backgrounds and text styles, and text which may or may not be contiguous in the finished product.

AP is a great desktop publishing system, very reasonably priced. It's got plenty of quirks and rough edges, but it's under active development and refinement.

Like most desktop publishers, it's a horrid word processor. I'd almost rather write with edlin under DOS 2.0.

Better, though, write each article, sidebar, and all your text under separate auto-titles in Mellel. Highlight an article from a Mellel auto-title with click and shift-click, copy, and paste into Affinity Publisher.

This gets you the benefit of a bespoke writing environment in Mellel separate from your formatting system in AP.

Background

Affinity will preserve styles if you paste from Word. This is a trap. For one thing, friends don't let friends write in Word.

New styles from Word are created as new Affinity Publisher styles, and now you have two style domains. Change the styles in Word and re-paste and Affinity will keep your old Word styles and add new Word styles. Worse, the style changes propagated by pasting don't always affect previously pasted text in other parts of your Affinity work. You may have to update multiple Affinity styles to alter appearance that should have been covered by a single style. Icky.

Better to paste plain text into Affinity, render unto Affinity what styles ought to be Affinity's, and benefit from consistency in your target document. Affinity's styles are what controls Affinity's output. It's counterproductive to have un-synched one-way transfer of styles into Affinity.

Copy-paste from Mellel lands as plain text in Affinity, so Mellel already plays nicely with AP, staying out of Affinity's styles.

If Command-A in Mellel selected all text currently in focus, not the whole Mellel document, you would have an easy way to select a component for AP in Mellel. Copy-paste does the transfer. Single newline breaks between paragraphs in Mellel appear as single newline paragraph breaks in AP. All good. It's perfect.

Wishlist for focused mode

Keep focus mode local to each side of a split document. In other words, I might want to have focused mode enabled on the left pane and disabled on the right pane. Or, I might want both panes to be focused on different sections. Or the same section.

Consider remembering the focus when enabling/disabling focused mode. It would be nice to "zoom out" to unfocused mode, flip through the document, and then on reenabling focused mode return to where I was when I disabled the focus. Perhaps some of the same code for web view functions could help for restoring cursor position within the focus.

The down side of this would be jumping the cursor to where it was two hours ago when I last used focused mode. Maybe this could be solved with two focus commands. One command to enable focus mode, leaving the cursor where it is, and another command to restore the last focus.

It's useful in some cases to turn off all the extra UI elements. Sometimes I like to write in nothing more than a text box. It might be nice to be able to turn off the Outline and remain in focused mode, but I can also see this could create user hostility. If a user turned off the Outline and then thought Mellel ate the rest of his document, that would be an unfair accusation against Mellel. While I can see a case for remaining in focused mode without the Outline, it might be healthier for Mellel if turning off the Outline also turned off focused mode.

Highlighting the focused section in the Outline might help a novice user understand there is more to the document than currently meeting the eye. For instance, change the color of the auto-titles listed in the Outline that are in the currently focused section. This would help give the novice a hint there's more to his document than he's currently seeing, plus it would be a great visualization of which auto-titles are in the currently focused section.

Just a few thoughts, potentially quite half-baked, and I understand there is going to be time invested in the updates. It's going to be worth the wait, and surely worth an upgrade fee.

[megira]

Eyal, thanks for sharing these ideas!

Captions are essential. I’m honestly surprised this feature isn’t available yet. It should work not only for images but also for tables and equations.

I fully support the Inspector Mode. While the current UI is functional, it was initially intimidating and required a learning curve. Even now, I don’t feel I’m working with maximum efficiency and often find myself adjusting settings instead of writing seamlessly. I believe the interface for accessing features should be more intuitive and readily available. I personally mitigated this with Keyboard Maestro, but most users won’t have the time or patience to customize shortcuts just to navigate the UI.

I also strongly support the Multiple Bibliographies feature, as it would be highly useful for structuring academic work.

More broadly, I’d like the interface to feel more user-friendly. Mellel is indeed powerful, but its learning curve remains a barrier. The Inspector could be a step in the right direction, but I think a balance should be struck between preserving Mellel’s unique approach and making features more accessible.

A few additional suggestions:
• More toolbar customization options.
• Improving the equation editor UI (I brought this up in a previous post). This would significantly enhance the experience for academic users.
• Adding an option to crop images directly within the document.


All other directions you’ve mentioned and I think they are great.

Thank you Eyal

[DavidH]

Thanks so much for this, Eyal, and thanks to those who have already written in.

Captions and multiple bibliographies (and direct control over where elements like bibliographies actually appear in the finished document) would be my own top priorities on this list.

Something else that would mean a lot to me personally is an update to Mellel’s support for OpenType features. Newer fonts often make ambitious use of stylistic sets that are currently inaccessible from within Mellel.

[Amontillado]

It would be nice to include graphics in auto-titles. I think typesetters call them ornaments, like a swoosh underneath a chapter title.

But don't let that distract from focused mode and selective output, which has my eyes rolling up in my head like Homer Simpson dreaming of all you can eat seafood. Mmmmm.... Focused mode.....

[rwg]

Devanagari Support
Properly support Devanagari and other Indic scripts.

Having waited for this for many many years and having complained about its absence several times on this forum, I would be extremely happy to this implemented.

[johseb]

Here's my list (in order of preference):

1. Web Like Navigation
2. Captions
3. Multiple Bibliographies
4. Replacing Palettes with Inspector (with an option to keep the palettes)
5. Publication Templates
6. Synchronization
7. Styles Pane
8. Import Changes
9. Markdown Export and Import
10. Conditional Sections

If I may, I'd like to add another one: an advanced search mode.
It should handle proper Regex syntax and allow to apply formatting to portions of a find or replace expression.

[laup]

My responses/votes

Focus mode: I like the current functionality in which clicking an item in outline causes a jump to that point in text. I would not want to lose that.

Conditional Sections. Very good idea. This could reduce the confusion of having multiple versions of a manuscript up to date.

Devanagari Support. I'm agnostic.

Replacing Palettes with Inspector. I think I would prefer Inspector. It's economical and familiar. But it's risky. Also, see Icelander.

Multiple Bibliographies. I see this as VERY desirable

Captions. Yes.

Publication Tempates. Absolutely.

Emoji Support. I'm agnostic

Synchronization. Very desirable.

Web Like Navigation. Definitely.

Styles Pane. I'm not sure I see this as necessary or understand what it would be.

Markdown Sport and Import. Very desirable.

Import Changes. Very desirable.

[macsailor]

I would very much like to be able to use a feature that is called “noncontiguous selection” or “multipart selection” in the world of Nisus Writer Pro. If that would be implemented in Mellel as well I would be very thankful.

[Icelander]

I would very much like to be able to use a feature that is called “noncontiguous selection” or “multipart selection” in the world of Nisus Writer Pro.

Mellel is the only major word processor I know that doesn't offer a non-contiguous text selection. People have been asking for this feature repeatedly in the past.

Mellel uses a different text system than macOS, but it would be good if Eyal could tell us whether implementing non-contiguous text selection would be difficult or even impossible without having to write the whole code again from scratch.

I would very much like to hear Eyal's opinion on this. In case it's impossible, then users will have to accept that as a fact and stop asking for it.