Mellel 4 slow

For all things Mellel

Moderators: Eyal Redler, redlers, Ori Redler

Manu31
Read the guide!
Posts: 39
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:34 pm
Location: Toulouse, France

Mellel 4 slow

Post by Manu31 »

Hi everyone,

I've decided to give a try to Mellel 4 this afternoon.
Unfortunately, with the manuscript I'm working on at the moment, Mellel 4 is very, very slow when typing some text.
It happened once in a while that Mellel 3 would slow down but restarting the Mac would get things in order. This time it didn't work. Well, I restored Mellel 3…

The manuscript is quite big, 1 million characters, but my MacBook Pro is only a few months old and, in any case, everything works fine with Mellel 3.

I hope the future versions will improve the software's responsiveness.

Has anyone encountered the same issue?

Manu
joern
Already downloaded the guide
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 8:48 am

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by joern »

Hello Manu,
I had the same problem with Mellel 3.** The solution was to go to the preferences and to deactivate "automatic saving" in the sub-menue "open & save". I have the German version and I don't know how the menues are exactly in English.
My document is also very large with a lot of figures and I have no problems while working - except that it needs time to open and save.

I hope it helps,
Jörn
Manu31
Read the guide!
Posts: 39
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:34 pm
Location: Toulouse, France

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by Manu31 »

Thanks Jörn,
your comment is very helpful. I've removed Mellel 4 for the moment, since I cannot spend too much time dealing with migration issues, but will remember this tip when time has come.
But, basically, if I understand well, you're saying that with Mellel one has to choose between heavy documents and autosave… not an optimal alternative.

By the way, did you come across other migration hassles?

Thanks again. Best wishes for your work.
Manu
joern
Already downloaded the guide
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 8:48 am

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by joern »

Hello Manua,
it sounds like close to the finishing and I also kept on Mellel 3 during my „final spurt“. My document had 328 pages and 270 figures and somewhen I noticed that the spinning ball appeared after writing some words. So it might be a relation between the size of a document and autosave. I made what I wrote you after I got the hint in this forum.
But general saving needs some time. Since I like to drink tea, I can prepare a cup during saving so that I don‘t consider it as a real problem. An Manua, the more important things you write the more time needs Mellel to save it. So, if you prepared a cup of tea/coffee and Mellel is still saving then you did some really importan! Finally, cleaning the bathroom is a „heavier document“ :-)

When I switchend to Mellel 4 I noticed that saving didn‘t work. That means, I had to click twice to save the dcoument. I was told that it might be due to the Mellel 3 templates. In other words, one has to update the templates. Since I‘m finished I cannot say whether this is the solution.

Regards to ...

Jörn
Stefan Green
Already downloaded the guide
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:20 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by Stefan Green »

I have also noticed a lagging in Mellel 4 when writing, the response from the keyboard to screen, and I think it has to do with the font I am using (Adobe Garamond) which is not delivered with macOS 10.13. I have tested with Times New Roman (not a favourite), and the responsiveness from the Keyboard to the screen became faster/normal.
/Stefan Green 8)
Manu31
Read the guide!
Posts: 39
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:34 pm
Location: Toulouse, France

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by Manu31 »

Thanks Stefan for your feedback. It would have to be not the font in itself (I assume Mac Os handles all unicode fonts in the same way) but the way Mellel 4 handles fonts, because the same file is very slow in Mellel 4 while it works fine with Mellel 3.

My innermost fear is that Mellel follows the path of MS Word: bloating the software with extra features at the expense of its core purpose and responsiveness.

Have a nice day.
Manu
joern
Already downloaded the guide
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 8:48 am

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by joern »

I couldn't also find Mellel slower when using another font. I'm not a programmer but the more function a software has the bigger it gets. When I export my documents to a word document the filesize is about three times higher than from the Mellel document.

Jörn
Stefan Green
Already downloaded the guide
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:20 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by Stefan Green »

Correct, the reason that Mellel 4 has become more sluggish when writing is not because of fonts. I have now tried it further. My next step will be to divided up the document I am working with (about 280-290 pages) in separated files (according to chapters), which I have never done since I left Word as my primary word processor. Mellel 4 is less slow with smaller documents but seems to slow down with larger ones, that is my conclusion for the moment. Hopefully, future versions of Mellel will be better on this point.
Last edited by Stefan Green on Tue Oct 31, 2017 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
/Stefan Green 8)
Stefan Green
Already downloaded the guide
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:20 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by Stefan Green »

Another thing, if I change from Mellel view to Compact view, Mellel 4 is a bit quicker in responding when writing. Also, I have turned off the automatic saving, as recommended above, and it helps also.

/Stefan Green
/Stefan Green 8)
melmoth2
New to all this
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2017 12:20 am

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by melmoth2 »

I'm seeing the same on a 90,000 word novel. There's a noticeable lag between typing and the characters appearing on the screen. I'm using the latest iMac (2017) 3.4 Ghz. The manuscript is just text in Courier. I also notice that it speeds up in compact view. I wonder if it might be something to do with the number of bookmarks as the mss was compiled from Scrivener and has roughly 120 bookmarks.
Manu31
Read the guide!
Posts: 39
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:34 pm
Location: Toulouse, France

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by Manu31 »

I've noticed something the other day which would point to a bug in Mellel. I was using Mellel 3 but it could be the same problem in Mellel 4, only more prominent:
- Mellel is lagging
- in full screen mode, the palette is on the right side of the text
- the palette is a frame with a small shadow around it to give a light 3D effect
- what I noticed is that when Mellel is lagging the shadow around the palette is flickering as if a subroutine would work behind the scene.
- I closed the file, restarted the Mac, reopened the file, and in full screen there was no more flickering. Mellel was working fine.


Manu
austino
New to all this
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2011 12:46 pm

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by austino »

I am having the same issue (Mellel 4 being slow with a long document). My document is about 50 pages, and has only 1 image. It has a number of comments in it, though, and when I remove those it speeds up, but still lags more than it should.

Most interesting however, is that this lag is only apparent on my 2017 5k iMac. When I open the same exact document on my 2011 macbook, Mellel is super zippy. So it seems to me that there is definitely a bug here.
Stefan Green
Already downloaded the guide
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:20 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by Stefan Green »

My Mellel 4 is definitely quicker on monitors with lower resolutions. I use three different monitors, depending on where I am working, and Mellel is lagging on the one with the highest resolution to the point that is difficult to write on it. However, the speed is acceptable on my old monitor though not perfect. So my guess is that the problem is a combination of long documents and a bug that causing lagging on the latest high-resolution screens.
/Stefan Green 8)
Manu31
Read the guide!
Posts: 39
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:34 pm
Location: Toulouse, France

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by Manu31 »

Thanks Stefan for this feedback. I, too, experienced the same slowness with an external display. But I'm not convinced that it has to do with Mac OS or hardware limitations:
1. I experienced the same slowness once in a while when I was working with only one display (the MB Pro display) in Mellel 3 ; I recently switched to the MB Pro 2016 with touch bar, which is able to handle photo or video editing on an external monitor in 4K. But I'm not using such demanding hardware nor pushing the limits with software. Mellel 4 was slow with a HD external monitor while typing simple text.
2. It's only with Mellel that I experienced this slowness.

Could the problem be related to spellchecking? I had the same kind of problem recently when upgrading to iOS 11 on my iPad. Typing in the Notes app was very slow. On forums people were advising to reset the dictionary. I did this and everything came back to normal.

Manu.
Stefan Green
Already downloaded the guide
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:20 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: Mellel 4 slow

Post by Stefan Green »

Yes Manu, I don't think it has to do with Mac OS or hardware limitation. I don't have the same problem lagging on my high-resolution monitor when I connect it to my MacbookPro retina from mid-2012 and writing in MS Words v 15.40. I really like Mellel 4 in many ways, it is my prefered word processor, but the lagging has to do with Mellel as far as I can see.
/Stefan Green 8)
Post Reply