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Wolfgang
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Post by Wolfgang »

Hi!

I've just finished writing my thesis using Mellel. I thought about giving some kind of an "experience report".

Overall, it's been a pleasure. Really. Mellel did not crash once, even the Mellel 2.1 beta versions worked perfectly. Thanks a lot.

However, I experienced some - let's say inconvenient - aspects about using Mellel as my primary word processor:

(1) Tracking changes: From my point of view, this is a major feature missing in Mellel. Searching for all changes done the the document by colleagues is tremendously time-consuming . Hopefully, this feature will be added to an upcoming version of Mellel in the near future.

(2) Tables: I did not figure out how to prevent tables from floating over page borders. In principle, this is a nice feature, but it would be cool if one could turn it off.

(3) I used auto-titles to label my figures and tables. I missed the possibility to stick titles to figures, so that they act as a group. It is quite annoying when the figure is on one page and the title is on the next.

(4) Languages: Maybe it's my fault, but is it possible to assign different languages to the text? For example, I wrote the acknowledgements in German and the spellchecker went mad as he did not know one word :).

That's it. Four points is not that much, is it? Once again, I did not regret using Mellel.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
Last edited by Wolfgang on Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ozean
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Re: Feedback

Post by ozean »

Wolfgang wrote:(3) I used auto-titles to label my figures and tables. I missed the possibility to stick titles to figures, so that they act as a group. It is quite annoying when the figure is on one page and the title is on the next.
I did that too – and I had them stick to their objects. 8)

If your labels are above the objects you have to assign a separate paragraph style to your auto-title labels and in that paragraph style enter a value for the "keep with next" option.

If your labels are below the objects you have to make the same definition in the paragraph style that is used for the object.
alexwein
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Post by alexwein »

Hello Wolfgang,

Many congratulations on finishing your thesis!! I'm on the final chapter of my dissertation, but am not yet finished. Almost, but not quite!

Thanks for sharing your experiences with Mellel. I am having a similar issue with different languages—I have some citations in German (no, I don't speak it!), French, and even a bit of Latin and Attic Greek. I would think this would be fairly common in Mellel given its wide usage by academics. I don't know how this problem would be solved, but it is an annoyance. Of course that's true in all the word processors and programs I've used!

Outside of this and trying to figure out how to do things, especially things I don't use that often, I too am enjoying working in Mellel. Being able to have my entire dissertation in one file, with all the chapters and sections in view, is the best! Works well for my type of brain! :-)

Again, congratulations! I'm envious!!

Alexandria
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Post by Normand »

What I did with Framemaker in my phd thesis was to put the autonumber and the title of the table in the first (or last) line of the table and remove the borders of this first (or last) line. So, moving the whole table moves everything.
I even did the same for pictures or graphics; put the autonumber and the title in the first (or last) one line cell and the picture in the second cell and remove all the borders.
I tried that in Mellel but is seems that it is not possible to put an autonumber in a table. Probably it would be possible to implement it. Certainly it is possible since FrameMaker does that, but how easy it would be to do that in Mellel, I don't know.

(Note: for those who asked me my opinion about Publicon/LaTeX/Context... Sorry, it is on the way but I did not had enough time yet to give a correct answer.)

Normand Beaudoin
Dept de physique et astronomie
Université de Moncton
kabouter
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Re: Feedback

Post by kabouter »

Wolfgang wrote:(2) Tables: I did not figure out how to prevent tables from floating over page borders. In principle, this is a nice feature, but it would be cool if one could turn it off.
If I understand correctly, you mean the table problem where part of the table vanishes over the table border instead of flowing on to the next page, right?

Select the cells and assign a paragraph style to them. I use a simple single space paragraph style and this problem with tables stopped and the long tables flow on to the next page well.

Personally, I'd like to be able to have a table styles so I can customize tables better. (Like, be able to choose line, cell padding, character alignment, etc. as a table style then choose which table style I want to use for a given table)
[insert witty comment here]
ozean
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Re: Feedback

Post by ozean »

kabouter wrote:
Wolfgang wrote:(2) Tables: I did not figure out how to prevent tables from floating over page borders. In principle, this is a nice feature, but it would be cool if one could turn it off.
If I understand correctly, you mean the table problem where part of the table vanishes over the table border instead of flowing on to the next page, right?
I think ;) he means that he does not want to have tables that are distributed over more than one page.

Now, let me offer a guess going in the same direction as the first one for labels: Wolfgang, perhaps you have not seen the "keep with next" option in the paragraph style dialogue? Because if you apply such a paragraph style to the paragraphs in your it won’t split over several pages.

(Disclaimer: I don’t do tables and therefore I am not sure if paragraph styles work the same way in tables as in the rest of the text.)

Cudos for finishing! I have to hand in my dissertation in a bit more than two weeks – and I am so glad that I am working crash free and fluid in Mellel. It is a blessing, isn’t it?
Wolfgang
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Post by Wolfgang »

Hi!

Thanks for your suggestions and your congratulations!

I didn't see the "keep with next" button, that's right. However, I prefer having the lables below figures... Is there any solution for that, too?

@ozean: Thanks for your hint. I did not think about defining an own paragraph style for tables. Next time I'll try it out ;)

@alexwein: I didn't have problems with some citations in different languages... only the acknowledgements (still, quite important ;)) However, as MacOS is shipped with numerous dictionaries, maybe it will be possible to assign dictionaries to paragraphs in the future... Hopefully :)

All the best,

Wolfgang
ozean
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Re: reply

Post by ozean »

Wolfgang wrote:I didn't see the "keep with next" button, that's right. However, I prefer having the lables below figures... Is there any solution for that, too?
Yes: define a paragraph style for figures and set "keep with next" to 1 line. That way the line following the figure’s paragraph (i.e. the label) will be kept with the figure.
Wolfgang
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Re: reply

Post by Wolfgang »

ozean wrote:
Wolfgang wrote:I didn't see the "keep with next" button, that's right. However, I prefer having the lables below figures... Is there any solution for that, too?
Yes: define a paragraph style for figures and set "keep with next" to 1 line. That way the line following the figure’s paragraph (i.e. the label) will be kept with the figure.
Thats cool. Thanks for the hint. I wouldn't have thought about that.

PS: (german) Wahnsinn, so trickreich würde ich nie denken - bin halt ein einfach gestrickter mac-user

Wolfgang
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