clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) (09/16/89)
I just received my copy of Nisus 2.0 with footnotes, endnotes and hyphenation. From the looks of the documentation they haven't skimped on it either and they look like fully implemented features with loads of options. I'm going to put the new features through their paces and see what comes up. If anyone wants more info just drop me a line. Looks like Nisus just jumped up there with the big boys. Chris Lye P.S. The update was free for those who might wonder about such things.
dr@gollum (David Robinowitz) (09/17/89)
Just a minor note: I received Nisus *2.02* too. It has some subtle (and not so subtle) improvements in addition to footnotes. Among these is automatic hyphenation (sp?) and a better way of attaching Nisus graphics to text. BTW: Throw away your copies of Word 4.0: Nisus is the nicest. I have nothing to do with Paragon, the makers of Nisus, except as a satified customer -- their tech support is great; their product's very well done. The people there also told me about the planned improvemnts for version 3.0 including emacs-like key bindings. ---------------------------------------------------------------- David Robinowitz dr@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu CU SEAS CS MS, NYC (212) 601-1586 "Never commit two crimes at the same time."
clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) (09/18/89)
A follow-up to my original post about Nisus 2.02. The help feature which was another one of biggest gripes about the old version has been vastly improved. I won't say its perfect since at times it can be a little confusing to navigate but it does pretty much touch on every item in the menu bar as opposed to the old one which only discussed certain features. In addition, for the netter who once complained that the list of macros was just too darn long Paragon has chosen to divide them into 4 basic types of macros (creating,editing,locating and merging) in their own separate files. Now you can flip between macro sets or just copy over the ones you use most commonly into your own customized macro file. Paragon seems to really listen to what their users want and need which is more than i can say about a lot of the big companies in word-processing. It has definitely won itself a satisfied customer with this latest release. Chris Lye
d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) (09/18/89)
In article <10463@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) writes: >Paragon seems to really listen to what their users want and need which >is more than i can say about a lot of the big companies in >word-processing. It has definitely won itself a satisfied customer with >this latest release. >Chris Lye Okay, Chris, or Paragon, or anyone else who knows: I need a word processor and editor (mostly the latter) that DOESN'T DELETE in the resource fork of the document. It can add it's own resources allright, but what's there has to be there when I save and quit, or else I'm out of the game... The question: Since NISUS seems to be such a good buy, how does it handle the resource fork ? I'd really like to know ! Enjoy the day ! h+ -- I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did.
frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (09/18/89)
In article <10454@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) writes: >... >I'm going to put the new features through their paces and see what comes >up. If anyone wants more info just drop me a line. Looks like Nisus just >jumped up there with the big boys. > My major problems with Nisus were: 1) no style sheets (just char. styles; neat, but not enough) 2) marginal control over paragraphs, e.g., no 'space before' setting 3) virtually useless conversion from MS Word (largely a result of the above); to win users away from Word (e.g., me), they'll have to provide a good migration route Any improvements in these areas? -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol) (09/19/89)
In article <1697@draken.nada.kth.se> d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) writes: >In article <10463@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) writes: > >> [comments about Paragon listening to customers..] > >Okay, Chris, or Paragon, or anyone else who knows: > >I need a word processor and editor (mostly the latter) that DOESN'T DELETE >in the resource fork of the document. It can add it's own resources allright, >but what's there has to be there when I save and quit, or else I'm out of the >game... > >The question: Since NISUS seems to be such a good buy, how does it handle the >resource fork ? I'd really like to know ! > I REALLY wish that I could tell you that Nisus handles your request properly, since it is such a simple (and understandably needed) request, but I just did some testing with Nisus on both Nisus format and TEXT documents and when it does a save it does a Delete followed by a Create (and then Create ResFile for the Nidocs). I assume that one of the reasons that they choose to do it this way was because Nisus uses a VERY interesting document storage structure where the TEXT is stored as TEXT in the dataFork (and flagged as a TEXT document) while all of the formatting info (font, size, margins, etc.) are kept in resources in the resource fork. What is REALLY cool about this scheme is that even if you go and mod the text with a text editor (which doesn't delete the res fork), when you come back into Nisus, the formatting is EXACTLY what you expect. To answer you other questions as to what WP's or Editors do not delete the resFork when saving - good question. I am not aware of any currently available(!) WP's that do not kill off the whole file before resaving (or in some cases create a .bak (which may save off your resources, don't know!??!)) but most of the common text editors that I am aware of do not kill of the res fork, but if they deal with it at all just add in their own. I know that MPW's editor, Think C's editor and my own SigmaEdit do not kill the resFork. Hope that helps... >Enjoy the day ! > >h+ >-- >I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did. -- +--------------------------------------------------+ Leonard Rosenthol | GEnie : MACgician Lazerware, inc. | MacNet: MACgician UUCP: svc@well.UUCP | ALink : D0025
svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol) (09/19/89)
In article <5088@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: >In article <10454@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) writes: >>... >>I'm going to put the new features through their paces and see what comes >>up. If anyone wants more info just drop me a line. Looks like Nisus just >>jumped up there with the big boys. >> > >My major problems with Nisus were: >1) no style sheets (just char. styles; neat, but not enough) Sorry, they still only have the character styles in that regard, but you can use a combination of macros and/or glossaries to do psuedo-style sheets. What I mean by that is that you can format a section using a complete set of the formatting tools (margins, tabs, etc.) but when you change the setup the paragraphs formattted in that 'style' don't change. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing (plus how often do you change styles??). This can also be gotten around since you can search/replace styles, and with the combination of GREP (which does work on style and graphic info, not just text) you can do some nifty workarounds. >2) marginal control over paragraphs, e.g., no 'space before' setting No luck on this one, and I have no workaround either... >3) virtually useless conversion from MS Word (largely a result of the > above); to win users away from Word (e.g., me), they'll have to > provide a good migration route I never used Word, and have no intention of starting. Also I am not sure that their intention was to lure people away from Word just to get them away. I use Nisus becuase it offers the features I need when I need them in a relatively Mac-like application (it's MUCH better than Word, but it's no Fullwrite!) -- +--------------------------------------------------+ Leonard Rosenthol | GEnie : MACgician Lazerware, inc. | MacNet: MACgician UUCP: svc@well.UUCP | ALink : D0025
dr@gollum (David Robinowitz) (09/20/89)
In article <13705@well.UUCP> svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol) writes: >In article <5088@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: >>In article <10454@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) writes: >>>... > >>2) marginal control over paragraphs, e.g., no 'space before' setting > No luck on this one, and I have no workaround either... > What is "'space before'"? >>3) virtually useless conversion from MS Word (largely a result of the >> above); to win users away from Word (e.g., me), they'll have to >> provide a good migration route This is a feature! :-) > I never used Word, and have no intention of starting... Here Here! >...I use Nisus becuase it offers the features I need when I need them in a >relatively Mac-like application (it's MUCH better than Word, but it's no >Fullwrite!) This is the reason for my post, NISUS is much better than Fullwrite. A friend of mine wanted to make a resume for his girlfriend. She wanted nice thin line below her name. Unfortunately, the smallest graphic one can insert in (almost)full-write is one inch. This was toooo big. But with Nisus, it was just right -- he just used NISUS' built in graphics to draw the line in exactly the right place, no switching to mac-draw, no problems. One other thing, NISUS has an excellent Spanish dictionary. It also has dictionaries in other languages (including Danish) but I can't vouch for them as I don't have 'em. They're sold as add-ons for thirty bucks or so. >-- >+--------------------------------------------------+ >Leonard Rosenthol | GEnie : MACgician >Lazerware, inc. | MacNet: MACgician >UUCP: svc@well.UUCP | ALink : D0025 ---------------------------------------------------------------- David Robinowitz dr@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu CU SEAS CS MS, NYC (212) 601-1586 "Never commit two crimes at the same time."
frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (09/20/89)
In article <6504@columbia.edu> dr@gollum.UUCP (David Robinowitz) writes: >In article <13705@well.UUCP> svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol) writes: >>In article <5088@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: >>>2) marginal control over paragraphs, e.g., no 'space before' setting >> No luck on this one, and I have no workaround either... >> > What is "'space before'"? In general, Word treats paragraphs as objects with various attributes. These include leading, tabs, etc. 'space' before lets you specify how much space to leave between *this* paragraph and the preceding one (and no, 'space after' is not quite equivalent). >>>3) virtually useless conversion from MS Word (largely a result of the >>> above); to win users away from Word (e.g., me), they'll have to >>> provide a good migration route > This is a feature! :-) > >> I never used Word, and have no intention of starting... > Here Here! Fine for new users, but not a wise attitude given Words hold on the WP marketplace. I was making two points: 1) you can't ignore Word, and 2) the primary cause of the incompatibility is a lack of some major features in Nisus. I'm not a big fan of Word, but it is currently the only WP that does what I need. Sure, Nisus has some nifty features, but that's no substitute for raw (in some cases very raw) power. >>...I use Nisus becuase it offers the features I need when I need them in a >>relatively Mac-like application (it's MUCH better than Word, but it's no >>Fullwrite!) It comes down do what you need to do. Unfortunately this is also a trade-off against how easy it is to do it. -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) (09/20/89)
In article <6504@columbia.edu> dr@gollum.UUCP (David Robinowitz) writes (among other things): >>>In article <10454@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) writes: >>>2) marginal control over paragraphs, e.g., no 'space before' setting > What is "'space before'"? "Space before" refers to a paragraph formatting command in Word which enables the user to specify a measured space (in points, centimeters, inches, whatever) before the beginning of a selected paragraph. This is useful for documents with several different paragraph and section heading formats, and is frequently used in style sheet definitions. I tend to use the "Space after" formatting command more often, however. Nevertheless, "Space before" can be a useful formatting tool in certain circumstances. John Heckendorn /\ BMUG ARPA: bmug@garnet.berkeley.EDU A__A 1442A Walnut St., #62 BITNET: bmug@ucbgarne |()| Berkeley, CA 94709 Phone: (415) 549-2684 | |
clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) (09/21/89)
Sorry, while I know that I promised to field some of the questions about Nisus 2.02 a blockage in news has prevented me from seeing many of these questions until today. Fortunately I see that they have been answered by other Nisus afficianados (I knew there were some on the net). A lot of names have been tossed around like Word and FullWrite and people have been stating their preferences and such. Well I'd just like to say that I have tried them all. Each has elements that I love which the others lack (eg: Word's Table-handling). However, now that Nisus has footnotes it looks like it has the most of what I want in a wp without the hassle. Stuff like style sheets and such I'll leave to Quark X-press and Pagemaker when I need them. Sure they're handy and all but for my student needs Nisus throws together a speedy, powerful compact package that's hard to beat. I wrote a 40 page paper in FullWrite and while I simply loved a lot of the features the program was just too slow and unwieldy on a 1 meg Mac SE to be practical. MS Word's speed in no great shakes either and I've never cared for the confusing way Microsoft implements many of its more powerful features. I can see how Nisus might not be the ideal word-processor for EVERYBODY but what it has set out to do it has done well. My impression from the people of Paragon is that they are not trying to create the word-processor to replace all word-processors. What they are trying to do is put out a very good product on the market that can stand up to the other heavyweights. This I believe they have done admirably. No one says that you should all switch to Nisus, but there's no denying that its a valuable addition to the selection of wps Mac users have to choose from. Chris Lye
frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (09/21/89)
In article <10548@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) writes: >... >I can see how Nisus might not be the ideal word-processor for EVERYBODY >but what it has set out to do it has done well. My impression from the >people of Paragon is that they are not trying to create the >word-processor to replace all word-processors. ... Yes, but they're so damned *close* to doing just that, and I'd really like to move away from Word. Here's a few more specific questions: 1) Word really falls down when it comes to making text look good. I.e., it's word and letter spacing deteriorate under justification. E.g., many of my 'justified' paragraphs look slightly ragged on the right. (For comparison, Quark does an excellent job, plus it provides all kinds of copy-fitting tools). Question: does anyone have enough experience to comment on whether Nisus is better at this (I mean, it takes a while before you become aware of this sort of thing) 2) In Word, if a page break occurs just after the end of a paragraph, and there's white-space before the next paragraph, that white-space will appear at the top of the next page, making it look like the top marging is incorrect. Is Nisus smart enough to throw away the extra space in this case? 3) Word really slows down after a while, but I can't nail down the cause. Even in a small (10 page) document. It might be related to non-standard font sizes (e.g., 9pt), EPS diagrams, etc. I get the impression that Nisus is blazingly fast. Does it ever slow down? In a nutshell, if Nisus had style sheets, I'd switch (although I am growing fond of Word's tables). -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) (09/22/89)
In article <13705@well.UUCP> svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol) writes: >In article <5088@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: >>1) no style sheets (just char. styles; neat, but not enough) > Sorry, they still only have the character styles in that regard, but >you can use a combination of macros and/or glossaries to do psuedo-style sheets. >What I mean by that is that you can format a section using a complete set of >the formatting tools (margins, tabs, etc.) but when you change the setup the >paragraphs formattted in that 'style' don't change. It's not perfect, but it's >better than nothing (plus how often do you change styles??). I use FullWrite Pro and always use style sheets instead of choosing the styles directly from the style menu. I usually write the text with a more legible font and then change the sheets so that I get a smaller font for printing. Style sheets allow me to experiment with the look of my documents. I often have two styles that look the same, but have different names. I can then change the other style (maybe underline it) if I want them to be different. You can't do this with Nisus styles. Nisus is ok for a person that doesn't want to think about document formatting while writing. My mother uses Nisus and she is very happy. She has never heard of style sheets and previously used MacWrite. The multiple file search and high speed are what she really needs. _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._ | Juri Munkki jmunkki@hut.fi jmunkki@fingate.bitnet I Want Ne | | Helsinki University of Technology Computing Centre My Own XT | ^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
gdavis@primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis) (09/28/89)
> > I use FullWrite Pro and always use style sheets instead of choosing the styles > directly from the style menu. I usually write the text with a more legible > font and then change the sheets so that I get a smaller font for printing. > > Style sheets allow me to experiment with the look of my documents. I often > have two styles that look the same, but have different names. I can then > change the other style (maybe underline it) if I want them to be different. > You can't do this with Nisus styles. > > | Juri Munkki jmunkki@hut.fi jmunkki@fingate.bitnet I Want Ne | Actually you can do it with Nisus styles. If you apply a user defined style to text, then edit the definition of the style, all the text formatted with it is changed to the new format. The change happens a lot faster in Nisus as well, but then everything is faster in Nisus than in FullWrite. The very flexible search and replace in Nisus, with grep and style sensitivity, also means you can easily do a lot of reformatting in cases where you haven't planned ahead with style sheets or where you're working on text from someone else. It is true, however, that Nisus styles only control character formats; they don't include paragraph formatting. As someone mentioned previously, you can fake full style sheets by setting up a macro which pastes in a paragraph ruler and applies a user defined character style. Text formatted in this way can also be changed globally. As I mentioned the character style sheet can be edited, and Nisus has means of changing all rulers cloned from a particular ruler. It's fairly easy to do this kind of thing in Nisus, though it's admittedly a bit of a kludge compared to full style sheets. But, then, a lot of people find the style sheets in Word a bit kludgy too, or at least less than intuitive. I've tried all the Mac word processors, except Word Perfect, and for my purposes Nisus is the best. It still lacks some features that I would like to see such as full style sheets and the ability to write files in Word or MacWrite format. The only way to get output in a format other than Nisus' is to go through the MacWrite clipboard. Paragon claims to be adding these features in the next release. Another feature lacking is a table generator as in Word. Even though that's clearly a nice convenience, I can still make tables in Nisus with a flexibility I sometimes need which is lacking in Word. With Nisus as with other word processors, you have to set up tables with tabs, but you can then draw right over the text using the built in graphics layer. For the tables I make I often need to draw lines or arrows between various values in the table in order to point out statistical comparisons. As far as I know with Word, you can only have lines as borders between cells. One reason I bought FullWrite back when it was still vapor was because I thought that a built-in drawing environment implied that you could draw right on the text. I was quite disappointed to find that FullWrite's drawing environment was little more than a built-in DA. Though setting up a table with multiple rulers and tabs, then drawing borders, etc, is time consuming, once it's done I can just copy it and paste it in the glossary (the text and graphics layers go together). If I need a table with the same format, then, I can just get it out of the glossary and edit the text and entries. I seem to be apologizing for Nisus' limitations, though of course I like it for its many neat features. I could go on and on about them, and maybe I will when I have more time. Gary Davis