Facelift?

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Patrick J
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Facelift?

Post by Patrick J »

I am one for substance rather than looks however I think Nisus Writer is looking very old fashioned now.

I remember when Nisus Writer for OS X was new and then it looked totally contemporary.

Nisus Writer for the classic OS never changed its looks but the classic Mac OS was in a different time when looks were not as important as they are now.

I have been inspired to write this post by updating my OmniOutliner Pro 3 to OmniOutliner Pro 4. The new 4 has had a facelift and it looks contemporary now. The facelift of 4 has not involved any reduction in functionality. OmniOutliner Pro 4 looks simpler, flatter and slicker.

I bet the OmniGroup got some specialist in interface design to do it for them. I wonder if Nisus have considered doing the same?
Patrick
Agnostus
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Re: Facelift?

Post by Agnostus »

I agree that a refresh of the UI would be nice. I have previously aired some frustration with the drawer and full screen mode, though not everyone shares that (and Michael Tsai of SpamSieve fame recently tweeted about functionality issues with Omni's move away from the drawer in Outliner 4). I'd also like some things added, like a ... split view! Yes, I would still like to get one in Nisus. At the same time, it is probably a small team that is working at Nisus. One might wonder if it would be the way forward to invest limited engineering resources in surface polish. On the other hand, that might attract new users. Really don't know
ptram
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Re: Facelift?

Post by ptram »

Nisus is perfectly integrated with Mac OS X's look and feel. What someone is perceiving as old, is the Mac as a whole. After the new flat/swiss aesthetic was bought in by mobile operating systems, the whole real-desktop methaphore has aged.

What I hope is that Nisus will always remain perfectly integrated with the Mac's aesthetic. I might not like the iOS 7-like look that I foresee will soon come, but I hope switching to Nisus Writer will always be a sweet move, not a deranging jump into a totally different room.

Another thing that I hope, is that opening the Drawer/Inspector does not change the editor's width, as it happens in so many modern applications.

Paolo
Last edited by ptram on 2014-01-30 02:22:06, edited 1 time in total.
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phspaelti
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Re: Facelift?

Post by phspaelti »

pram wrote:… the new … swiss aesthetic …
"Hopp Schwiiz!" :)
philip
ptram
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Re: Facelift?

Post by ptram »

phspaelti wrote:
pram wrote:… the new … swiss aesthetic …
"Hopp Schwiiz!" :)
Woops, sorry! It should have been a Swiss under schnapps...

Paolo
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greenmorpher
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Re: Facelift?

Post by greenmorpher »

ptram wrote:Nisus is perfectly integrated with Mac OS X's look and feel. What someone is perceiving as old, is the Mac as a whole. After the new flat/swiss aesthetic was bought in by mobile operating systems, the whole real-desktop methaphore has aged.

What I hope is that Nisus will always remain perfectly integrated with the Mac's aesthetic. I might not like the iOS 7-like look that I foresee will soon come, but I hope switching to Nisus Writer will always be a sweet move, not a deranging jump into a totally different room.

Another thing that I hope, is that opening the Drawer/Inspector does not change the editor's width, as it happens in so many modern applications.

Paolo
With ya, Paolo -- particularly in respect of the drawer. Muito bem, as you might say, namo momokhani as we say here in Port Moresby PNG, which I am passing through at the moment on the way back to Rabaul, where we would say Boina tuna.

I'm sitting on iPhoto '09 v.8.1.2. After that, opening further information blew out the margin, narrowed the window in which you were looking at your thumbnails, and rearranged your pictures to accommodate that. Insane!

Cheers, geoff
ptram
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Re: Facelift?

Post by ptram »

While speaking of facelift, I only recently discovered how to make Nisus visually much more interesting. I discovered this while trying to replicate the look of Scrivener, and for this started digging among the many options that Nisus elegantly hides among the many advanced options.

Maybe you know that you can change the background color of the Navigator. I used the Color chooser to apply the light blue color found in the Finder's lists, and create a subtle contrast between the Navigator and the Editor. Also, I changed the font and font size of the Navigator, to make more items fit, and let that text fade a bit in the background.

I find Nisus Writer becomes very nice -- even nicer than usual!

Paolo
joao
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Re: Facelift?

Post by joao »

The tooldrawer is fine.

The interface is fine.

It's not broken. Don't fix it.
ptram
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Re: Facelift?

Post by ptram »

ptram wrote:Another thing that I hope, is that opening the Drawer/Inspector does not change the editor's width, as it happens in so many modern applications.
I just discovered that – I don't know when this happened – Pages no longer changes the editor window's size. Now, the side sheet behave exactly as the old drawer. Like it!

Paolo
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Jester
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Re: Facelift?

Post by Jester »

I honestly love Nisus as it is! :love:
Bruno
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Re: Facelift?

Post by Bruno »

I also don’t see the point of a complete interface overhaul just for the sake of change. Actually, I prefer the Tool Drawer to floating palettes where you have to struggle with the palettes getting in the way of your work. Also, I hope that the Nisus developers do not follow many other app developers and change the Toolbar Icons to depressing monochromatic ones. This is a word processor, after all and not an image editor and a bit of colour in the interface brings it to life.

What I would like to see added in a future NWP version — but this are actually only minor quibbles - are:

Adjustable margin in Draft View in Preferences: currently when in Draft View the body of text seems somewhat forced to the left edge of the window. An adjustable margin setting in the Preferences would be great to create a bit more white space between the edge of the window and the left margin of the text.

More paragraph space between TOC items in the Navigator: While it is great to be able to set the font, size and background colour in the Navigator, when there are a lot of TOC items of the same level in the Navigator and all written in ALL CAPS, the Navigator becomes a bit crowded. Hence, a line spacing adjustment for the Navigator would be most welcome.

And last but not least, a Typewriter scrolling option
Þorvarður
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Re: Facelift?

Post by Þorvarður »

Bruno wrote:I prefer the Tool Drawer to floating palettes where you have to struggle with the palettes getting in the way of your work.
If you position the palettes vertical left and right to your document and use the *same* keyboard shortcut to show and hide them, then they will most certainly not get in the way of your work. I use fn + Cmd + x on my MacBook Pro; and using the floating palettes in this way is more efficient than using the Tool Drawer.
Also, I hope that the Nisus developers do not follow many other app developers and change the Toolbar Icons to depressing monochromatic ones.
That's rather unlikely, because Nisus Writer Pro has always allowed you to use your own (colorful) custom buttons, which you can add to the toolbar.
currently when in Draft View the body of text seems somewhat forced to the left edge of the window. An adjustable margin setting in the Preferences would be great to create a bit more white space between the edge of the window and the left margin of the text.
Why don't you use the Ruler to indent the left edge?
When you have found the right margin size, then save an empty document as Nisus New File, and every new document you create will have the new margin.
Or did I misunderstand something?
Last edited by Þorvarður on 2015-09-24 09:36:26, edited 2 times in total.
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xiamenese
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Re: Facelift?

Post by xiamenese »

I too see no point in changing the interface for the sake of changing the interface. As it happens, I use a mixture of drawer and floating palettes.

I have the styles palette on the desktop together with the Special Characters palette, and the drawer open for anything else.

I prefer the display at 100%, and with the document window only a bit wider than the page. Originally I had the drawer on the right and the palettes on the left, but found that, with that configuration, the palettes covered part of the expanded print dialog. There were two options: enlarge the document window to leave enough space for the print dialog and put up with the wide blue margins round the page, which I don't like; move the two palettes to the right and have the drawer opening on the left.

So that's what I've done and it suits me fine, all of this on a 13" MBA.

Mind you, I prefer to use keyboard shortcuts for everything if I can remember them.

:)

Mark
ptram
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Re: Facelift?

Post by ptram »

As time goes on, Nisus 3D icons, ruler and drawer contours are looking more and more alien to the Mac user interface. I wouldn't dislike they flatten them out a bit, in the same way Scrivener did (nothing radical, just a refresh). There would be no need for a complete overhaul, just an update to the most outdated aspects of the program's look. You know, for the kids.

Paolo
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