Development pace

Everything related to our flagship word processor.
JPRuss
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Joined: 2010-12-29 00:13:41

Development pace

Post by JPRuss »

Any word or inkling on when a new version is likely to come out? I have used Nisus Writer Pro off an on and really like many aspects of it (including a commitment to by developers to avoid bloat), but the development pace appears to be glacial, with a minor dot update coming nearly 9 months ago. Now with Office for Mac 2011, MS has brought out a fairly nice piece of software in Word that, if you can get past anti-MS bias, has some nice features to recommend it. Meanwhile, Nisus Writer Pro is languishing in several respects, not the least of which are long-requested features. I want to like NWP more than I do, but it gets harder with the passing months when nothing new seems to be moving forward with the software.
codewizard
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Joined: 2010-08-09 14:14:14

Re: Development pace

Post by codewizard »

Sadly you sound exactly like the kind of customer who is never happy. I suggest you look elsewhere for software.

You don't want bloat, but you want daily version upticks. You don't want bloat but you want a bunch of unknown (allegedly requested) features that can affect the program in ways that you don't understand. You also have no idea how they will affect future development or how difficult they are to implement. Plus, IF they have been requested, it may not be worth implementing the "feature" as it would be bloat to the majority of people who did not request it.

And you think that by insulting the Dev team that you will prevail for YOUR perfect version of NW without the slightest thought to how it affects the 99.99999999% of user (those who are not you), or the dev process..

Perfect software does not exist, get over it.
Timotheus
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Re: Development pace

Post by Timotheus »

No, JPRuss is right. Nisus' development is slow, very slow, and the developers could at least tell us in which direction they are moving, and what we can or could expect in the coming times.

And JPRuss is right in another respect too. The most recent version of Word for the Mac is nice, and I wouldn't be surprised if many who in the past made the jump from Word to Nisus or Mellel (another application whose development has been very slow in the past few years) presently were seriously considering to jump back.
Groucho
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Re: Development pace

Post by Groucho »

I don’t find JPRuss insulting either. He’s just wondering why so long time since the last update. Period. There’s a lot of talking on this point in this forum.

Greetings, Henry.
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greenmorpher
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Re: Development pace

Post by greenmorpher »

I'm with JPRuss and timotheus -- your response, codewizard, was unfair, unnecessary, and over the top. There is no question that the development of NWP is slow. In my view, there is no question the developers could be more open about the direction in which they are heading too. Why not? Who would benefit from any announcement except us users? Microsoft must be quaking in their boots at what Nisus has under wraps. Mellel's developer is determinedly individualistic. There are one or two other small outfits who are going their own way and probably wouldn't make an impression (but I can't be sure because I tend not to look at any other WP. Oh -- and of course there is iWork.

I'm actually pretty happy with NWP as it is, but would like a couple of features developed a little more -- the tables to be made more solid, the page borders to be nailed down, a bunch of capabilities to be tweaked to make a real outliner, and, of course, the vertical ruler which the old Nisus Writer used to have and in fact, led the world with.

Apart from that, I would say, "Okay, fine!"

Kind regards

Geoffrey Heard
Business writer, Editor, Publisher
The Worsley Press
rmark
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Re: Development pace

Post by rmark »

Thank you all for your concern.

We are aware that we have been, and continue to be, very quiet regarding our development efforts. This happens to be our company culture. Please rest assured that we are not resting on our laurels, nor, spending this beautiful end of the Gregorian year surfing out in the San Diego waves.

More, I am not at liberty to write. We thank you all for your support and continued patience.
Write On!
Mark Hurvitz
Nisus Software Inc.
ptram
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Joined: 2007-10-21 14:59:09

Re: Development pace

Post by ptram »

And, obviously, beta testers are not allowed to say how wonderful (and still extremely clean) the next version will be. :-)

Cheers, Paolo
JPRuss
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Re: Development pace

Post by JPRuss »

Thanks to all who weighed in (even codewizard). As I said in my o.p., I like NWP and want to like and use it even more. Good to hear, rmark, that development is proceeding and, if I rightly infer from ptram's post, that a significant update is in the wings. At the risk of incurring codewizard's renewed wrath, I hope it includes some of those ""allegedly requested features. :D
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greenmorpher
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Re: Development pace

Post by greenmorpher »

Today at http://xkcd.com, a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. Has he been snooping around Nisus? :lol:

Best regards

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad-Doctor-Online
http://www.ad-doctor-online.com
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Elbrecht
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Re: Development pace

Post by Elbrecht »

Hi Geoff -

help is on the way:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11 ... olbar.html

Now that LION will offer vertical writing option, a vertical ruler should be all inclusive…

HE
MacBook Pro i5
SSD 840/850 Pro
High Sierra 10.13.6
Nisus Writer Pro 3.4
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greenmorpher
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Re: Development pace

Post by greenmorpher »

Hmmm, I hope they can make it backwardly compatible because if the Lion doesn't offer optional Rosetta, as is rumoured -- well as Apple stated outright at the launch of Snow Leopard, I think -- I won't be moving from X.6.x.

What beats me about the lack of paid upgrades, though, is what on earth those guys at Nisus are eating. Do they have a subsistence garden out the back of the office and a canoe and net to go fishing for protein?

They need to take some money from us all again.

Warm regards

Geoffrey Heard
Business & Environment Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Worsley Press
Buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" -- the world's ONLY scientifically based guide to type and layout, and receive a free 140 page guide to advertising for small business: "How to make great ads for (small) business: 99 real world advertising ideas to kickstart *your* business today". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com
Timotheus
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Re: Development pace

Post by Timotheus »

Keeping things quiet may be a part of Nisus' company culture, but it's also definitely a thing of the past. Companies like Devonthink and Scrivener have never been quiet in this sense, and their openness is greatly appreciated by their user communities, and may be a partial explanation of their success. Mellel used to be very quiet too, but recently they have changed their policy. And they have done very well.
craigminah
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Re: Development pace

Post by craigminah »

Rather than complain about the lack of updates, I suggest you post features you need or bugs you've found. That may justify or prove that a need exists to push out new releases. As it stands, NWP is very very good and I personally don't need anything. Tell the dev that you'd like to see done.
samuelas
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Re: Development pace

Post by samuelas »

@craigminah

Such feature requests and bug reports are all over the place around here—sometimes the Nisus people respond to them and often they don't; I suspect this forum is less about 'complaining' than it is about seeing how things are going at Nisus--these fora were once more active as was the development of the Nisus wps. And I'm glad you don't need anything but it's a bit self-centered to imagine that no one has different needs from yours.
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greenmorpher
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Re: Development pace

Post by greenmorpher »

craigminah wrote:Rather than complain about the lack of updates, I suggest you post features you need or bugs you've found. That may justify or prove that a need exists to push out new releases. As it stands, NWP is very very good and I personally don't need anything. Tell the dev that you'd like to see done.
We've all made our ideas known, Craig. I think we pretty much ran out of steam on that at least a year go.

Cheers, geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Business & Environment Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Worsley Press
Buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" -- the world's ONLY scientifically based guide to type and layout, and receive a free 140 page guide to advertising for small business: "How to make great ads for (small) business: 99 real world advertising ideas to kickstart *your* business today". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com
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