numbered and bulleted lists

Stoic · Post by **Stoic** » 2004-09-10 04:26:46

It's great to see NWE 2.0. Beautiful interface, and some wonderful tools.

I'm sure there's been a discussion of this here before, but I'll ask again. Is there a simple way to create numbered and bulleted lists? In the long run, I assume that this will be a part of paragraph formats, as in Framemaker, etc. Is there a short-term solution?

Post by **charles** » 2004-09-10 08:55:29

Hi:

We have some support for doing bullets and numbering in 2.0, but not the full support you would find in Word. This is next on our list (or at least near the very top.)

In 2.0, you can use the "Increase Hanging Indent" and "Decrease Hanging Indent" menu options in the Format menu to automatically set up the ruler indents. Then simply type your bullet or number and press tab and type your text. We know this is not a good long term solution and we are working on it!

Cheers,
-Charles

cchapin · Post by **cchapin** » 2004-09-10 15:38:36

Gordon Worley has made some macros that handle bullets and numbers. I prefer the solution Charles mentioned, but you might try them.

marc · Post by **marc** » 2004-09-10 17:41:10

charles wrote:In 2.0, you can use the "Increase Hanging Indent" and "Decrease Hanging Indent" menu options in the Format menu to automatically set up the ruler indents.

Charles, I know you're working on this, so just a little request before the full feature:

How about some toolbar buttons for these hanging indent commands? Not everyone is a toolbar fan, but some of us are, and it's a good way to show features to new/novice users.

Post by **charles** » 2004-09-11 12:55:15

Good request. It's on our list!

Cheers,
-Charles

vocaro · Post by **vocaro** » 2004-09-20 20:16:27

charles wrote:We have some support for doing bullets and numbering in 2.0, but not the full support you would find in Word. This is next on our list (or at least near the very top.)

I would just like to add a big "Me, too!" to the original post. Bullets and numbering are one of the few areas in which Microsoft Word has a clear advantage over Nisus Writer. I would love to be able to just type "*" and have Nisus start prefixing lines with bullets, as Word can. Likewise, Nisus should be able to turn on numbering automatically when it sees a line that begins with "1.". These are big time savers, but because Nisus doesn't have them, I'm reluctant to switch.

JBL · Post by **JBL** » 2004-09-20 21:33:15

Actually, I don't understand why you don't make it so any menu command can be added to the toolbar.

Post by **charles** » 2004-09-20 23:05:51

JBL wrote:Actually, I don't understand why you don't make it so any menu command can be added to the toolbar.

Not a bad idea! I'm not sure what icons we would use unless we created an icon for each menu item...hm...what do you think?

-C

Tom Gorham · Post by **Tom Gorham** » 2004-09-21 00:17:30

vocaro wrote:I would love to be able to just type "*" and have Nisus start prefixing lines with bullets, as Word can. Likewise, Nisus should be able to turn on numbering automatically when it sees a line that begins with "1.". These are big time savers, but because Nisus doesn't have them, I'm reluctant to switch.

Can I ask that such automatic bulleting and numbering is implemented carefully? One of the reasons I've started use Nisus rather than Word is because Word thinks it knows better than I do what I want to type, whether it is insisting on capitalising the first letter of words at the start of a sentence, or automatically going into automatic bulleting as soon as you type a number at the beginning of a paragraph. It's nearly as bad as their head-bangingly awful overtype mode. Nothing has changed in Word 2004.

In other words, if automatic numbering or bulleting is introduced in NWE, can it either be off by default, or - again unlike Word - easy to turn off?

Actually, I've got a thing against bullet points anyway, so maybe that's my prejudice coming out.

cchapin · Post by **cchapin** » 2004-09-21 06:33:14

It's not just you and your prejudice, Tom. Though I use bullets fairly frequently, I don't like my word processor to run ahead of me and assume that it knows when I want automatic numbering. Even in my limited experience with Word, I found this frustrating.

--Craig

niklas · Post by **niklas** » 2004-09-21 06:49:27

Tom Gorham wrote:Can I ask that such automatic bulleting and numbering is implemented carefully? One of the reasons I've started use Nisus rather than Word is because Word thinks it knows better than I do what I want to type, whether it is insisting on capitalising the first letter of words at the start of a sentence, or automatically going into automatic bulleting as soon as you type a number at the beginning of a paragraph.

I second that!
I think you should be very careful with implementing user-anticipation of this kind. While I recognice it can be useful and time-saving at times, I've seen many amusing (or sorrowful, perhaps...) examples where people have tried to either outsmart their computer, trying to prevent it to create a list, create a heading, or whatever, or indeed trying to make the computer do one of these things by trying desperately to invoke the magical keyboard voodoo to trigger the action.

In my opinion, user-anticipation is bad for two reasons (notice the numbered list!):

1. No matter how intelligent the software is, it will often get my intentions wrong.
2. It takes away the feeling of control from the user; instead of telling the computer what it should do you have to convince it to do what you want.

So, again, I agree with Tom:

In other words, if automatic numbering or bulleting is introduced in NWE, can it either be off by default, or - again unlike Word - easy to turn off?

niklas

cchapin · Post by **cchapin** » 2004-09-21 06:50:31

JBL wrote:Actually, I don't understand why you don't make it so any menu command can be added to the toolbar.

charles wrote:Not a bad idea! I'm not sure what icons we would use unless we created an icon for each menu item...hm...what do you think?

While many users might like an icon for each standard menu command, you couldn't possibly anticipate the macros a user might create. I have found toolbars in word processors most useful when I can attach one to a template and use it for buttons that activate macros specific to that template. This is especially useful when others have to use the template.

If you expand the options for customizing the menu bar, you might want to consider allowing users to add their own icons for their macros.

--Craig

JBL · Post by **JBL** » 2004-09-21 06:50:35

charles wrote:
JBL wrote:Actually, I don't understand why you don't make it so any menu command can be added to the toolbar.
Not a bad idea! I'm not sure what icons we would use unless we created an icon for each menu item...hm...what do you think?

-C

You could create unique icons for each item, but I would just create a "generic" icon. Your generic icon might include the name of the command (I am thinking a diamond with the menu items name written on it). You could then allow the user to change it to whatever image they happen to have around. You could even have a page on your website where people could upload icons they created. Aside from saving you guys work, if the user is responsible for creating icon, users might then be able to add user defined macros to their toolbar.

cchapin · Post by **cchapin** » 2004-09-21 10:08:07

Great minds think alike -- and apparently do so simultaneously.

--Craig

JBL · Post by **JBL** » 2004-09-21 13:15:19

cchapin wrote:Great minds think alike -- and apparently do so simultaneously.

--Craig

Seems so. However, having a somewhat senile I didn't even notice that you had beaten me to it.