New Mac: NWP loses connection to Bookends

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David Sharp
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New Mac: NWP loses connection to Bookends

Post by David Sharp »

I've recently bought a new MacBook Pro, and therefore switched from High Sierra to Catalina.

I used Time Machine to import all my files from the old machine (also a MacBook Pro, from 2015) and found that both NWP and Bookends seemed to run just fine on the new one.
So far, I haven't bought new licenses for either NWP or Bookends, although I'll be happy to do so if necessary. I'll certainly buy a new NWP license if I either decide to keep the old machine and use NWP on it, or sell it along with the installed NWP software.

On the new Mac, I've set Bookends for "Full Disk Access", as recommended.

Nevertheless, I've just discovered a major problem on the new Mac: although I can activate Bookends from the NWP "Tools->Bibliography" menu, the "Insert citation" command, which I use a lot, simply doesn't work. When I try to invoke it in a Nisus document, nothing happens.
The other Bookends-related commands within NWP work just fine, however.

Meanwhile, back on the old Mac, the link between NWP and Bookends works fine, as before.

Can anyone help resolve this problem? As already noted, if I need to buy new licenses for either or both programs, I'll do so.
If necessary, I'll raise this issue via the Bookends site, but have decided to start here.
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martin
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Re: New Mac: NWP loses connection to Bookends

Post by martin »

Hello David, I'm sorry you're having trouble with Nisus Writer and Bookends on your new Mac. They certainly should work together.

I just tested Nisus Writer Pro version 3.1 with Bookends 13.4.3 on macOS Catalina and they appear to work together smoothly. I had no trouble with the Insert Citation menu command in Nisus Writer. It correctly inserted the citation selected in the Bookends app into the active Nisus Writer document.

One question: when the Insert Citation command fails for you, is there any error message on screen? From what you described, it doesn't sound like it, but I thought I would ask. Normally when Nisus Writer fails to communicate with Bookends it should display an error message.
David Sharp
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Re: New Mac: NWP loses connection to Bookends

Post by David Sharp »

Hi Martin, thanks for lookiing into this.

No, when "Insert citation" fails, there's no error message: nothing happens.
Of course, I have a simple workaround, because I can just copy the citation from Bookends and then paste it into my NWP document.

I may raise this on the Sonny Software site. If I get a solution, I'll post it here.

Best wishes from an unusually hot Paris!
David Sharp
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Re: New Mac: NWP loses connection to Bookends

Post by David Sharp »

Problem solved, thanks to the folks over at Sonny Software.

Under Catalina, there's an item called "Automation" in the "Privacy" section of System Preferences, which I hadn't been aware of.

For some reason, NWP was checked to allow it to control Bookends, but the opposite wasn't the case.

I've no idea why this specific problem affected me when I switched to Catalina, so I'm unable to guess whether this particular glitch is worth noting in the documentation.

Many thanks, DS
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martin
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Re: New Mac: NWP loses connection to Bookends

Post by martin »

Thank you for sharing that solution David. Offhand I don't recall when Apple added additional restrictions on how apps can communicate with one another, like Nisus Writer and Bookends do, but it may have been Catalina. It makes sense that Bookends would require automation to be enabled, even though you had already granted "Full Disk Access". It's probably a good idea for us to make a note of it in our documentation.

Thanks again!
ProfT
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Re: New Mac: NWP loses connection to Bookends

Post by ProfT »

I'm having a similar issue. I can copy the citation in Bookends (13.4.8) and paste it manually into NWP (3.2), but the command to insert citation from the NWP Tools menu no longer works. My computer beeps when I try it. I checked the Privacy section in my settings, and in the automation settings, NWP has access to Bookends, but Bookends only has access to System Events.app and Mail.app. NWP is not listed for me to add. Is there a way to prompt this? I deleted NWP as the default word processor in the Bookends preferences and then added it back, but that did not change anything.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. The manual copy and paste certainly works, but it's far less efficient than the command.

Mike
David Sharp
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Re: New Mac: NWP loses connection to Bookends

Post by David Sharp »

Hi, I see that nobody's replied to your question yet, and I wonder if that may be because the original question, which I asked back in August, was seen as having been resolved.

As a non-specialist, I'm completely incapable of answering your question, and if you haven't found a solution yet, maybe it would be a good idea to repose it as a new thread.

Best wishes
ProfT
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Re: New Mac: NWP loses connection to Bookends

Post by ProfT »

Thanks, David! I’ll post this as a new reply.

Mike
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