I am very happy to announce that the Nisus Writer Pro Public Beta is now available.
You need at least Mac OS X 10.3.9 and a PowerPC G3, G4, G5 or Intel-based Mac. The beta will expire in 60 days.
Now for the disclaimer: Please remember that this is beta software, and is still in development. Please take appropriate caution. Use copies of important documents, for example. Read the release notes before using the software.
Also, note that we do not provide technical support on beta software. There is, however, a Nisus Writer Pro forum, so you can ask questions there.
If you would like to send us feedback, please use the “Send Feedback” feature, which is located under the Help menu in Nisus Writer Pro.
Enjoy!
The new logo is ugly and the desktop icon is a poor shadow of the previous NWE logo and icon (Please change them!). But the NWP is snappy, perhaps more responsive than NWE. Feels good to use, opens all my NWE documents. Let’s see how it does on my dissertation! And the logo and icon are eye sores.
the new logo looks that great, I would replace the Ressources folder of NWE :D… it matches the other logos like Mail, the OmniSuite oder SubEthaEdit, and that’s very nice.
Perhaps I should clarify. What I like about the NWE icon is its “glance value” – that is its distinctive shape, sharp design, and color all make it an easy to notice when accessing the dock. The NWP icon on the other hand is a derivative of TextEdit icon (even the pen angle is exactly the same) and the new colors are not flashy. However that is all silly stuff compared to using NWP, which is, as I said before, a very pleasant (aka usual) Nisus experience.
I like what NWP features I’ve seen so far. It fills a nice gap between NWE and Pages (and possibly surpasses Pages in long document features, especially indexing).
The one thing I seriously miss, however, is change tracking and comments. Even a simplified version would be nice. Say I write up a doc, send it to a friend or colleague. They make changes to it and send it back with their comments. Without change tracking, I have no idea what they added or removed (unless I force them to use a different color or font and keep their changes in separate paragraphs, etc. Blech). They send it back to me, I approve or decline the changes. And we’re all happy.
This becomes even more essential when I want to send my document to two or three or more people to review. How do I keep track of all their feedback? So if I may suggest, add change tracking and comments to NWP and take away one of the main reasons people are forced to stick with Word.
I like how NWP feels more responsive. I truly like NWE and I think this is a great step forward. I agree with the person about adding “change tracking and comments”. I use NWE for all my writing. I write fiction. I cannot tell you how having a constantly updating thesaurus has benefitted me. I can find a better word without breaking up my flow. I do occasionally have a need to collaborate with others and being able to know what they changed or added would be a reason to delete the accursed word from my hard drive. Great job! I look forward to purchasing the first release.
I have just begun to use NWP, and so far I like it. It feels very familiar, as I have been a Nisus Writer user for 2-3 years now. I look forward to continuing improvements! I agree with the complaint about the icon. :-)
I quit using Word when I migrated to OS X, and before that I had refused to upgrade beyond version 5.1a. I hated Word 6, even the Mac version, and although I must use it at work, I don’t have to like it. But the change tracking is one very useful feature that Word added after v. 5.1a. I would really appreciate it in NWP.
I hope NWE users can get some sort of price break on Pro!!!
can’t agree more with the complaint about missing reviewing tools. i’m waiting here to buy once the feature is done.
by the way, the compatibility of NWP-generated .rft doc with ms word is awesome. nice job!