Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

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Xuanying
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Joined: 2018-11-15 13:37:36

Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by Xuanying »

It seems something has changed in the “text colors” between NisusWriter Pro 2 and 3.

If I'm not wrong, in Nisus 2 red was (in RGB codes) 255-0-0; in Nisus 3, it is 251-0-6.

Blue was 0-0-255, now it is 0-0-254.

Orange was 255-127-0, now it is 252-105-8.

The changes are almost imperceptible on a computer monitor. But they have a very negative practical impact. If you have a document originally written in Nisus 2 and you colored certain word in, say, red, PowerFind in Nisus 3 will not find “Any” text written in that red, because the Nisus 3 red is a different red. Same thing for the other colors.

Is there a way to re-assign, for instance, RGB 255-0-0 to the Nisus 3 “red”?

Thanks,
Xuanying
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martin
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Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by martin »

I'm sorry you're having trouble with shifting colors Xuanying. The color you've assigned to your text should not change between Nisus Writer versions. I just did a quick test in Nisus Writer Pro 2.1.x and 3.0 and it appears to be working correctly. Here's what I did:

1. Launch Nisus Writer Pro 2.1.10 and create a new document.
2. Add some red text, and text with a red background.
3. Save the test document and duplicate it.
4. Quit version 2 and launch Nisus Writer Pro version 3.
5. Open the copied test document.
6. Save the test document, close it, and reopen it.

At all points in the testing were the colors pure red as desired, ie: RGB=(255,0,0). I observed this by measuring the on-screen display pixels and by looking in the saved files' RTF codes:

Code: Select all

\red255 \green0 \blue0
I'll attach my test materials. How did you measure the color differences exactly? I can think of only two reasons your colors might have changed:

1. You are using a different monitor than before. So far as I know the Mac system will adjust how colors are displayed on screen based on the device calibration. This is to account for differences between devices and their ability to reproduce colors. This would only affect how the colors look. It should not affect any operations that match colors mathematically (eg: formatting sensitive search).

2. You used a color that can't be represented in the RGB color space using the values 0-255. RTF files don't allow for greater color fidelity. If you apply a color with more information (eg: a CMYK color) it will be converted when you save and reopen the file, thus resulting in a slight color shift. But this was always true, in Nisus Writer Pro version 2 and earlier.
Attachments
colors.zip
(50.27 KiB) Downloaded 513 times
Xuanying
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Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by Xuanying »

Hello Martin, and thanks for your reply. I made a few experiments and I think this time I can be clearer than before.

Let’s take the red color as an example. I did not mean that Nisus 3 changes the red color of a text originally written in Nisus 2. I just meant that the “red” of Nisus 2 and 3 are different. Below are screenshots of two files, created with Nisus 2 and 3. As you can see, the RGB numbers for "red" are different. In both cases, I applied the red color through Format > Text Color > Red.

This is also confirmed by the RTF codes of the two files. Please look at the other attachment below, which contains the first 5 or 6 lines of RTF codes for each file. Look at the line before the last one in both of them.

This is the practical consequence:

1. In Nisus 3, open a file written in Nisus 2 that contains some red text
2. Open PowerFind and enter the wild card “Any”
3. Select “Any” and choose Format > Any Formatting
3. With “Any” still selected, choose Format > Text Color > Red
4. Click Find Next

PowerFind doesn’t find that red. I think the reason is that it’s trying to find a “red” which is different from the "red" in the text it is searching.

I know this is a minor nuisance. Unfortunately I use colors a lot (red for important things that I must double check, blue for things that are not wrong but need improvement, etc.), and the transition from 2 to 3 has been a bit painful for this reason.

Except for this, I have only two words to define NisusWriter 3: Just Wonderful.

Thank you!
Attachments
Nisus 2.1.1 and 3.0 RTF.txt
(965 Bytes) Downloaded 549 times
Screen Shot 3.0.jpg
Screen Shot 3.0.jpg (48.99 KiB) Viewed 14358 times
Screen Shot 2.1.1.jpg
Screen Shot 2.1.1.jpg (47.92 KiB) Viewed 14358 times
adryan
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Location: Australia

Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by adryan »

G’day, Xuanying et al

I think Martin is right in suggesting it’s something to do with the display.

Try this:–

(1) Select some text.
(2) With the Colors Palette set to RGB Sliders, click on the cogwheel and choose Device RGB from the drop-down menu.
(3) Manually set the values to 255, 0, 0. (Be sure to finish with a Return to force application of all the values.)
(4) Go back to the cogwheel menu and choose Generic RGB. The RGB values shift slightly to something very much like those Xuanying is experiencing.

So there you are. I’ve given you all a big clue! I’ll refrain from disclosing the complete answer to the problem — mainly because I don’t know it myself just yet!

Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
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phspaelti
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Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by phspaelti »

I hadn't really paid attention to this before, but I can confirm what Xuanying is saying: If I insert the text color Red from the menu I do not get (255, 0, 0) in NWP 3.0. Instead I get (251, 0 , 6). That's kind of a drag.

One notable clue is that Kino's "Select by Attribute" macro seems unable to "Humanize" red (and others?) at all. It always renders it as an RGB value.

Hopefully this can be sorted out some time soon. In the meantime I can suggest the following.

1. Create macros like the following to replace the menu options.
Apply True Red.nwm
(5.51 KiB) Downloaded 574 times
2. Use a macro like the following to find all text in a specific color.
Find True Red.nwm
(5.65 KiB) Downloaded 563 times
3. Here is a macro analog to other "Select By…" macros that will provide you with an overview of the RGB values that are present in the document and allow you to select all instances of the one you want. You can then correct them manually, or with a macro like the one in 1.
Select By Color.nwm
(7.37 KiB) Downloaded 582 times
philip
adryan
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Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by adryan »

G'day, Philip et al

My experience in NWP 3 is different.

Select some text, then (for example) Format > Text Color > Red. RGB values in the Colors Palette are as expected; viz, 255, 0, 0.

Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
Nisus Writer user since 1996
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xiamenese
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Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by xiamenese »

Hello all,

This hasn’t hit me (yet), but I notice that @adryan is still using 10.12.6. Are the rest of you using 10.14(.1)? Is it something 10.14 has brought in?

Just a thought.

Mark
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phspaelti
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Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by phspaelti »

xiamenese wrote: 2018-11-18 01:02:16Are the rest of you using 10.14(.1)? Is it something 10.14 has brought in?
Indeed. I am currently testing this on 10.14.1.
philip
Xuanying
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Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by Xuanying »

Thanks to everyone for your replies. I think the problem does exist, and it’s not related to display. To verify, open a new file In Nisus 2, write something and color it by choosing Format > Text Color > Red. Select it, and check the RGB palette (Control + Command + C, and choose RGB Sliders). Quit Nisus 2 and repeat the procedure in Nisus 3. The RGB numbers differ.

Just to make sure, this does not mean “open with Nisus 3 a file last saved in Nisus 2”, but creating two different files, one in Nisus 2 the other in Nisus 3.

This happens on my MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra 10.13.6.

Cheers,
Xuanying
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martin
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Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by martin »

Thank you all for sharing your experiences and providing some more information. It's certainly possible that your macOS system version is a factor here. It's also possible that Nisus Writer Pro's behavior has changed here, even though our code involved hasn't changed.

When you choose the "Red" color command Nisus Writer asks the system for the canonical red color. Apple gives apps access to many named colors. This includes not just pure colors like red, blue, and green, but also colors defined by their intended functionality (eg: disabled control text color). The point is that the color provided by the system may change between system versions, or even based on other factors like which version of Apple's developer tools were used to create an app like Nisus Writer.

What I'm seeing now in Nisus Writer Pro 3 is that the system's red color is being returned as a color in the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 colorspace. When Nisus Writer converts that to a good old 0-255 RGB triplet it somehow goes from pure red (1.0) to a slightly reduced red component (0.984314). I'm not exactly sure why. I don't fully understand how colorspace conversions work.

I think the best solution would be for Nisus Writer to move away from using the system colors here. We can instead define our color commands to use fixed RGB values that will not change between different versions of Nisus Writer. I'll see about us restoring the RGB values used by version 2.x. I'm sorry for any trouble it's caused you in the meantime.
Xuanying
Posts: 6
Joined: 2018-11-15 13:37:36

Re: Text colors change in Nisus 2 and 3

Post by Xuanying »

Thank you for your reply, Martin! Your explanation is very interesting.

Cheers,
Xuanying
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