Mellel

[tedg]

Has anyone done a serious comparison with Mellel, for someone that only writes in English?

I am exploring it after decades with Nisus, triggered by what seem more frequent updates and the appearance of a reasonable iPad companion.

[Þorvarður]

Has anyone done a serious comparison with Mellel

Yes.
But I’m somewhat reluctant to share my experience with you because I don’t know whether you are serious this time or whether your remarks are mainly aimed at goosing Nisus.
In another thread from 2024-05-25 you mentioned 32 issues you said you would like to be addressed. I picked out 10 of them and asked for further explanation because I (and probably most other forum users) didn’t understand what features you were talking about due to lack of details. Of those 10 points you only explained 1, and then you seemed to loose all interest in discussing the rest with the forum members and instead said we should close the thread.

None of the 32 items on your list of grievances will ever been considered by Mellel. If that is ever going to happen, I'll eat my hat.
viewtopic.php?t=12608

I am exploring it [Mellel] after decades with Nisus, triggered by what seem more frequent updates

Those “frequent updates” are just bug fixes and mini-updates. One of the fundamental differences between Nisus and Mellel is that when a new feature appears in Nisus, the user is usually provided with a complete solution that allows him or her to choose from a wide range of options. Mellel, however, will usually only provide very few options. An example could be a feature where colors are involved. Nisus will allow you to choose as many colors as your computer can display, whereas Mellel would only allow you to use, let’s say, 5 colors. If we are lucky, Mellel’s updates would then add a few more colors over the next few years. The developer seldom goes the whole hog.
Another example: Split view was introduced in Mellel a while ago, after many users had been begging for this for more than a decade. In the end, the feature came, but horizontal only! Vertical split came later in an “update”. The implementation is still inferior to the implementation in Nisus, but that’s another story.
Those who read the Mellel forum can find a lot of old feature requests, 15 years or older. Back then the developer used to say: We are working on it, and it will come very soon.” Then the users waited, 5, 10, 15 years and nothing ever happened. After one of the Redlers brothers died in 2020, Mellel has become entirely a one-man show now.

[tedg]

Þorvarður —

Many thanks for the attention here, in my previous query, and the service to the Nisus community. I fear we've gotten off on the wrong foot.

I've been a user and champion of NW, since system 7 and '89 I think. I wrote the Frontier binding and featured it in my ATPM columns. I had a massive library of internal and external macros that I shared with Dozens. I corresponded with Kissell and wrote a custom NW outliner. I make a living using NW today. I have cred.

Some time ago, I suggested we figure out a way to make NW more vital. You came on and said more or less it is perfect, they don't need any more money, and asked what features it was missing. I spent 20 minutes listing a few things. My goal was to indicate that a power user would have all sorts of things we need. Immediately I need list styles, better figure placement and figure title management. You started on that list with solutions as if my request was for those specifically. I appreciate the effort, but the point was there is room to grow and progress seems slow, presumably because the business model is inadequate. Should I change my workflow back to FrameMaker or Tinderbox?

Now, Mellel has done something seemingly important with their iPad sister. Is it a sign of vitality? Will Mellel be the one that breaks out? Do I shift my Mac/iPad routine from Ulysses?

So the question is whether someone has looked at both and made notes on what they'd miss and gain in a shift to Mellel? In a few moments, I noticed the multi key shortcuts were missing. LinkBack is something I rely on. Some small macros were missed more than I imagined. What I got out of the box were List styles Yay. And what looks like a custom text engine with better typographic control than Apple's built in.

So this is a simple query. Anyone done a non jingoistic comparison of the two?

[tedg]

None of the 32 items on your list of grievances will ever been considered by Mellel. If that is ever going to happen, I'll eat my hat.
viewtopic.php?t=12608

I owed you a response in the earlier thread. My apologies. Mellel does address a couple on my list as noted.

Ipad editing, list styles, better figure titles, better ligature management, better Bookends integration — at least based on an hour of use.

But those were examples of what I supposed would signify a vital product if they appeared in NW.

[Þorvarður]

So the question is whether someone has looked at both and made notes on what they'd miss and gain in a shift to Mellel?

I made a detailed comparison of Nisus Writer Pro and Mellel. The first part of the paper evaluates 103 features in Nisus, the second part 74 in Mellel. Since you are already familiar with Nisus, I uploaded only the second part. The file is too big for the forum. Use the link below.

My criterion was simply everything that makes a feature useful for me when writing, makes me write faster and be more productive and organized. Typography, for example, is not important to me and my work. Therefore I did not test features in Mellel which those who are interested in typography would not want to miss.
I started this project under Mellel v.3. Each time I come across a feature in Mellel I liked or didn’t like, especially compared to Nisus, I would jot down a note to help me better understand the feature and how it works or doesn’t work. Once I got my head around how Mellel works, I lost interest in it. Although I still keep following the latest development, it’s possible that some insufficiencies have been redressed in the meantime.

If anyone finds inaccuracies, then, by all means, please report.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/izg964xl ... d.zip/file

[Þorvarður]

Some time ago, I suggested we figure out a way to make NW more vital.

One way to do that is to strengthen the forum and the Nisus community in general. I think the community itself is to blame to a large extent for the indifference we can see every day in the Mac community regarding Nisus. Many users are surprised when they hear about NWP for the first time. Many will say that they have had a Mac for many years, but never knew that Nisus existed. Then, when I talk to them years later, they are still using Pages and MS Word for all their writing.

Perhaps the iPad, iPhone and the iTunes Store have fundamentally changed the Mac community. I miss the intense and eager enjoyment and enthusiasm of the 90ies. Back then, people used to meet in local Macintosh groups once a week and have a face-to-face chat about the latest Mac stuff. Then we also had HyperCard which turned so many users into enthusiastic hobby programmers. All this is long gone now.

Adryan started a thread last year in July and encouraged members of the forum to share tips and tricks about Nisus and how they use it. A really interesting topic that should be of interest to everyone here. I waited to see who would reply, but only two people ever replied. Think of that.

It seems that most forum members are not aware of the fact that an active forum vastly contributes to the attractiveness of the software itself and it will make Nisus better known among writers and potential new buyers, thus creating more revenue for the company.

And so, my fellow Nisusians: ask not what your forum can do for you — ask what you can do for your forum! :–)

[Þorvarður]

Hello tedg,

Some time ago, I suggested we figure out a way to make NW more vital. You came on and said more or less it is perfect

This is not fair. As far as I can remember, I never said that Nisus couldn’t be improved. That would indeed be silly. As a matter of fact, I have my own wish list of improvements and new features that I would like to see implemented.
What I was saying is this: if a forum member has a feature request, he or she should post the request in the forum with clear pro-arguments explaining why such a feature would also benefit the rest of us. And remember, we have no idea what you are doing with your word processor or in what kind of business you are or what kind of tools you need. You have to explain that too. I’m not talking about your original thread in particular. I’m just saying that a person who is studying a STEM subject needs other tools than people who work in the humanities. It’s nothing I hate more than when people who ask for help and provide no other information than that they are looking for a good word processor. Then, days later, it turns out that they work in the chemical industry and need to write a lot of mathematical formulae, draw images of atoms and molecules and other stuff chemists normally do. In such cases I feel like I'm being taken for a ride. This is just a random example, not specifically aimed at you.

Since all your current Mac power tools have an iPad companion, I don’t understand why you can’t use one of the many available iPad writers when you are underway. You can’t write more than 40 pages or so when you are on the bus, in a restaurant or in the library. When you are back home, it shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to import the text and format it lightning fast with a macro and styles in Nisus. I’m talking here about simple writing, no frills, images or artistic table dancing.

styling figure titles

I have no idea why you can’t use styles in Figure titles, unless you are talking about each individual character in the title, that is, if the title is “Figure 1” and you want each character in the word “Figure” to look differently. When you criticize the lack of such features in Nisus, you should provide a screenshot so we can see what you mean exactly, because I can definitely assign any character style I want to figure titles.

Unlike Nisus, Mellel can’t add captions to images.

(1) Internal comments that can have directives

I think you have 1001 ways to do this in Nisus.

Or a comment that says ensure no double spaces are present and if I visit it, it checks and removes them.

One way would be to use a macro for printing. It would first “ensure no double spaces are present” and then print the document. If double spaces are found, the macro would fix that before the document is printed.

I mean a comment […] to myself that says: ‘rewrite this paragraph to emphasise Wille’s contribution.’

Why not use a colored inline comment that really stands out for that?

I’ll assume that in every case you wonder why I would want something.

I had to laugh when I read this. It shows that you have sense of humour. I like that. :–)

(3) Collapsible TOC … Hope that is clear.

Yes, that’s better. I have always wanted outlines in Nisus Writer Pro that can temporary hide subheaders, like the outline mode in MS Word. But again, playing the advocatus diaboli, aren’t you using the TOC as navigation instead of using the Navigator? The Navigator can easily hide all subheaders.

Wherever I am, including this web response field, I want to hit a command and have everything imported into NW with my cool styles for me to write, and on completion have it imported back.

Sounds like you need some good AppleScripts to import and then export the text directly back into the target application. Isn’t that what AppleScript is all about?

I have things set that if I hit command I, I apply an italic style that uses a different typeface than the surrounding text. If I reassign the surrounding text from body or normal to say block quote or parenthetical, I want the style to conditionally adapt according to a rule I set — in this case, use the non-modern version of the face.

Not sure, but perhaps a case for our macro guru Philip Spaelti. What do others think of the proposal?

(8) Invisible highlighting. I want to be able to mark text with attributes that only I can know to search for. […] I want the power of having deeply annotated text without having to remove it as the doc evolves.

In plain English, you want the ability to highlight text which will NOT be printed.
Sounds like a good idea. I support this feature request!

(10) Animated font effects in editing mode …If for instance I misspell receive as recieve. it isn’t because I got the word wrong and a word needs to be substituted. I got the letter order wrong, and I should see the letters move.

So you are talking about spell checking here. Certainly, moving letters would be nice, but I have no idea whether that can be easily implemented. I haven’t seen this feature in any application yet.

Something other than PERL (jeez).

I think Philip Spaelti has said, on several occasions, that PERL isn’t needed anymore. We can do everything using the Nisus macro language. I hope Philip will jump in here and correct me if I’m wrong.

[xiamenese]

Thanks for your posts and your review of Mellel, Þorvarður.

When Apple replaced Mac OS9 with OSX, I soon found Mellel as a word processor as TextEdit was too primitive. I suppose I must have used it for about a year, and was getting my head round its idiosyncrasies. However, it had one huge disadvantage for me at that time; I was in China and having to work with .doc files in Chinese, but Mellel couldn't import them. I was having to open them in TextEdit, save them as RTF and then open that in Mellel. Then, a new word processor appeared called Opito Composer, which could open them directly and, though fairly basic at the beginning, was developing rapidly. When development on that ceased and Nisus Writer came along, I've been using it—in the form of NWP as soon as that became available—ever since.

But I have always kept Mellel up to date, and periodically fire it up to try again. But every time, I soon give up as lack of familiarity makes it too much effort. If NWP stopped working, I would have to choose either Mellel or LibreOffice—equally arcane to me!—as a replacement.

I don't consider myself a power user of NWP, but I would really miss it's style-library system with the macros to import a style collection. I also really like the multi-key shortcut system, and the very powerful Find-and-Replace, even though I only very occasionally use complex RegEx searches it is good to know it is there.

The truth is more and more I do any writing in Scrivener, compiling to RTF with a standard format, which opens directly in NWP where I then run a Macro which replaces the styles used with those in a selected style collection and a number of other things, like running a Bookends scan. Neither Mellel, nor LibreOffice would afford me that ease of workflow. Also, that said, I am more and more leaning to a Markdown/Pandoc/Quarto based workflow with compiling to HTML for a website—already working—or DOCX, or Markdown/Typst for compiling to PDF—I've started working on that. This has come from my realisation that in my Scrivener -> NWP workflow, I am essentially using RTF styles in Scrivener as semantic markup rather than formatting.

But as long as NWP is here, it will be my word processor of choice. Also, about a year ago Literature and Latte announced that they would be releasing a new writing app. I'll wait and see what that gives and whether NWP will be a partner-app in that workflow.

[Þorvarður]

Hello Mark,
Thank you for your comments.

I have always kept Mellel up to date, and periodically fire it up to try again. But every time, I soon give up

It’s the same here. I give up after 5 minutes, mainly due to the lack of macros and non-contiguous selection ability. Everything I do in Mellel takes approximately 4 times longer than in Nisus, and that may be a conservative estimation. However, version 5 and now v.6 have been greatly improved. Features which I consider essential for every good word processor are now finally available in Mellel (split view, for example, ‘batch insert’ of Auto-titles, etc.) There are also a few features which are better implemented in Mellel, for example footnotes, not to mention the outline. I have always found footnotes in Nisus confusing and unintuitive.

If NWP stopped working, I would have to choose either Mellel or LibreOffice

I agree.

I also really like the multi-key shortcut system

I love that too. It saves much time. Assigning a keyboard shortcut to a menu command in Mellel doesn’t always work. Yesterday, I tried to assign Shift + Command + b to the “Insert Bookmarks” command (because that’s the shortcut I use in Nisus), but to no avail. Mellel always just changed the text from normal to bold.

more and more I do any writing in Scrivener […] Neither Mellel, nor LibreOffice would afford me that ease of workflow.

It is horses for courses.

about a year ago Literature and Latte announced that they would be releasing a new writing app.

That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. Do you know what kind of writing app they have envisaged?
Now we have MS Word, LibreOffice, Nisus and a few other office programs that don’t seem an attractive choice for me. Then Mellel for very long documents and those who are interested in typography, and Scrivener for those who don’t write linear and need to do much editing and shuffling parts around.

Mellel has tried to establish itself in the Mac community as the BEST multilingual word processor in the universe…. Could you say something about writing Chinese in Nisus? Are there any problems you encounter when you write Chinese?
I know there are people here who write in Hebrew, but they never complain, so I assume that there are no problems with Hebrew either. The same applies to the people here who write in Arabic. No complains either.

[Þorvarður]

Also, about a year ago Literature and Latte announced that they would be releasing a new writing app.

The new app is scheduled for the end of 2024.
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/some ... ers-needed

It seems to be yet another minimalistic markdown app.

“While [Rich text] might allow you to write using your favourite settings—blown up to 96-point Futura, say, or bold Comic Sans—all that formatting is baked into the text, so changing it later to something more suitable for your readers can be time-consuming; even more so if you need different formatting for, say, proof-reading and publishing”

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/some ... ers-needed

It is as if the person who wrote this has never heard of macros and never used Nisus Writer Pro. In Nisus we just need to place the insertion point in the text we want to change, run the macro “Select With Same Attributes” (by Spaelti) which will select everything in the document with the same attributes, and then we can choose new attributes. This operation doesn’t take more than 2 seconds.

Talking about time-consuming …!

[tedg]

I can say that there are quite a few advantages to Nisus' use of the supplied Apple text frameworks. (I am assuming here that Nisus uses them and Mellel and Word each have their own text engines.) As Apple adds capability, Nisus gets it for free. Nisus on Sonoma has a new type ahead AI that I am finding very accurate in anticipating what I write. Mellel does not have this.

[xiamenese]

Also, about a year ago Literature and Latte announced that they would be releasing a new writing app.

The new app is scheduled for the end of 2024.
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/some ... ers-needed

It seems to be yet another minimalistic markdown app.

Minimalistic, yes, Markdown no. The post specifically says it's not Markdown.

“While [Rich text] might allow you to write using your favourite settings—blown up to 96-point Futura, say, or bold Comic Sans—all that formatting is baked into the text, so changing it later to something more suitable for your readers can be time-consuming; even more so if you need different formatting for, say, proof-reading and publishing”

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/some ... ers-needed

It is as if the person who wrote this has never heard of macros and never used Nisus Writer Pro. In Nisus we just need to place the insertion point in the text we want to change, run the macro “Select With Same Attributes” (by Spaelti) which will select everything in the document with the same attributes, and then we can choose new attributes. This operation doesn’t take more than 2 seconds.

Talking about time-consuming …!

[/quote]
Well, that is just how I use styles in Scrivener, essentially as semantic marking, that my NWP macro replaces with the cascading styles I want as final formatting. But although Scrivener—which is built on the same Apple text-engine as NWP—doesn't have the power of NWP in text formatting, it has many other facilities for the writing process that NWP doesn't provide. So, while creating the text, what it looks like on the page is not a distraction as that will be sorted out on compiling and running my NWP macro. The two make a formidable work-flow.

And just for your information, KB, the developer of Scrivener, is also an NWP user, though I don't know about his usage of macros.

[Þorvarður]

Minimalistic, yes, Markdown no. The post specifically says it's not Markdown.

I believe everything you say, xiamenese. You are Our Man by Scrivener. [Allusion to Graham Green’s novel Our Man in Havana]. :–)

And just for your information, KB, the developer of Scrivener, is also an NWP user

That’s interesting. I didn’t know that.

[xiamenese]

Minimalistic, yes, Markdown no. The post specifically says it's not Markdown.

I believe everything you say, xiamenese. You are Our Man by Scrivener. [Allusion to Graham Green’s novel Our Man in Havana]. :–)

Thank you for the compliment.

I know Scrivener (and presumably the new app when it appears) doesn't suit everyone's workflows, but for me it was a life-saver. Much of what I had to do was edit the English of a translation from Chinese in a document that was going to have the two languages interleaved. In Scrivener I could split it up into its constituent chunks still interleaved, labelling them English or Chinese, set up collections based on the label and open the English in one editor-split and the Chinese in the other to be able to refer to the Chinese while working on the English. That way (with "Scrivenings Mode" which stitches together what are actually separate Finder documents into a single editor), I could have the whole English version on screen as a single document to read it as a piece without the Chinese (also in Scrivenings Mode) interrupting it. When I had finished, I just compiled the whole thing in its interleaved format.

Brilliant though NWP is, it couldn't do that, so I'd have had to work on the interleaved document, with potentially much scrolling involved.

That's why Scrivener became my go-to writing app.

But we are a long way from Mellel, so I'll stop here!

[tedg]

Thank you for the detailed exploration of Mellel. For my use, the advantages it offers are better typography and better management of titles/variables/internal references. The iPad app is not good enough for me to count that as a game changer. So I will stick with and recommend Nisus for the foreseeable future.

I am looking for Vision Pro to instigate a shakeup in UI and narrative creation. Meanwhile, I’ll be making an investment in Tinderbox, which is the most vital thing in my computing world, while I stick with Nisus and Bookends.