nisus.com

We've just released a semi-public beta of Express 2.6. This means anyone can download the beta if they like, but we're not expecting or promoting any casual users to do so. If you're adventurous, give the beta a spin.

Just to hit up some of the more visible bugs that have been discussed on this forum:
1. An attempt has been made to fix the ruler redraw bug. However, we are never able to reproduce this ourselves. So if you see it, choose the Help > Send Feedback menu and let us know.
2. We have worked around the bug in InDesign that was causing our RTF files to crash it.

If there are any comments or questions on the beta, please post them here. But please keep discussions on the beta limited to this thread, thanks.

Still having the ruler bug. Just sent in a bug report. Oh well, maybe the next beta!

Bug fixes, new features... boring! Where are the new Easter Eggs?

For a semi-public release, it is prominently listed on VersionTracker...

Was it intentional?

seitanguy wrote:Still having the ruler bug. Just sent in a bug report. Oh well, maybe the next beta!

Me too. Sent in a bug report with a screenshot.

hatchmo wrote:I am unable to open the Preferences panel in v26b2. Each time I select it from the Nisus Writer Express menu, I get an "Internal error" dialog. I have submitted Feedback.

I launch v2.5, and everything is normal.

All this is in 10.3.9 on a G5.

I'm not having this problem under OS X 10.4.3 on a G4 PowerBook.

(I'm replying to a post from a different topic here. I hope that doesn't confuse everyone.)

The problem with the preferences only affects 10.3 users. This will absolutely be fixed in the next beta.

If I open up 2.5 and then the preference, can I make changes that will change 2.6b2?

gemboy, 2.6 should pick up any changes to preferences you make in 2.5. Just be sure to make the changes while 2.6 is not running.

One annoying bug not yet fixed: the extra leading space when pasting.

One annoying bug not yet fixed: the extra leading space when pasting.

I agree about this being annoying. The same goes for other situations where space(s) are either created or deleted based on something the user does. For example, when giving a multiple choice exam at the end of this past semester, I adapted a few questions from an old exam. Each time I deleted one of the old answers, NWX deleted the intervening space(s), so that "A. This is a trick question" became "A." (with no following spaces) when I deleted the text of the old answer.

This is my one general annoyance with day-to-day use of NWX, which otherwise is wonderful. Microsoft products -- most notably Word and PowerPoint -- have too many autoformat, autocorrect, autowhatever options that try to guess what I really wanted my text to look like, and these options aren't always easy to find and turn off. Most of the time, NWX doesn't suffer from this problem of trying to out-think the way I want to format my own writing, which is one of many reasons I use it for most of my writing. But when it comes to things like cutting and pasting, NWX sometimes decides that it knows best. Would it be possible to make this autoformatting (create/delete spaces when cutting and pasting) an option that one could turn off, say in the QuickFix preferences?

The font selection thing in the drawer is grayed out for me. I see the font in it's own font (ie. WYSIWYG for fonts) but can't select or even scroll to view any fonts. Also don't have up or down arrows for font selection.

Would love to see Nisus open documents faster and/or without the various "Loading" and "Typesetting" progress bars. One progress bar is fine. I mean, I don't care what it's doing specifically, just need an idea of how long it takes until my document is ready for editing.

Thanks.

cgc wrote:Would love to see Nisus open documents faster and/or without the various "Loading" and "Typesetting" progress bars. One progress bar is fine. I mean, I don't care what it's doing specifically, just need an idea of how long it takes until my document is ready for editing.

Consider the following: Words "opens" documents instantaneously, compared to NWE, but... you cannot edit your document as soon as its window comes up in Word. It begins to frantically calculate the number of pages (making the vertical scroller disappear under the mouse), count characters, spellcheck, etc. ad nauseam. There is no indication as to when your document is really ready for editing.

NWE, on the contrary, lets you begin working with your document as soon as its window comes up. From the user experience perspective it's much better.

I still think NWE opens documents too slowly (I have a 1GHz G4 with 1GB memory). At least consolidate the Opening Document and Typsetting progress bars into one progress bar that can say specifically what's happening but ONLY ONE PROGRESS BAR. Minor quibble on an excellent product.

cgc wrote:At least consolidate the Opening Document and Typsetting progress bars into one progress bar that can say specifically what's happening...

Heh. I'd rather have a written explanation somewhere in the documentation or on this forum. Seriously, I can guess what's happening, but would like to hear a "word from the author."

Back on topic: I think the bizarre screen redraw bug is finally gone.

Edit: Uh-oh. Nope, still there.