Wishlist for version 2.7

[Reiner]

• Rewrite Mellel's interface, make it more friendly.

Though there are of course problems in the interface (e. g. bibliography palette) I don't see any reason for changing the interface concept in general because I think it's one of the best.

[rpcameron]

• Rewrite Mellel's interface, make it more friendly.

Though there are of course problems in the interface (e. g. bibliography palette) I don't see any reason for changing the interface concept in general because I think it's one of the best.

I disagree. The interface still defaults to brushed metal, the palettes could be better unified as info windows, and overall the document window is still fitted with its own toolbar instead of a true NSToolBar. The interface could use a real overall, even if it's just someone else re-visualizing the interface, but it needs to be done. Perhaps this needs a focus-group type of survey. …

[Reiner]

different people, different opinions...

I'm using the Apple Aqua Interface and have installed the UNO-GUI-hack am just happy with the look and feel of Mellel. It would be fine if more application would have cleaner toolbars insteads of those colourcrowded intrusive ones.

But of course a user changeable toolbar would be great.

[Mart°n]

• Rewrite Mellel's interface, make it more friendly.
• Support CJK Characters seamlessly.
• Rewrite Mellel's Tutorial.

It would be very helpful, if you could reveal more details of your requests. Are there specific things you don’t like in the current interface? Do you mean by „make it more friendly“ make it more „visually“ friendly e.g. eye candy or do you even mean some actions e.g. how to set up anything…

The Tutorial (the Tutorial for Beginners) was not written by the Redlers but by an Mellel User (Don Broadribb) who has invested his time to help the Mellel community, so the request about the Tutorial should go into his direction, a request for a new User Manual should go into the Redler’s direction. Again, it would be helpful for both, if you indicate the things you don’t like in either the Tutorial or the Manual.

Otherwise it could happen, that all of the things are re-created or re-written but you aren’t happy with the new one because they still don’t fit your needs.

[Mart°n]

different people, different opinions...

Yes.

I'm using the Apple Aqua Interface and have installed the UNO-GUI-hack am just happy with the look and feel of Mellel. It would be fine if more application would have cleaner toolbars insteads of those colourcrowded intrusive ones.

But of course a user changeable toolbar would be great.

I think there are several things that could be improved in Mellel’s interface. You are happy because UNO unifies your version of Mellel, most user don’t have UNO installed and therefore see still the brushed-metal window.

I also would prefer a customizable toolbar. The icons don’t need to be colorful but I could think of a better arrangement (for my needs). The alignment-buttons for example are a leftover from the very first days of Mellel when it doesn’t have palettes nor the current style system. So probably nobody uses them anymore but they cover at least one third of the entire toolbar.

The outline pane could be integrated better, features as search, comments… could be integrated into this too (as it is done in Pages for example). The palette system doesn’t work that good (given the number of palettes), most aren’t resizeable (styles, bibliography…) some look and behave unintuitive (character appearance), some features could be enhanced to work with drag and drop, some could be enhanced with live preview or preview HUDs (Styles), the whole style/auto-title system could be displayed in a more visual way so you can see (and change) how they interact, the Interface could be prepared for resolution independence, the tab-well could be improved (larger icons, better preview of the current position, vertial line while dragging a tab) a vertial ruler could be integrated (with floating images/tables/text)…

To support those features and usabilty enhancements, Mellel’s general silent appearance doesn’t have to be changed. But it should be refined.

[donb]

Rewrite Mellel's Tutorial

I would be happy to rewrite the Beginner's Tutorial, if you would let me know the details of what you have in mind for improving it.

Don Broadribb

[eeptman]

Actually, I am new to Mellel. I do wish Mellel's UI would be more friendly like or even better than Pages or Scrivener. For my own user experience, I don't like the palettes at all. Most of time, I suffered from looking for certain features/adjustments from these Palettes, even the Menu bar. And there is no simple way(i.e Cmd-1/2/3...) to switch each palettes but mouse clicking.

I think it would be more helpful for people toggling the palettes in a horizontal way w/o hiding the content of settings, like Pages does, instead of the vertical one. In addition, you could try to combines some palettes in a row to reduce the distance of mouse moving from top to bottom and it's convenient for users to find out some settings immediately.

§ Paragraph/Character Style

In Mellel, Character Style setting is located in three places: Menu bar, Palettes, and the toolbar. In my opinion, it's redundant and make UI more complex. If we can set up Character Style via one window, why should we need the other two? I would rather go the toolbar to apply charchter style like the way described as following (if possible):

• By clicking the "Character" in the middle of toolbar to prompt the setting window.
• By clicking the style set name in the middle of toolbar to show a drag-down window to apply other default sets.

Simultaneously, Paragraph Style could perform like this. Now we save at least two spaces of palettes.

§ Main/Secondary Font

Persionally, I would suggest that you combine both of these palettes or seeking another way to present them. Let's say… a button w/ a letter "T" on the toolbar.

By clicking the letter "T", Mellel will prompt/open the Font/Charcter Apperance setting palettes automatically. Similarly, it can be implement on the insert Table bottom in the toolbar.

Less is more. Less in the UI but more in the inner functional integration. It is not quite easy to achieve this goal, but I expect Mellel could. Thanks.

-JC

[DylanMuir]

I hide the primary and secondary font palettes completely, by dragging them off the "palette bar" to separate them, and then closing them. I like to stick to styles only; it's much more convenient when writing large documents anyway. Of course there's still a redundancy between the menus and the palettes for assigning character and paragraph styles. One can always turn off the toolbar as well; I do find it a redundant. I think the toolbar can only be used for setting up styles, though -- not for applying them.

You can't get rid of the menus, but you can throw away as many palettes as you like and remove the toolbar. Isn't it nice to have the option to interact with Mellel in the way that suits you better?

DRM

[donb]

.
• Rewrite Mellel's Tutorial.

Do you mean the Tutorial or the Guide? I have no responsibility for the Guide, but I am the author of the Tutorial. If you tell me in which ways you feel it could be improved, I will be very happy to rewrite it in consultation with you.

Don Broadribb

[signinstranger]

I don't remember anyone asking for this, but Auto-titles in the "Replace Styles" dialog would be a really useful feature to have.

[jwilhelm]

Dear developers!

Mellel rocks!

However, good apps always further develop and thus are destined to become even better.

As has been stated before, i'd wish extended CJK capabilities in future versions, including
- Vertical text for CJK scripts
- Ruby/furigana type glosses, also for CJK scripts

Another ultracool feature for Mellel would be an autotext function such as included in Mac OS X (automatic Text Fields like address, phone number etc.).

Johannes

[nuttmeg]

Hi!

Sorry guys if what I am writing here has been discussed already to some degree in (an) other thread(s). I am using Mellel for 'scholarly' writing. It is in fact marketed as being particularly tailored for such purposes. Overall, I am happy with it and would never go back to MS Word. However, I think this 'scholarly' side of Mellel could be improved substantially. My ideas (requests) may not represent the taste of many other users in terms of'urgency to include in Mellel. Also, they may actually concern fundamental changes to how Mellel approaches things (the 'paradigm') and therefore may be way out of question. Anyway:

• TABLES/FIGURES. I tend to have quite a few tables and figures (diagrams) in my documents. I wonder if the auto-titles for these objects could be integrated with the object themselves. What I do now is insert an image and then add an auto-title above or below the image (same with tables). I set up the auto-title to stick with table/figure. Instead of all this, I would like to be able to add my title (caption) automatically when I insert these objects. Some people may not want to add auto-titles so this could be optional. But I think it makes sense as table+table captions and figures+figure captions really go together conceptually.
• TABLES SPANNING BEYOND A SINGLE PAGE.Some of my tables are large and even if they are not that large they may start at the lower part of the page and easily span over to the next one. When preparing my final draft, now I have to inspect the document from the beginning to the end to see if tables layouts are acceptable. If not, I have to manually add 'continued' and also the title rows on the next page. Now, If I add just one more line to my text, everything gets messy again as some table rows move on to the next page. This could be done automatically. Given the fact, that academic texts do tend to contain tables as common objects, this feature would make Mellel cater to real 'scholarly' needs.


nutt-

[shades]

Howdy, nutt. Yep, your requests match my own needs. Thanks for expressing.

[fbrzvnrnd]

-FIND a string with a paragraph style and replace with a string with another paragraph style
- find a string with "more than one" charachter style and replace with a string with 'more that one' character style

Explain: yesterday I have to replace 500 "end of page" with a "end of page" Hello(centered) "end of page". I had to do this manually because I can not assign the paragraph style to the 'Hello' string with allign center.
Another problem, if I have to search the string: "take the right book!" with "take the right book!", I Have to do this manually, 'cause the character style is applied to all the replacing string...