Unwanted diamonds...

[florrain]

Hello!

I have Mellel 2.6.1. It has strange behaviours that are driving me crazy... Version 2.5 also had the same problems. Could my style sets have become corrupt?

1. Whenever I change the order of the different styles in the Edit Style Sets window, then each and every style that is used in my document appears with a diamond !! Then, if I change one of the styles in my style set (diamondless), the change of course will not affect its with-diamond namesake.
When I change the style of a given paragraph to the correctly named style (without a diamond), then the character style name keeps its diamond!! Then, using the last item in the paragraph menu (not the Edit Style Sets window!), I must change the character style for that paragraph style to its correct name without a diamond, and then reapply the paragraph style!

2. The same thing happens when I make other changes to a style...

3. When I change the name of a paragraph style in the Edit Style Sets window (not with the last item of the paragraph menu), the paragraphs of my document that had the old name now do not have the new one, but still have the old name, with a diamond added!

Shall I have to recreate all my style sets from scratch? Ouch!! Is there any way to clean them up?

florrain

[stevicus]

Hi Florrian,

I hope that someone can help you out, I've been dealing with similar issues and finally gave up and created a completely new style set. Based on my experiences, I do think it is possible for the style sets to become corrupted. For me, I've found it safest to start from scratch and add what I need as I need it.

I know this isn't very helpful, but I hope that someone more knowledgeable than me can help you diagnose the problem - just thought I'd let you know that your not the only one...

[florrain]

Dear Stevicus,

Thank you for your comments! At least I am not alone. To recreate my styles will be long and tedious. Depressing! Why stay with Mellel? I might as well recreate my styles in Pages or in (shudder) Word!

Mellel users: is this a common or rare problem?

florrain

[ozean]

Have you tried to make a duplicate of the affected style set and then assign the new version of the style set to the document? This helped me in one case where I had strange behaviour with constantly appearing diamonds…

[florrain]

Thanks, ozean, for your suggestion. I tried it. It seemed to function at first, but, when I change a style, the problem comes back again. I tried recopying the style set again, but no luck! The case seems hopeless... I'm close to giving up on Mellel...

florrain

[nicka]

Have you emailed the Redlers directly for support?

[donb]

preserve_update_styles.jpg

A couple of basic questions:

In Mellel's preferences, have you ticked the Update or Preserve styles option?

This particular problem is something I have never encountered, which makes me feel that something in your procedure has gone wrong, though it is not clear to me just what.

Don Broadribb

[florrain]

Estimata Don,

Thank you for your interest. I have selected the "Update document styles" option ("Ŝanĝu la aspekton de la dokumento"). Should I use the other option? In any case, the seemingly corrupted style sets I have are, each of them, used in only one document.

florrain — François (Francisko) Lorrain

P. S. By the way, I use your Esperanto version of Mellel and read your articles in Monato! Some years ago I sent you comments on your Esperanto version and we corresponded shortly about the matter.

[donb]

It might be worth your while to try the other choice, "Preserve document styles" and see what happens. But try it on a duplicate of a document, just in case...

If you could send me a few pages of the document in question (two or three pages), I might be able to diagnose the problem and its solution. And just in case, have you read my Beginners Tutorial to see if there is anything there that might help? (It really needs to be retitled, it goes far beyond just beginners' needs...)

donbroadribb@westnet.com.au

[florrain]

Dear Donald,

Thanks so much for your help! I tried the "Konservu la dokumentaspekton" option. It doesn't seem to help.

I also tried to find information in your tutorial, but didn't find anything helpful either — though I might have overlooked something crucial. Your tutorial is chock-full of information.

Here are two situations where the unwanted diamonds are sure to appear.

1. I create a new paragraph style with the last item of the "Paragraph" menu. Then, opening "Style Sets/Edit Style Sets…", I bring the new style to another place in the paragraph-style list.

2. Opening "Style Sets/Edit Style Sets…", I remove the keyboard equivalent from one style and associate the same keyboard equivalent to another style.

After closing the window, after either 1 or 2, I get lots of diamonds in the "Paragraph" and "Character" menus. This is definitely not normal behaviour.

I can make the diamonds disappear: I need only close the document, duplicate the Style Set, reopen the document, and apply the new style set to the document. Of course the unwanted diamond reappear as soon as I do 1 or 2 again — or maybe other kinds of change too.

In a minute, I'll send you, to your e-mail address, a sample document that exhibits those problems.

florrain

[donb]

I have tried out your text and I think I have found where the problem lies.

In Mellel when in the preferences either Preserve document styles or update document styles is ticked, this feature applies only to documents open subsequently and never to the document which is open on your screen at the moment. I followed your prescriptions carefully, then closed the document, in the preferences I chose update document styles, closed the preferences window, and then reopened the document which I had prepared following your instructions. The diamonds did not appear.

I would like to stress also something which you probably already are well aware of, that when you create a new paragraph style, you must assign to it a character style as well whether one of your previous character styles or a brand-new character stuff.

I am enclosing your text with two added paragraphs at the end which I prepared following your procedure. You will see that no diamonds appear.

I hope that this solves your problem, but if it does not, please let me know the details so that I can work some more on it.

Don Broadribb

[florrain]

Dear Don,

Thank you very, very much for your help. I got your e-mail and tried my file that you fixed, and indeed the diamonds do not appear after I do 1 or 2 (see my previous post). This gives me hope, except that I don't understand what you did to fix the file.

Let me try to get this clear. First I must say that, until yesterday, I left the "Update document styles" option on all the time. However, in fact, I prefer the "Preserve document styles" option (now that I know about it). So this is the option I now have on all the time. So I open the document of which I sent you a part. It's already full of diamonds! I close it. I duplicate the style set, delete the old style set and rename the duplicate with the same name as the one I just deleted. I close the style-set window. I now reopen the document. No diamonds, except for the style set name (because it was deleted). I apply the new, duplicate style set to the document. In the window that appears, the "Match by style name" option is already chosen and I click ok. No more diamonds, fine! But now I do action number 1 (see my last post) and the diamonds are there. All of this is totally bewildering. What exactly must I do to fix my file?

Hopefully

florrain

[florrain]

Dear Don,

I just found a much quicker way to make the diamonds disappear: I reapply the style set to my document and then, in the window that appears, I choose the "Match by style name" option and click ok. The diamonds are gone. But I'd hate to have to do that everytime I change or create a style!

florrain

[florrain]

Sorry, me again. Now the diamonds appear everytime I open the document again. I reapply the style set etc. The diamonds are gone. I close and reopen the document, the diamonds are back. I am staggered!

florrain

[donb]

Sorry to have confused you with my explanations. I think I sort of assumed some facts about Mellel and its use of the diamond symbol, which I find are hardly mentioned in the official Mellel Guide, nor in my Beginners Tutorial.

The little diamond symbol is used by Mellel to indicate that the text originally used a font which is no longer installed in your computer, or used a style which for one reason or another is not in the particular style srt you have chosen for use right now. When it’s a matter of a font, Mellel substitutes another (hopefully similar) font. These things are indicated in the little oblong above the ruler by indicating either before the paragraph name or character name a little diamond symbol. Most of the time, this can be ignored, except when you are writing a very formal piece of material in which it is vital that everything be exactly right.

Inside the paragraph and character menus there are several categories. Very near the bottom of each of those menus, just before the words “save changes to style”, there is a small category which lists all of the fonts or paragraph styles which were found in the document which is open on your screen but which do not conform in some way to the way your document was originally set up (by “originally” I mean the last time you opened the document before now).

So the little diamond symbol can have several meanings, its primary purpose is to indicate that Mellel has made some sort of alteration, which usually is of interest only to specialists or to people who need to make a perfect document, but not for the usual everyday note, letter, or other item in which the precise font or the precise appearance of the paragraph styles is not of any particular importance.

The little diamonds which you find in the paragraph and character menus in the little section right near the bottom really need not concern you at all. I am so used to using Mellel that I sort of take this for granted.

In the sample document which you sent me, the style set that you had made for it is enormous. I count around 20 paragraph styles and something like 15 character styles. When looking at the style sets I get the impression that you sort of filled in just about every conceivable style, which could hardly all be used in any normal document or even in a specialized document. I presume the reason was to illustrate your problem, but it is hardly a real-life situation.

I find it hard to understand why you would want to move the position of the various styles inside a style set, or to change the keyboard shortcuts around. but we can let that be for now. The point that is important is that it doesn’t matter in the slightest that there are items with diamonds before them in the next-to-last little panel in the character and paragraph menus.

Now there is another point of importance here: normally Mellel adjusts the style set to be the one that was used when the document was last opened. If you have composed a text using a style set which you called “legalese”, when you next open that particular text document Mellel realizes that you used the “legalese” style set and continues to use that same style set. Only very rarely does occasion arise to change the style set which was previously used for your document.

Mellel kind of assumes that you are going to be consistent in the names which you give your character styles and your paragraph styles. So for example, if you have another style set named “Hopscotch”, you will have the same character styles names, although of course the details of exactly which font and which font size is meant by “normal” in the legalese style may well be different in the hopscotch style. That is why when you change the style of a document from legalese to hopscotch, Mellel asks you whether you want to have styles by the same name used, or styles which might have different names but are otherwise identical with the styles in the legalese document. You can save yourself an enormous amount of confusion, if you can be as consistent as possible with the style names which you give in your various style sets.

If the items in the portion of a menu which indicates diamonds really bother you, you can of course go to the replace styles in the file menu and replace each of the diamond type styles with the ones you really want, although this is hardly ever necessary.

As a rule, most people are content with just two or three style sets, if even that many. It is best to adjust the default set to contain your favorite and usual styles so that it is rare that you need a different styles set, although of course there can be some occasions when you do need to have a different style set: for example, when you want to have a particular style set for writing letters and a different set for composing a book. Even so, it usually turns out to be a great deal easier and more sensible to use a default template for each of these two purposes, with each of the two templates set up with the precise style sets which you want to use for your particular purpose.

Don Broadribb