MacMegasite Archive
   


To reduce the database size and server load, all articles from 2004 or earlier are archived here.


Return to MacMegasite



       

Wed, 15 Sep 2004

Mellel 1.8 released, including Outliner, OpenType support

RedleX today released Mellel 1.8, a major update to the leading word processor for Mac OS X. Mellel 1.8 offers several innovative new features and enhancements, including the most advanced Outline support among word processors today, the first implementation of the advanced OpenType technology in a word processor on Mac OS X, and enhanced language support, including support for several features and languages that were not supported on Mac OS X to date. The update is free to all registered users of Mellel

"It's been 5 months since our last update -- the longest time between updates in Mellel's history -- but anyone who will take a look into Mellel 1.8 will understand immediately that it was worth the wait," says Eyal Redler, CTO at RedleX. "The Outline feature in Mellel, of which I'm particularly proud, is exactly what our users grew to expect: powerful and flexible and at the same time very easy to use."

The new Outline feature in Mellel includes a special side pane showing all the headings in the document displayed hierarchically. Headings in the outline can be moved and removed with the content following them, shifted in the hierarchy, displayed in various ways, used for navigation, and more. All, of course, alongside viewing the actual document in the document window.

Another important addition in Mellel 1.8 is OpenType support. Mellel is the first word processor on the Mac to implement OpenType support, which offers several typographical advantages and adds crucial support for various languages. "OpenType support was another Mellel-or-PC situation for many users," claim Guy Hivroni, cofounder and chief GUI designer for Mellel. "Up until now, if you wanted to write in Arabic, Persian or Hebrew with proper positioning of pointing marks or if you wanted to write in Syriac at all, your only choice was to migrate to the PC. Now, you can use Mellel and stay with the Mac."


========================
WHAT'S NEW IN MELLEL 1.8
========================
The new version of Mellel several new features, enhancements, and improvements, in two main areas:
1. Outline
2. OpenType technology support

---------------------------------
Outline
---------------------------------
1. Outline pane: Displays the document structure hierarchically, side by side with the document content.
2. Navigating: You can navigate through the document by clicking on any outline item.
3. Organise: You can rearrange the document structure by dragging and dropping outline items. The items will be dragged with the relevant content following them.
4. Display of labels and captions (tag flows) separately or combined with the main structure 'tree'.
5. Promote, demote or change: You can promote, demote or arbitrarily change the hierarchical position of any item in the document structure. Any changes you make will be reflected immediately in the document (e.g., headings will change depending on the 'level' you promote or demote them to).
6. Insert: You can insert new items into the outline either through the auto-numbering palette or via the contextual menu.
7. Formatting the outline: You can control the appearance of outline items by changing their format in the Edit Numbering Flows dialogue. E.g. you can set things so that titles will only be displayed in the document, while numbering will only display in the outline.

---------------------------------
OpenType support
---------------------------------
8. Advanced typographical options: Support for Small caps, special superscript and subscript, fractions, special ligatures, special figure (number) shapes, ordinals, swash, justification and stylistic alternates, and more.
9. Glyph substitution and correct positioning for all Roman scripts, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac.
10. Windows OpenType fonts: All OpenType fonts, most especially those by Adobe and those created for Windows, will work with Mellel just like Mac fonts.
11. Syriac: First and only implementation on Mac OS X of full support for Syriac, including contextual shape changes (initial, medial, final, etc.). Support for Syriac works with all the Windows versions of Beth Mardutho Syriac fonts (http://www.bethmardutho.org/meltho/).
12. Arabic and Persian: Mellel will now support any OpenType font for Arabic and Persian, with an extended support for accurate pointing positioning, the full set of ligatures, decorative swashes, and more.
13. Hebrew: Mellel will now support (again, first and only application to do so) any OpenType font with full support for pointing and trope marks. One of the best (and free) fonts can be found here: http://www.sbl-site.org/Resources/Resources_BiblicalFonts.aspx .
14. Special "Language" control to select the language applicable when using OpenType features (e.g., selecting French if you want special options for French applied when such options exist in a font.

---------------------------------
Improvements
---------------------------------
15. Automatic scrolling was significantly improved, either when writing or when navigating in the document.
16. You can now change the flow for a note using the Change menu or the contextual menu. E.g., you can select a footnote and change move it to the endnotes flow (or any other flow you have in your document).
17. Improved support for input methods and applications like Grammarian and TypeIt4Me.

---------------------------------
Localised versions
---------------------------------
18. Localisation with the initial release: Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish. Swedish.
19. Expected soon: Hebrew, Persian, Norwegian, Welsh.

========================
ABOUT MELLEL
========================
Mellel is an advanced, multilingual word processor for Mac OS X. Mellel offers many sophisticated and innovative word processing features, with many more to come over the next few months.
For a detailed (though not complete) comparison between Mellel and other word processors see: http://www.redlers.com/generalcomparison.html

========================
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
========================
Mellel can be purchased for just US$39. Special educational and family pack pricing is also available. To purchase:
http://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=MQK&lang=en
For details about other purchasing options to to: http://www.redlers.com/aboutbuying.html

========================
DOWNLOAD INFO
========================
Main download link:
http://www.redlers.com/download/mellel/mellel18.dmg.sit

Alternative download links:
http://www.redlers.com/download/mellel/mellel.dmg.sit
http://www.redlers.com/download/mellel/mellel18.dmg.zip
http://www.redlers.com/download/mellel/mellel.dmg.zip

[] permanent link

Mozilla Firefox PR1 adds RSS Support

Yesterday mozilla.org released a preview of Firefox 1.0 with major security fixes and some interesting new features. Live Bookmarks allow you to bookmark an RSS feed, which will appear as a bookmark folder containing all of the headlines in the feed. On many sites with RSS feeds, such as this one, you'll see an orange RSS icon in the bottom right corner of the window. Clicking it will add a live bookmark for the site's feed.

Firefox also supports extensions which add functionality, such as a calendar, gmail notifier, and blogging functions.

However, the Mac version of Firefox still has some very annoying window handling bugs, which I found serious enough to send me back to Camino, despite Firefox's improved functionality. In particular, there's no bring all to front command, selecting a window from the windows menu sometimes doesn't work, switching tabs doesn't change the window title, and after installing an extension, the extensions window can't be closed.

[] permanent link