Thank you for joining the Mellel 6 beta. The purpose of the beta period is to make sure Mellel 6 is working as planned, and that the plan makes sense - that is - that the features are useful, easy to use and easy to understand.
The purpose of the beta is to get people outside our close-circle to try the features, give us their impressions and tell us about problems they see. Following your reports we will fix and improve the app and send you another version (AKA build) to test. This will repeat a few times.
When we feel that the app works well enough for public consumption, we will end the beta period and release the version to the public. We will give you credit as testers in the Mellel about box.
Note : While we welcome everybody to the beta program, this is not a public beta and we would like to ask you to avoid discussing the beta and the features in public forums. If you have anything you like, dislike or don't care about the beta, please write to us.
Mellel 6 will create its own new application support and preferences. It will migrate your old Mellel settings, style sets and other configuration files. Once the migration is done, changes made to the environment with Mellel 6 will not be reflected in Mellel 5 and vice versa. For example, if you add a style to a global style set or create a new template in Mellel 6, it will not be available in Mellel 5 (and, of-course, vice versa).
Using the beta to edit your document will, of-course, change them so it is a good idea to have backups of your documents (it is actually a good idea to have backups anyway), if you are using Time Machine or a third-party backup solution like Backblaze then you're all set, if you're not using an automatic backup then you should consider using one and at the very least, make sure you have a snapshot (that is, a backup copy) of your important documents.
The application name of Mellel 6 is "Mellel 6" so unless you remove Mellel 5 explicitly, it will reside right next to it and you can use both apps at the same time.
To install the beta do this :
When subsequent builds of the beta are released, you can update your copy of the beta by choosing Mellel->Check for updates . No need to re-download the app. We will send you an email when a new build is released but we recommend using the "Check for updates" feature to do this so we can make sure it works as well.
The main purpose of the beta is to test the new features. You can use it to do your day-to-day work (but make sure you have backups of your documents, just in case), and you are welcome to report issues even if they aren't related to the new features, but the main goal for us is to test the new features so even if they aren't very relevant to you, try to use them at least once and let us know if you see any issues.
Here are some guiding questions for testing a feature:
To report any issue, use the Mellel beta form:
Choose Help->Support or click the beta button in the window toolbar
Attachments like sample documents and screenshots are very welcome but unfortunately you can't attach files in the report form. To attach files do this:
Please report any issue you see, no matter how small or common, we don't mind getting multiple reports about the same things so don't worry about reporting something even if you're sure other's have already reported it. Also, don't refrain from sending a report if you think it is relevant only to you, let us make this call. Last, but not least, if you like something, also let us know! We like good feedback and it really helps us in gauging the response to the various features.
If you can, please send us at least one report when you first install the beta to check-in and test the beta form.
Crashes are very important. If Mellel crashes, please make sure to send the crash report. Please read the instructions here on how to send the crash reports to make sure that we actually receive them.
Shortly after Mellel crashes you will see a window titled "Problem Report for Mellel 6" and an icon of a warning sign (Yellow triangle with an exclamation point). This is not the report you need to fill in. This is the prompt to send a crash report to Apple and these reports are never handed to us Click "Reopen" and you can skip entering the comments.
Once the app is relaunched you'll see another window titled "Problem report for Mellel 6", this time this window will be adorned with the Mellel icon and also contain fields for name and email. Please fill in your name and also enter your comments detailing what you did right before the crash. Click "Send" to send the report.
Make sure to also use the beta form to inform us about the crash.
When you first launch Mellel 6 on your computer, it will offer you to migrate your settings from your older Mellel 5 installation. Migrating your settings doesn't delete the old settings so you can continue to work on Mellel 5 just the same but once the migration is done, changes you make in Mellel 5 (adding a template, changing a global style etc.) remain in the Mellel 5 domain and changes you make with Mellel 6 remain in the Mellel 6 domain.
Things To Test :
Mellel 6 supports working in dark mode or dark appearance. Mellel's UI, windows, dialogs, buttons and menus will adopt the current appearance of the system.
Mellel will adapt automatically, in real time to the system appearance so there's no need to make any settings, however, there is one setting that was added to Mellel to control document appearance:
Settings (AKA Preferences) > General > "Always use light appearance for document content".
This checkbox instructs Mellel to keep displaying the document content itself in it's true colors (typically, black on white) even when the system appearance is dark.
By default this checkbox is unchecked.
Things To Test :
While the dark mode feature is not heavy in new user interface, implementing it required re-writing and producing the entire ui in dark mode and in many cases, required changes to the normal light mode. This means that it is likely that there are some regressions and perhaps even some spots we missed so be on the lookout for anything that looks funny in both dark or light mode.
The split view feature allows you to work on two different parts of your document at the same time. To split the view, click the "Toggle split view" button at the bottom of the document window (to the right of the zoom button). You can also choose View > Split View to split the view. Do the same to turn off split view.
Changes you make in one view are reflected (if visible) in the other view immediately but the selection is separate and only one view can be active at a time.
The active view is indicated by the blinking insertion point or, if there's a selection by the tinted selection color (in contrast to the gray "disabled" selection view of the disabled view).
Commands such as copy, paste, palette selections will apply to the active view. For example, if you choose Edit > Paste, the text will be pasted in the selection location of the active view. Same is true for the outline, clicking an outline element will move the active view and keep the inactive view at the same place.
You can switch from view to view by clicking in it but this may also move the insertion point, you can switch to the other view without modifying the selection by choosing View > Switch to next aspect (or typing control + tab).
The state of the split view (location in text, relative size of the view) is saved into the document and is restored when you reopen it.
Things To Test :
Similarly to dark mode, there's very little new UI but an enormous amount of changes was made, under the hood, to accommodate split view so there may be some regressions or spots that we missed. Make sure the feature makes sense and that the behavior is predicable and reliable. Make sure that the state of the split view is indeed stored in the document and is restored when you reopen it.
This feature export the outline to a new Mellel file. To export the outline Choose File > Export > Outline.... and click "Export", a new Mellel document will open with the exported outline. You can edit this document, print it, export to pdf or save just like with any other document.
Include remarks: when this option is checked, the remarks for the outline, if any, are included in the exported outline document right after the outline item itself.
Save exported outline: when this option is checked you will be prompted to set the name and location of the new exported document. Uncheck this if you just want to print or export the outline to PDF and discard it immediately.
Things To Test :
You can now insert Auto-titles, Notes, Citations and Hyperlinks as part of a replace expression. The typical and simple use for this would be to convert found text into these types of objects but the feature is very flexible and gives a lot of control over the resulting inserted objects.
We'll demonstrate how this works using "Insert Auto-title", other objects work in similar fashion.
Click on the insert popup menu in the "Replace" field and choose Insert Auto-title. The insert Auto-title element will be inserted to the replace field and will be opened for editing.
In the Insert Auto-title element editor you can specify two attributes for the element. First is the Auto-title stream. You can choose from the streams in the current document Auto-title configuration and you can also specify any stream by stream identification by choosing "Other Stream..." in the stream popup menu (this is typically not needed, but may be necessary if you're working in a Find Set setting.
The second attribute is the "title expression", the content of the Auto-title. This is a replace expression embedded inside the "Insert Auto-title" element and allows you to specify the content of the Auto-title in terms of the found text that this element is replacing, part of it, or any text you like.
By default the title expression is a single "Found Expression" element, this means that the Auto-title content will simple be the entire found expression. For example, if you search for "Mellel" and replace it with a "Heading 1" auto-title whose Title expression is "Found Expression" then the generated Auto-titles in your document will have "Mellel" as their title.
This is the default but you can do a lot more. For example, say you wish to find text enclosed with square brackets and convert it to an auto-title. You can search for text enclosed in such parentheses by typing the parentheses into the find field and insert an "Any Character" set to once or more repeat but if you put an Insert Auto-title element with the default "Found Expression" element as the title expression you will end up with the enclosing parentheses included in the Auto-title which is probably not what you desire.
To help with this type of issue you can specify only part of the found expression for the title. Here's how:
Type two square brackets into the find field, insert an "Any character" in between. Double-click the "Any character" element and choose "Once or more" in the and set it to repeat once or more and be greedy.
Now select the "Any character" character and choose "Group" in the insert menu next to the find field.
Now switch to the replace field and insert an "Insert Auto-title" element into the field. Set the Stream to the desired stream and in the "Title Expression" field delete the default "Found Expression" element and instead insert a "Backreference" element. Click "OK" and try this out on a document with some paragraphs enclosed in square brackets.
This works because you instructed Mellel to find anything enclosed in square brackets and put only the enclosed part (without the parentheses) into a backreference (that's what a group does) and then replace the entire thing with an auto-title whose contents are just the backreference, the enclosing parentheses are essentially removed.
Other things to note, you are not limited to one "Insert Auto-title" (or note or citation or hyperlink) element in your replace expression. You can have other elements like free text, other Insert Object elements etc.
You can specify the Auto-title stream from the available streams in the document or any stream by choosing "Other Stream" and entering an Auto-title stream id.
You can specify the content of the Auto-title in the "Title Expression" field.
Mellel will only insert an Auto-title where it is legal - the main text. You cannot insert an autotitle in a table, a footnote or any other inline text element. If the replace expression contains an "Insert Auto-title" element, it will not be applied at all on text in illegal places.
You can specify the note stream in the "Note Stream" popup menu from the list of available note streams in the document. You can also specify other streams by name by choosing "Other Stream..." in the popup menu.
You can specify the content of the note in the "Note Content Expression" field.
Mellel will insert a note only in the main text or a table in the main text, you can not insert a note in a footnote or an inline like a citation. If the replace expression contains an "Insert Note" element, it will not be applied at all on text in illegal places.
You can only express the content of the temp citation, you cannot specify the content of the "Final Citation" in the "Insert Citation" element.
Mellel will only insert a citation where it is legal - the main text., tables, notes (And tables inside notes). You cannot insert a citation inside another citation or another inline.
If the replace expression contains an "Insert Citation" element, it will not be applied at all on text in illegal places.
You can express the contents of the hyperlink (text and url) with the "Hyperlink URL Expression". Mellel will try to identify urls in the expression and assign them to the URL part of the hyperlink.
Mellel will only insert a hyperlink where it is legal - the main text, tables, notes (and tables inside notes). You cannot insert a hyperlink inside another inline.
If a replace expression contains an "Insert Citation" element, it will not be applied at all on text in illegal places.
Mellel 6 brings several improvements to the already rich Index feature.
This option allows you to control whether locators for index marks inside notes (footnotes or endnotes) will refer to the page where the note text is or to the page where the note reference is. In the past, such locators would always point to the note reference location.
This option is located in the "Locators" tab of the index attributes sheet under "In Notes".
Located in the index options menu (cogwheel menu in the index pane), this option allows you to export index record names and hierarchy to a plain text file. Locators are not exported, as well as any attribute of the index record, except the name.
You can use the exported index for export into other applications/systems and to import indexes into Mellel.
Also located in the index options menu, this option allows you to quickly create index records out of a plain text file.
You can nest records by indenting them with a tab. New records will be added to the current index and existing records are not overwritten or removed so you can use this feature to quickly add many index records at once.
At the end of the import process, a summery dialog will appear detailing how many records were read and how many were actually added.
You can undo an import.
Insert Index Mark Menu Command
It is a wonder we didn't have this basic option until now. Choose Insert > Index > Insert Index Mark to insert an index mark for the currently selected record and open it for editing. If there's no selected index record, the first record of the current index is chosen by default.
Adding this option to the insert menu makes inserting index marks more obvious, it also allows you to assign a keyboard shortcut to this command.
Better Index Record Context Menu
When right-clicking index records in the index pane Mellel shows you only relevant options, depending on whether you have a single or multiple records selected. Mellel also handles correctly deleting and inserting index marks for multiple records.
The index record context menu also allows you to move an index record to another index (if any) in your document. You can move individual or multiple records.
This feature, accessible vie that table palette "Attributes" tab, allows you to insert multiple Auto-titles of the currently selected Auto-title stream, based on the character style of the selected text.
You can use this feature to rapidly convert a document using styles for headings to Auto-titles.
To use the feature, place the insertion point (or select) in a paragraph applied with a certain style you wish to convert, in the Auto-title palette, select the Auto-title stream you wish to convert this paragraph to by clicking once and click the "Batch Insert" button. A confirmation dialog will appear and upon confirming, all paragraphs using that character style will be converted to Auto-titles.
Hebrew (No Gershayim) Numbering
Mellel always allowed numbering pages, Auto-titles, notes, list items and more to be numbered using Hebrew letters, but up until now the numbering always contained Gershayim (double quote marks) for any multiple letter number, now you can choose to number these items with Hebrew letters without the Gershayim.
Virtually all of Mellel's UI was revised, under the hood, to accommodate Dark Mode and the split view, most of the time the end result is supposed to look the same as it did in Mellel 5 but with some items we revised the appearance and also made small improvements and tweaks.
Choose Mellel 6 > About Mellel to see Mellel's newer and humbler about box. The biggest change in functionality is that in order to see the build number you need to click on the version.
We've added a "Table" submenu to the edit menu. The commands available in this menu are the same as the commands that are available from other places (cogwheel menu in the table palette, for example) but having them in the main application menu allows you to assign a keyboard shortcut to any of them using the system settings keyboard shortcut feature.
The command names for adding rows was changed, instead of using "Add row before" or "Add row after" which can be easily confused with "Add column before" and "Add column after" the command names were changed to the more descriptive and easier to visualize "Add row above" and "Add row below".
All of Mellel's toolbar icons were revised to be more consistent with Dark mode.
Beta Download Form
To download the Beta, please fill in the following details
Email:
We request that you will not divulge any details about this beta in any public forum. If you have anything to say, good or bad — please write to us.
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