The first beta version of the next release is now available for download. Over the coming weeks, a series of betas will be released as changes are made. This is to allow enough time for feedback, and for any corrections that need to be made prior to the official release.
We’re not planning any major new features for the next version. Instead, the plan is to strengthen the current version by making some of the more complicated elements of PageFour easier to understand, and to work on areas of the software that are weak and need improving.
PageFour 1.67 can be downloaded here.
This first beta concentrates on improving the Import dialog which allows you to import MS Word documents into PageFour. It includes the following:
- Full handling of the new Word 2007 docx format.
- Ability to import directly into a particular folder within a notebook.
- Option to paste or type a folder location into the Import dialog, rather than browsing for the location in the file tree.
As with previous versions, the Word document importer relies on Word itself to handle the conversion process. This means you will still need to have Word installed on your PC if you wish to import Word documents, and to import Word 2007 documents you will need either that version of Word, or an updated version capable of recognizing the docx format.
As well as the Word changes, a small number of minor changes have been made to version 1.67:
- A shortcut key combination of Shift+Ctrl+R has been added to switch subscript text on or off. This should work with all keyboard variations.
- A Justify text button has been added to the format toolbar and menu, along with an appropriate shortcut.
Changes have also been made to the PageFour user license. Previously, a license was necessary for each computer the software was installed upon. This has now been changed to allow a license to apply to either a single PC with multiple users, or a single user working on multiple PCs, but not both. This means that single users can now install PageFour on their home PC, lap-top, and work PC without needing to buy extra licenses.
As this is a beta release, there may be undiscovered bugs. If you find any, or if you have any suggestions or comments to make about the changes, please let me know.
One final point: the PageFour help file has not yet been updated with these changes. This will be true until all changes have been made and the release version is made available.
February 10th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I’ve been using PageFour and getting used to the interface and such. Really liking the program so far.
A suggestion would be a timer in the status bar that tells you how long you’ve been working on a page or a notebook (similar to the timer available in Liquid Story Binder XE). I’m not sure that’s specific enough but something along that line would be a great addition in the future releases.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Another thought regarding the tabbed feature.
This is very minor but the ability to drag page tabs around and change their order would also be nice, similar to how you can drag page tabs around in Firefox web browser or Safari.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Interesting suggestions there. The movable tabs is something I’d considered myself, after using the feature many times in FireFox.
February 11th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Darren - Great to see the change to a more flexible licensing system. I’ve purchased a licence.
The only “missing feature” that bugs me (which I’ve mentioned before) is a real-time word count, ideally visible in the status bar. Any chance that that might make it into a future version?
February 11th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
There will be a few changes with the word count in this release, but it might not extend to real time. I’ll see what I can do, but, no promises.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:57 am
I’ve been searching high and low for an alternative word processor and I really like the interface of PageFour, however the only thing that’s important to me is to have multiple windows open and visible at once (I want the ability to resize the main window to accommodate space for another window, i.e. notes; Scrivener offers this) and I don’t see where PageFour supports that. Am I overlooking something?
February 13th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
In PageFour, your notes would exist in a normal PageFour page, which could then be opened in a tab along side your work. PageFour doesn’t use multiple windows in the way Scrivener does, and this is unlikely to be changed.
The decision was made to use a tabbed structure rather than a multi window structure early on.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I’ve another suggestion for a tiny, but helpful feature: What about a real time character count in the status bar? I think it’s easier to realize than a word count (which is great) and it gives you an additional statistic overview.
I saw this in the german software blogdesk (for offline blogging) and found it really helpful.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
That’s a good suggestion Rudy. I’ll certainly look into it for the next release.
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:26 am
What about a zooming feature? I personally would find this helpful, though not a critical item. Some times I find it easier to work with larger documents when I can zoom out a little bit to scan pages more rapidly.
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I’ll look into it Daniel.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Darren,
There is one behavior that seems somewhat inconsistent with other document tools. Highlighting a section of text and issuing a spell check in PageFour starts the spell check at the top of the document. Most tools spell check what is highlighted. It’s an inconvenience mainly. Not sure if it is a bug or limitation…
-dan
February 28th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
That sounds like a limitation to me Daniel. I’ll take a look at it and see if it can be easily changed.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:08 am
What I find I really miss in PageFour is the ability to do a print preview. When I want to print a document I usually open it up in Word so I can check the formatting. I like to look for lone words on a line and other visual things that I find hard to do in PageFour.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
A print preview has come up before Stephanie. It’s certainly on the list…
March 8th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I know this isn’t really the place for wish-list, but I’m going to go ahead and make a wish anyway:
Please can we get control of the leading? I find the default font size too small, so I’ve put it up to 12 point so the words are more comfortable to read and the line-length doesn’t get excessive; but now the lines are _far_ too close together for comfort, and I can find no way of controlling this. The web developer in me keeps wanting to “line-height : 1.6em;” the writing pane!
Other than the discomfort with the text the program itself seems brilliant. Thanks
March 9th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Matt - you can alter the line spacing to whatever setting you wish by opening the Paragraph dialog, selecting ‘Exact’ from the line spacing drop down, and entering a value in the edit box - 15 pt or 20 pt for example.
As with the font size, this can be set as the default for all new pages.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Thanks Darren! I have no idea how I managed to miss that, I suppose I simply wasn’t looking for ‘paragraph’, it never occured to me that line-spacing would be found in there.
Cheers, that’s SO much nicer to use now.
March 29th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Darren, it would be nice that once the ‘Live Spelling’ option has been selected it remained on, until switched off. Currently every time I use PageFour I have to keep switching it back on again.
March 29th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’ll see what I can do Chris.
April 5th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Darren, is it possible to make applying styles a bit easier in PageFour? Sort of MS Word’s “Format Painter”?
(yeah, I hate MS Word too — *holding a silver cross while mumbling “Away, Daemon!”* — but applying styles with that cute li’l brush is a sure make-your-life-easier feature.)
For instance: I have a page open in PageFour formatted Calibri 12, double space. I’ve just pasted into it a paragraph formatted Times New Roman 12, singles space. It’d be nice if I could copy and apply style instead of highlighting said paragraph, changing fonts and reformatting…
That’s it
Nitpicking over.
BTW if this feature already exists in PageFour and I missed it somehow, I heartily apologize.
April 5th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Michal - it sounds like what you want is an option to remove formatting when you paste. If the text being copied is copied as pure text only, without font or line spacing information, then it assumes the formatting of the text into which it is being pasted.
I know other word processors do allow this, so I’ll see if there is an easy way of implementing it in PageFour.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I just thought of another thing. It would be great if when you lock a page, the current content would stop being displayed.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
If you mean the lock/unlock feature, the current page is deliberately left open so that it can be worked on without needing to unlock the rest of the software. It allows you to lock all other pages and folders, yet still carry on working on the current page.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Curious on how things are going with the new version. Sounds like a number of interesting ideas have been posed…
dan
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 am
It will be out soon - I got side tracked for a little while there.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Heh… No worries, no pressure… Just curious…
April 25th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Darren,
There is a behavior that appears to be unusual when changing font or pitch.
Scenario
* I copy some text from somewhere and paste it into PageFour.
* I select the text within the PageFour page and click to change the Font of the text.
* My default font is Verdana and shows as such in the dialog box.
* I press OK without making any selections (effectively I am opting to change the text to my default font).
* Nothing happens. The text does not change to reflect the default selections.
Alternate Scenario
Scenario
* I copy some text from somewhere and paste it into PageFour.
* I select the text within the PageFour page and click to change the Font of the text.
* My default font is Verdana and shows as such in the dialog box.
* I change the font to Arial.
* I press OK (effectively I am opting to change the font to Arial instead of the default Verdana).
* The highlighted text changes to Arial.
Pitch Scenario
Attempting to change the size of the text under the same scenario also exhibits the same behavior.
It’s an annoyance, but not a critical issue. It may be a behavior/limitation of the Font/Size control.
Have you seen anything like this before?
Dan
April 26th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Dan, this is a known issue that’s come up before. It’s linked to the fact that more than one font is in use in a selected block of text. It’s definitely on the list of things to be looked at, as it annoys me probably as much as you.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:43 am
Ha! Ok, so I wasn’t exactly nuts when I experienced it. Again, not a critical issue, but annoying for sure.
Thanks for the update Darren…
dan
May 4th, 2008 at 7:55 am
A thought on the password protect feature. Might the ability to password protect an entire notebook be available sometimes in the future? And also in such a way that the contents (page names, folder names) are not displayed until after authentication?
May 5th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Interesting suggestion. You can password protect each page automatically (Options dialog), but not the Notebook itself. It’s a bit of a tricky area because the Notebooks and files (pages), are stored as ordinary folders and files within Windows. Which means that even if the Notebook itself were password protected, the actual file structure within Windows would still show the names of pages within the Notebook (though they would take a little work to locate).
Not impossible though.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Hello Darren,
Apparently the software does not support the naming of notebooks, chapters and characters using other character sets, e.g. Greek. Is this something that can easily be implemented?
May 11th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
There are some display issues with certain character types outside the word processor. You’ll probably find that the same characters that are disallowed in page or notebook names do not appear correctly in other parts of PageFour either (Find and Replace edit boxes for example).
These display issues are the reason for disallowing their use in page names. Addressing this is a bigger issue than it might sound, which means it’s unlikely to be done in the short term.
May 13th, 2008 at 7:26 am
hi Darren,
Thanks for the response. Is this an issue with the programming language libraries used? I noticed that Liquid Story Binder has the same/similar problems with transcribing non-English characters. As a PC user, I was shocked to see that under the “abominable” mac OS X, Scrivener had no such problem with Greek naming of files, adding notes etc. Since I need a complete, portable solution I am almost tempted to buy a macbook.
I think that if you implemented UTF-8 conversion you’d solve this annoying problem.
Thanks!
May 13th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
You’re right. It’s a display issue rather than a file naming issue, and it’s origins lie in the development libraries. What this means is that it’s not insurmountable, just very awkward to fix - the kind of fix that turns out to be much larger than it might appear on the surface.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Hi Darren,
Allow me to play devil’s advocate for a second; once a person finally climbs that steep mountain that looked so impossible while standing at its feet, the view from the top is extremely rewarding
Have a great day.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:45 am
Another thought. One reason that I’ve never been able to leave Word completely is the fact that it has an excellent Outline view (or feature, I suppose). Might having some sort of outlining feature be considered as well or would this be deviating too far from the goal of having an effective and slim writing software?
May 19th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
This is a possibility for the future. A number of users have been asking for something similar to Scrivener’s cork board, but I’m undecided on this as yet.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I hereby join the crowd screaming for a cork board
…In PageFour 2 maybe? Scrivener (Mac) and SuperNotecard (Windows, Mac) are good cork board examples.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
It’s probably too much to ask, but since you’re already considering a cork board, may I request a full screen feature not unlike Scrivener’s?
Darkroom or Q10 (better!) are good examples.
http://they.misled.us/dark-room
http://baara.com/q10/
May 20th, 2008 at 12:26 am
More interest in greater outlining capabilities.
Michael - have you tried the All Off / All On option on the View menu? It’s not quite full screen, but does allow you to quickly shut down much of the screen real estate.
June 10th, 2008 at 7:02 am
Hi Darren;
(Did you get the copy of “Good Morning, Friend Moon” I sent?)
I’ve been blissfully using PageFour and only came to the blog looking for the answer to a question. Imagine my surprise at reading all of the requested features!
So far the beta is working rock solid, I had updated on my tablet but forget to do it on my desktop now that I am using it more.
Anyway, you seem to be right on the money at preventing “feature creep” and I sure hope you stay on that path.
PageFour doesn’t have an Outliner but that doesn’t mean I can’t and haven’t outlined my stories. I don’t want/need anything like SuperNoteCard.
How about, instead of adding all of these features from other programs, you start a User’s Tips section in the blog?
I’ve got one:
I outline my story after creating a folder for the name of the book.
*Then each chapter (page) is my outline, usually just a sentence or two about what happens here.
*Each chapter gets a seperate page for notes which stores any ideas I may have as I’m writing the particular chapter.
*I also create a general notes page that accompanies the whole notebook for when I get a brainstorm (or brain fart, whatever the case may be) for the book in general instead of what I’m currently working on.
This also gives me a place to jot quick brilliant snatches of dialogue that might be used later.
Just beware “feature creep.” If I wanted X feature that Y piece of software had enough to ask you incorporate it into PageFour, then I’d probably have purchased Y piece of software to begin with.
The only thing I’d like to see is the expansion of features already a part of PageFour: the option to leave Live Spell Check on always and a “Live” word count that’s constantly updated.
Just my two cents anyway.
June 10th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Don’t panic Aaron. The long dreaded ‘featuritis’ will not happen. Interesting idea about the user tips page though - I actually has a user ask if one existed recently. That’s certainly worth thinking about, and probably would not take very much time to implement.
Yes, I did get the eBook you sent me - intriguing piece of work!
June 11th, 2008 at 5:34 am
I think it would be a good idea. People could post their tips and usage scenarios for newbies as well show people how useful PageFour can be.
Glad to hear you got “Good Morning, Friend Moon.” It was written in PageFour, the best software for writers IMHO
June 12th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
It seems that I’ve found a bug.
Changing the background color is not a problem, but when I want to change the color of the text in the word processor option screen my background color changes instead.
The font color of my text can be changed by selecting it and selecting another font color, so that’s not a big issue, but the text in the sidebars remains black and since I like working with dark screens… It’s a minor bug, I guess; but it would be nice if you can take a look at it!
June 12th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Michael - I’m aware of this bug, and it will be looked into.
June 13th, 2008 at 3:16 am
For the most part, most features requested so far have been fairly reasonable. I especially like the outline idea (any sort of outline tool to go with PageFour would have my vote).
I think we can see that the “outline” method described in #43 requires a lot of work from the author. For instance, if you want to see your entire outline, you would have a lot of “double-clicking” to deal with and flipping back and forth between pages. Not my ideal method of outlining, though I realize people have their own method of getting things done.
But we can all agree that software should help the user. In the case of software for writers, outlining capabilities would only serve to enhance PageFour.
June 17th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I’m with #48, in that I think outlining capabilities would make this rock even harder. I just arrived here, looking for a Scrivener equivilant for the PC. The extra features that attracted me to Scrivener were the corkboard/outlining feature and the blackroom full-screen ability. But it seems a bit silly to buy a Mac just so I can get one piece of Software and PageFour does seem to do a lot of things I want.
As things stand with my current system (a regular notebook with a lot of corresponding files in my writing folders for Word), it’s hard for me to experiment with swapping scenes around. And I like Scrivener’s colour coding abilities. (Seems like a handy tool to determine how much of the book a particular character has.)
It looks like you’ve done a lot of awesome work on this. I’ll be trying this out, but would certainly find the outlining aspect extra attractive.
June 18th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I use PageFour on my Laptop and struggle to read the screen when outside. Could we have a feature to change the text and background colour. Ideally it would be nice to store standard ‘themes’ i.e. An ‘Outside’ theme, or say a ‘Dark Room’ theme.
A big concern I have with these suggestions and all the others that have been made over the last few months, is PageFour will change from a small simple and efficient editor, into a large fat and overly complex tool. This will then actually detract from Page Four’s original appeal.
When can we expect to see the next release?
Keep up the good work!
June 18th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Before you say, yes I know you can change the text and background colour, but it would make lfe much easier to just select themes..
June 18th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
When it comes to adding features, it’s a tough call to make. On the one hand, new features tend to satisfy a proportion of existing users who are already comfortable using the product and would like to see it grow, while on the other, it makes the introduction or initial trial more difficult for new users. There was a great article written on this very subject by Kathy Sierra that puts features in perspective.
More enhanced outlining (corkboard, or whatever it might be called) - if I do add something like this, it would probably be hidden away out of sight. It’s still an if at the moment though. For new users, the interface will remain as it is now: simple and easy to understand.
It’s always a toss up with new features, no matter how good they are. For example, I get a lot of emails along the lines of ‘I’d use PageFour if it only had X’, and X may well be a great idea. But I also get many emails from users where they say ‘I use PageFour because of its simplicity, because it doesn’t have x, y, and z.’
The background themes idea sounds interesting. I’m assuming that you’re looking for is a quick method (1 click or menu) to change the background and font colours without going through the current multi step process.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Correct, yes a simple method that you can switch to and from.
Time scales on the next version ?
June 19th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Next version will be a couple of months Chris, probably mid-August if all goes well.
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
The “Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak” article is interesting. I can already imagine the battle with usability and maintenance that you’ll have to take on if some of the major features suggested here are implemented.
As writers (and aspiring writers on a budget), most of us are helpless when it comes to the tools available. Hence the dependence on programmers and a great eagerness to make suggestions.
But it’s the author’s decision as to how to go about and create his “I Rule” product, and no one should have the right to pressure that away.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Darren,
Curious - why did you implement a limit as to how long snapshots are retained? Was this just a storage issue or was there some type of negative behavior that occurs over 20 days?
-Dan
June 27th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
No storage issue, Dan. When files need to be manually deleted, there is a hesitation to create too many of them - as if they take up a lot of space or resources (which they don’t, of course). I wanted taking Snapshots to be something that was done without thinking - maybe 4 or 5 times an hour.
With the snapshots automatically tidying up after themselves at the end of 20 days, the user never needed to even consider the file element, or the clean up. The intention was to push users into hitting F12 regularly, without having ever-growing lists of snapshots going back months, which was what the Archives were initially created to handle.
June 28th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Ah, perfect, I see it now. I’ve only just started using the feature regularly. It’s very handy, thanks!