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PageFour02 Mar 2010 12:12 pm

The PageFour Forums went live yesterday. The purpose of these forums is to offer users a more open avenue for support issues, as well to provide a venue for discussing PageFour - how the product might be improved, how best it can be used, etc.

Three forums have been created, the first being the PageFour Support Forum. This forum has already been seeded with questions from users over the past few months. Most common questions are answered here in one form or another. To the left of the forum, a search box makes looking up your own issue that little bit easier.

The second forum is the Wish List Forum, created for users to make suggestions on how PageFour might be improved, and to voice their own preferences for future changes. Up to now, users have been leaving comments on various posts in this blog. Fine as far as it goes, but difficult for other users to track down.

The Next Version of PageFour is a dedicated forum for discussing the next release. This is where notifications of beta releases or new features will be made, as well as discussing any issues with those early beta releases. It’s almost empty, the sole post being my own update on PageFour Version 2.

Suggestions for the next release belong in the Wish List forum.

These forums are a little different to other forums you may be used to, in that account creation and login are not required. The forum design comes from a purpose built forum I created for another website, where users had limited technical ability. My experience with this other forum was that removing account creation increased the posts and comments by a huge margin. After all, how many of us are prepared to open an account, come up with a password and user name, and login, just to post a two line comment?

I hope you find the forums beneficial.

PageFour07 Mar 2009 04:59 pm

PageFour running well under Windows 7

The Windows 7 beta has been available for a couple of months now. We’re not expecting many users to be using this, as it’s still in the early beta stages, but for those who are, one issue with PageFour has been identified. It relates to changing the location of PageFour pages, something most users probably never do. The issue makes this impossible on Windows 7, and has a knock on effect on the Options Dialog as a whole, and probably on the Export Notebooks feature.

When PageFour is run with its default settings, there should not be any problems. We’ll be testing under Windows 7 shortly, but we’re fairly sure we know what the problem is and that it will not be difficult to fix. If anyone encounters any other issues with Windows 7, please get in touch.

edit: This issue has only been reported by a single user. The current version of PageFour runs very well on Windows 7.

PageFour05 Mar 2009 08:54 pm

Work on the Next Release

As many users have noticed, this blog has not been updated in some time. This does not mean that development has stopped on PageFour, only that over the past year I got side tracked with other projects. A lot of work is planned for PageFour over the next couple of months, and I’ll be reporting on that work here as it’s completed.

The beta version that many users have already downloaded has recently been finalised into a release version (1.70), with appropriate documentation. Full details can be found in the post below. The reason this version was released as is, is that I wanted to make a stable version containing the Word DOCX format changes available before any other changes are made with the upcoming release.

Many of the new features planned for the next release are based on user feedback, and comments left on previous posts on this blog.

PageFour05 Mar 2009 08:53 pm

Version 1.70 Released

Version 1.70 was released today. This is the release version of the previous beta (1.67), and contains only those new features that were already in the beta version. They include:

Support for the MS Word DOCX format when importing documents.
Changes to the Import Dialog so that a folder within a Notebook can now be selected as the import destination, and the ability to quickly paste the import location into the Import dialog rather than navigating the file tree.

Two major bugs have also been fixed in this version, as well as many minor bugs reported by users. The major bugs are: software crashes when selecting text that was made up of Chinese or Japanese characters, and in a small number of cases the failure of the Import Dialog to open. These issues are now resolved.

The PageFour license changes mentioned some time ago are also now in effect. These changes allow a single PageFour license to work in one of two ways: either a single PC with multiple users, or multiple PCs with a single user, and means that users working on more than a single PC do not now need to purchase a second license if the software is for their own use.

The latest version can be downloaded from the download page.

PageFour08 Feb 2008 03:38 pm

PageFour beta 1.67

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.

PageFour20 Jan 2008 03:24 pm

PageFour on Spiegel

I’d like to welcome all our German visitors who’ve dropped by today courtesy of PageFour’s brief mention on the Spiegel website. Thanks to Google’s language tools I was able to get the gist of the article quite quickly this morning. It’s always nice to get a mention in the main stream press, and it was interesting to see particular attention drawn to PageFour’s Smart-Edit feature.

Though there is no German language version of PageFour yet, there are some German dictionaries available which can be easily installed. These dictionaries enable the spell checker for use with German, as well as other languages. Details can be found here.

PageFour09 Nov 2007 05:13 pm

Minor Release - Version 1.65

Version 1.65 of PageFour was released this afternoon. This version is an interim release and contains a small number of bug fixes, as well as some changes to the way the Notebook tree and the word processor pages interact.

The selected page in the tree will now correspond to whichever page is open in the word processor. This means that as you navigate through tabbed pages, the selected page in the tree will change to correspond with the open tab. The only exception to this is if the open page does not belong to the current Notebook.
As the current page will now be selected in the tree at all times, the New Page and New Folder buttons will be available, even when the Notebook tree is not selected.
Minor bug fix whereby certain Quick-Insert shortcuts changed the line spacing settings in error.

The reason for these changes is to make it easier for new users to quickly understand how PageFour works. By keeping the open page and the open Notebook in synch, it should be far easier to understand where new pages and folders will be created. Clicking the New Page button (Ctrl+N) without first selecting a folder in the Notebook will immediately create that new page in the same folder as the current page.

The new release is available from the download page.

Outstanding Issues:
There is still an issue with smart quotes for those using PageFour where the Windows Input language is set to a language other than English. I’ll post a notification when this problem has been resolved.

PageFour28 Aug 2007 01:23 pm

Version 1.63 released

The latest version of PageFour was released today. This release contains one new feature, as well as a number of small changes, improvements, and bug fixes. They include:

1. Overhaul of the way smart quotes work.

2. Shortcut key combination (Shift+Ctrl+’) to switch smart quotes on and off.
Opening the Options dialog can be a little time consuming, particularly if you need to switch between smart and plain quotes on a regular basis, so the new short cut should help speed things up.

3. New Quick-Insert shortcuts.
This option allows the user to set a series of shortcut keys for commonly used words, phrases or characters. It is especially useful for long names or unusual keyboard characters that require multiple key strokes to implement.

Quick-Insert Dialog

The keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3, etc. have been adopted for use by this feature. Simply type the character, combination of characters, word, or phrase, into the edit box next to the control key combination of your choice, and from then on that key combination will insert the corresponding characters into your text. This dialog can be opened from the right click Insert menu in the word processor, or from the main Edit | Insert menu.

In order to locate an unusual character, click on the Insert Character button at the bottom of the dialog. This opens a second dialog listing every available character. Double Click on the character you wish to use before leaving the dialog, and it will be inserted into the Quick-Insert edit box.

A side effect of this new feature is that the shortcut keys for changing the color of text have been changed from Ctrl+1,2,3 to Shift+Ctrl+1,2,3, etc.

4. Insert Date shortcut.
This option works within the word processor, as well as in the edit box on the new page dialog and comes with an accompanying global date format setup on the Miscellaneous page of the Options dialog. Once you set up the date format you wish to use, the current date will be inserted into your text, or into a new page name by using the shortcut key Ctrl+D.

5. Background color extended to side windows.
A new checkbox has been added to the word processor page of the Options dialog called “Apply background color to side windows.” This will change the background colour of the Notebooks list, current Notebook tree, and Smart-Edit windows to correspond to the word processor.

6. Font Dialog Improvements.
The Font dialog has been improved to allow any color to be chosen and set as the default, rather than the limited selection of only 8 colors.

The early release of version 1.63, with only a limited selection of new features, is due to the importance of the smart quote corrections. As always, if anyone encounters any problems with the changes, please let me know.

PageFour08 Aug 2007 10:18 pm

Version 1.61 Released

PageFour Version 1.61 was released today. This is an interim release consisting of fixes for two bugs reported by users. The first corrects inconsistencies in the background colour of the word processor when the chosen colour is not white, and the second corrects an error in screen position when PageFour is used on a PC with dual monitors.

Existing users should be aware that if neither of these scenarios are relevant to the way they use PageFour, there is no reason to download or install the interim release.

Download instructions can be found on the download page.

Other People and PageFour10 Jul 2007 12:08 pm

PageFour Review Page

The first batch of PageFour reviews have been added to the new Reviews and Testimonials page. Each review is either quoted in full, or contains a link to the complete review hosted on another web-site or blog. In all cases, the reviewer is either named, or a link provided back to their blog.

Hopefully, these reviews will help those who are not familiar with PageFour to decide whether to download or not. No anonymous comments or reviews have been used - ‘Steve form London‘ for example - as my feeling is that these sorts of comments, with no way to verify them or identify the person behind them, add nothing and only serve to cast doubt on the authenticity of all comments.

More reviews will be added over time, so if anyone would like to post comments or opinions about PageFour, please contact me.

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