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:

1. Full handling of the new Word 2007 docx format.
2. Ability to import directly into a particular folder within a notebook.
3. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.

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.

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.

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.
There were a number of inconsistencies in the implementation of smart quotes, particularly when editing existing work. These have all been corrected, and smart quotes should be working perfectly now.

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.



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.

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.

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.

I’m in the process of gathering up reviews and testimonials for PageFour. As it stands, there are quite a few reviews out there, scattered across download sites, forums, and various personal and writing blogs. It’s always useful for people to hear what others have to say before trying out new software, but at the moment these reviews are a little hard to find.

In the past, I linked directly to PageFour’s review page on Download.com, but this is no longer possible. Due to a recent site redesign, only 1 of the 9 PageFour reviews can now be read. On querying this with their helpful support staff, I was informed that such deep-linking is not allowed on Download.com. I was then threatened with the removal of PageFour should I ever again carry out such a diabolical act as linking to a web page.

What I would like to do, is publish user reviews and testimonials myself on the PageFour website. Now, I freely admit that this opens me up to the charge of censorship and of cherry picking favourable reviews, and I would be lying if I said I’d post every comment, but I am prepared to commit to the following:

• Published reviews and comments would not be edited. They would appear in their entirety, complete with spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and any criticisms of PageFour the writer should wish to raise.
• The author would be credited in any way they choose, preferably with a full name, though this would not be necessary.
• A link back to the authors website or blog would be added next to their name.
• If the review already exists on a blog or website, this review would be linked to directly.

If anyone has a review they would not object to having publishing or linked to, please contact me. And if you have any comments you would like to make about PageFour that you would be happy to see quoted, do drop me an email.

I’d like to encourage people to offer honest feedback - warts and all. Testimonial pages that do nothing but sing the praises of a product without mentioning its faults or possible areas for improvement, always read a little false.

And unlike Download.com, I have no objection to anyone linking to the new reviews page after it goes live.

PageFour has been around for a while now, and the user base is growing daily. Every week, I’m contacted by users or potential users who have questions about the product or simply wish to tell me what they think. But one thing that seems to be missing are reports of bugs, unexpected behaviour, or problems.

I could say this is because there are no bugs, but I don’t believe that for a moment. All software has bugs, especially after new releases. A few weeks ago, prior to the release of version 1.60, a bug WAS reported. It was in an obscure part of the software, and only occurred when a page was being saved out of PageFour as plain text. On investigation, it turned out this bug had been there for about a year, and no one had reported it.

The fix took all of 3 minutes.

I’d like to encourage anyone who encounters a problem, firstly not to assume that it is the way the software works, and secondly to drop me an email or use the contact form on the website with details. If something in PageFour is behaving in an unexpected way, or even if the behaviour simply appears unintuitive, chances are it’s a bug, or at the very least, an area that can be improved.

The same goes for new feature requests. These do come in, and in many cases my answer is that such a feature would not suit the product, but they don’t come that often. For example, I implemented the Merge Pages feature of version 1.60 after reviewing a request from only one user, and it seemed to me that it would benefit most, if not all users. I hadn’t thought of it before, because I personally did not see a use for it. After releasing the first beta of the new feature I received a number of emails from users explaining how this was the one thing missing from PageFour, the lack of which caused them all sorts of problems when it came to exporting completed works.

If I’d known this, I probably would have implemented the feature some time ago. So once again, I’d like to encourage anyone who finds important features to be missing to contact me. The more people tell me about something, and the more interest there is in a particular feature, the more likely I am to implement it.

This is not to say that all new features requests will be worked on. I’m still committed to not over burdening PageFour with feature after feature, but where the product as a whole has a shortcoming, then this is an area that should and will be addressed.

Most PageFour users never saw the early versions of the product, and if they had, might not have been too impressed. Version 1 consisted of a single Notebook, no importing of Word or RTF files, a proprietary file format, no print templates or Smart-Edit, and lots of unusual and annoyingly quirky behaviour. Every change since then has been in response to feedback and requests from users, even though that feedback was a long time coming.

So to reiterate what I said earlier: don’t be shy about reporting problems or making suggestions where you feel the product could be improved. The worst that could happen is I’ll say no.

On Wednesday, 20th June, PageFour will be offered at a 50% discount on the Bits du Jour website. This is a one day offer, and only available from Bits du Jour.

So, if you were considering buying a PageFour license, but were put off because you only had $15 to your name, this is your big opportunity. Or maybe you’re an existing PageFour user who has been trying to convince friends and fellow writers to make the move - now might be a good time to try again.

The offer kicks off at 6am GMT on Wednesday morning, which translates as midnight somewhere in the US, and runs for 24 hours. A buy button with the special offer price will be available on the Bits du Jour website as soon as the offer begins, so you should only use our own buy page on Wednesday if you’re feeling very generous.

Kathy Sierra wrote a great post back in 2005 called Featuritis vs the Happy User Peak. It’s well worth a read if you’re involved in any sort of product development - software, dog houses, electronic voting machines. The general gist of the post is that adding features does NOT add value - the secret to creating a great product is adding just the right features to give the most value, making them perfect, and then stopping.

Software companies don’t like this. The last company I worked for in the UK had what might have been a great product, but ruined it by continuously piling on feature after feature. They did this so their sales team could say to a customer: “Yes, our product does that too!” The end result was two years of development, a product that kept crashing through lack of testing, a dissatisfied customer base, and an even more dissatisfied work force. And of course, low sales.

To borrow a line from Kathy’s post: “Don’t give them new features just because your competitors have them!”

I’ve tried to follow this advice with PageFour, choosing to add features only when they add value to the product for most users, and impact little on usability. The Search and Merge Pages in the recent release are examples of this. But I haven’t always been so successful in the features I’ve chosen to add. My feeling is that version 1.50 strayed a little off course, with the inclusion of Smart-Edit.

This is a great feature, and I use it all the time. It was designed to identify over-used phrases - something that has always plagued my own writing - and I’ll be running it on this post as soon as I finish. But it’s complicated. And it doesn’t really fit in with the rest of PageFour.

The problem, is that recently I’ve been thinking of numerous additions that could be made to Smart-Edit, making it much more powerful. Each one would benefit a certain proportion of users, but these users would, of necessity, be people who have no problem running complex bits of functionality, adjusting configuration settings, and playing with the features until they obtain the best results. And this is NOT most PageFour users.

PageFour was designed with simplicity in mind, and Smart-Edit, and the extra features I’ve been thinking about, are not simple. But don’t panic! The current incarnation of Smart-Edit will be staying where it is.

So I’ve been considering a spin off product - a product built around Smart-Edit, and incorporating all the extra functionality that would only weaken PageFour. To offer a general outline: the product would be designed for use on a first draft of your 80-100,000 word manuscript, just as you begin editing and revising. As with Smart-Edit, it would not tell you what to do, only highlight areas that you might want to look at in more detail.

I’ve drawn up a list of features it might contain. It’s a very rough and ready list I put together yesterday evening, but should give a taste of what I believe IS achievable through software.

• List of over-used phrases, as with the current incarnation of Smart-Edit.
• Highlight excessive use of certain phrases at the beginning of sentences.
• Flag potentially awkward tags used in dialog. For example: ‘she snarled’, ‘he bellowed’.
• Over us of ‘…’ of ‘-’ in dialog. A lot of amateur writing tends to suffer from an abundance of dialog interruptions through ellipses and dashes.
• Frequency of adverbs in sentences. How many or what proportion of sentences include adverbs? And are multiple or strings of adverbs used in the same sentence?
• Highlight weak qualifiers - such as very, a bit, fairly, quite, slightly.
• Excessive use of The, A and And to begin sentences, as well as There was or There were.
• Highlight redundant words. For example: a cold chill, the end result.
• Use of weak phrases: The fact that - of the (students of the college instead of college students), She began to - He started - appeared to - seemed to, etc.
• Use of ‘then’ in place of ‘and’ or a new sentence - she did this, then she did the other…
• Flag clichés - a trusted servant, a mighty warrior…
• Flag sentences without verbs - excluding dialog, of course.
• Excessive use of punctuation - exclamation marks, for example.

Before anyone leaves an angry comment along the lines of “But Faulkner did that ALL the time!”, I should point out that features like those above, and like Smart-Edit in the current version of PageFour, only point out POTENTIAL problems. It’s always down to the writer to decide if they actually are problems, and make corrections where needed.

The intention would be to make the product fully customisable, with the user capable of editing lists of ‘weak’ words or phrases and saying whether something constitutes a serious problem or not. Creating a separate product independent of PageFour means that the potential user base would be far larger, while PageFour itself would not be contaminated with new and complicated features.

I’m very interested in hearing feedback on this - do you you think it’s a good idea or not? Does it have potential? Would YOU use it? If not, why not? Have I left anything obvious out?