Re: Request MSWin outliners with I,A,1,a etc structure?

< Next Message | Back to archived message list | Previous Message >

Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 2833

Posted by 100341.2151
2005-02-22 21:37:16

Graham -

Thanks for the info on WordPerfect. Although I find Word reliable and powerful, the business of having to set up everything in advance aspects (templates, styles) isn’t the way I like working - probably because I was only reluctantly weaned from PC-Write (a DOS program with footnoting, but no outlining, features) about 2 years ago. My thinking is that maybe WordPerfect will be more comfortable for me :-)

I wouldn’t want to put you off NB. It has a knowledgeable and helpful user-base and a host of useful features in addition to the word-processing and outlining ones. I’m still lurking on the mailing-list, though not using it at present.

I don’t think the NB “Saves” problem is a make or break one. It seems to be a rare enough phenomenon and there is a workaround. Here is the guts of the issue in an email from Mary Bernard, quoting my problem and her answer:
_______________________

Date: Mon Aug-2-2004 4:03pm
To:

(Multiple recipients of list NOTABENE)
From:

(No Name)
Subject: RE: Saving problems (revisited)...long afterwards

I wrote this message a few minutes ago in reply to a query by Derek Cornish about sharing violations. Then I noticed that his message was dated early June - I must have forgotten to delete it. But I’m posting my reply anyhow, in case anybody wants to know about Jukka-Pekka’s backup program.

(quote from Derek)
>I know some people are saving manually every few sentences in order to
>protect their work, but that seems a rather painful workaround for this
>problem. I haven’t yet worked out a systematic explanation of what is
>going on. Do people still have the problem with v7? Is there a simple
>routine I can follow to stop it happening?

I’m still having Sharing Violations - this seems to be the cause of files’
not getting saved when you think they are - in version 7. Sharing violations theoretically happen only if you have the file open in 2 places at once, but in NB they often happen to me when I have only opened one file since turning on the computer.

As Enrique says, NB know about it, but are finding it hard to do anything about. Like Enrique, I work fast, and often without looking at the screen or keyboard (touch typing while gazing at the neighbours’ gardens), so I’ve never yet been able to pin down what I’m doing when the fatal change from a saveable to a non-savable file takes place.

I save manually every few minutes, and I’ve replaced the default definition on my save key (Ctrl S) with:

##=bx,r,u,n, ,C,:,\,n,b,\,X,P,L,\,B,A,C,K,U,P,.,R,U,N,q2

Backup.run is a program written by Jukka-Pekka Takala. You can find it on the user website,

http://users.moscow.com/rpenticoff/nb/

It saves the file, and also saves up to 999 backup copies to a backup directory. Each one is named with the first part of the file number + a 3-digit extension : .000, .001 etc. It’s saved my work after no-save problems more times than I can remember.

Some people have appended the above keyboard definition to an alphanumeric key, so that the backup program runs every time they hit that key.

What I can’t remember at the moment is whether backup.run will save to the backup directory if it’s prevented (by sharing violation) from saving the file. But it does put ‘Current file saved as [filename].### (.000, 001 etc) on the prompt line, so if you look, you’ll know.

If you can identify what you’ve done just before you stop being able to save your file/s, please do let me know, and also NB NY. They badly need more info about this problem.

Best wishes

Mary

Mary Bernard

______________________________

*N.B. The web-site mentioned by Mary is now at:
http://www.penticoff.com/nb/index.htm

[Later - but the program, Bakupdir.rn5 is at http://www.helsinki.fi/%7Ejtakala/notabene.html ]

The reason I was concerned was that I was working to (aka “was very late for”) a deadline, so naturally ran smack into this obscure and apparently rare glitch (I was using version 6). I didn’t have time to solve the problem - especially as NoteMap had also decided to play up - so switched the whole project into Word.

I did like NB - and its user community - though. If I had been starting out in academic life (for example) I’d definitely have given it a much longer trial - especially as this is a problem that everybody is clearly trying hard to solve.

Derek

Back to archived message list