Mellel 5.1 update

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

NB released an update that resolved some of the bugs I was having on a Mac, so I’ve temporarily put DevonThink and BookEnds on hold at least until I’m done with my dissertation (so I don’t have to learn any new apps this late in the game).

 

However, I’m still watching to see what happens with CrossOver and Apple Silicon support once Apple phases out Rosetta 2 support. That could throw a huge kink into Nota Bene, and if that happens, I’ll purchase BookEnds and DevonThink right away (if I haven’t already have purchased them by then). In the meantime, I still may at least take a trial of them once my dissertation is finished so I can get the feel for them.

[Frank Jones]

8 hours ago, Nathan Parker said:

NB released an update that resolved some of the bugs I was having on a Mac, so I’ve temporarily put DevonThink and BookEnds on hold at least until I’m done with my dissertation (so I don’t have to learn any new apps this late in the game).

 

However, I’m still watching to see what happens with CrossOver and Apple Silicon support once Apple phases out Rosetta 2 support. That could throw a huge kink into Nota Bene, and if that happens, I’ll purchase BookEnds and DevonThink right away (if I haven’t already have purchased them by then). In the meantime, I still may at least take a trial of them once my dissertation is finished so I can get the feel for them.

 

I have to confess that there is still a soft spot for NB in my heart but have thought for years that its days are coming to a close. Too many hurdles to jump over with the increasing OS technologies. I left Windows for Mac years ago so it might work great on that platform. At that time, I left Windows mainly for hardware quality (plastic laptops and poor battery longevity) after using the iPhone 3. I even cheered on NB by joining its Friends program a couple of years back.

 

I have set up Mellel with my default templates and have workable system. Bookends; and if you want Orbis replacement DT, function as an equivalent substitute for NB. I would say, much better. I had a lifetime subscription to Mellel which I just gave up in order to do my small part of supporting its development.

 

Nathan, if you are that far along in your dissertation I would not change either from NB. However, I would start playing with importing that doc into Mellel If you are going that direction. Changing from one format to another is a pain. I don’t know the topic but in the future you might want to re-edit it into a book form for the church.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Great points! I’ll definitely be assembling the final form of the dissertation in Mellel. I didn’t want to rely in NB’s assembly feature for this, and Word is way too much of a pain to assemble the document. So my dissertation will be in Mellel format on my machine in addition to having copies in NB, Word, and PDF formats.

 

Next year I need to seriously decide do I use NB as my primary academic word processor on the Mac moving forward, or give BookEnds and DT a try alongside Mellel for future academic projects. I’m involved enough in NB’s ecosystem where it’s comfortable to use for academic writings, but watching CrossOver on Apple Silicon will be one major decision factor for me. Right now, CrossOver apps run well on Apple Silicon, but what if/when Apple pulls the plug on Rosetta 2?

 

In the meantime, I have moved to Mellel as my primary everyday word processor (plus using it to assemble my dissertation). I certainly prefer it to Word, and I even like it better than Nisus Writer Pro (a good app, but I just like Mellel better). That’ll allow me to continue to get comfortable with Mellel that in the event the writing is ever on the wall for NB on Mac, moving to BookEnds and DT alongside Mellel should be pretty painless.

 

I also am staying put on a Mac moving forward. Tried both Windows and Linux. A good learning experience (as least I came out of the experience with good knowledge on both), but I belong on a Mac and Apple devices. Even then, after reading Newport’s Digital Minimalism, I’ve been going through streamlining my workflow since I’ve been suffering from a major case of digital burnout.

[Frank Jones]

Nathan, as a former engineer and techie, I think that you go through phrases. 1) I wanted to try everything. 2) Settled on a mass of programs. 3) I have now narrowed down to just a few excellent ones and want to master them. MacOS is where I am at and will be in the foreseeable future.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Indeed. I’m trying to settle on a handful of apps and trying to eliminate as much overlap in my workflow as possible. Accordance has been a big help in that area. Pivoting to it as my primary Bible app has allowed me to focus on a quality Bible study library without fluff.

[R. Mansfield]

Mellel 6 is coming soon.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I can't wait!

[stighagen]

On 9/20/2022 at 5:19 PM, R. Mansfield said:

A few thoughts to the recent comments above.

• Mellel has also become my primary word processor over the years. Even if I'm making a few quick notes, I usually turn to Mellel. I still have MS Word but mainly just use it to open documents sent to me in emails--not that Mellel couldn't do that, too. 
• I think if you've got Mellel + Bookends, you've got everything Nota Bene offers in a much better interface without legacy code going back to the 80s. The creator of Bookends told me he's never seen such interconnectivity between software as there is between Mellel and Bookends. 
• I agree that Mellel is easier to use than it used to be, but it admittedly has a learning curve for the uninitiated. It's not Microsoft Word. If it merely duplicated Word, what would be the point? I have been using it off and on since v. 1, and I remember reading early on that the Redlers wanted to rethink the word processor from the ground up, not necessarily giving into conventions of what had been done before.
• If I haven't mentioned this before, Mellel is now compatible with Antidote, which is a much less expensive alternative to Grammarly. I use Antidote daily across a variety of programs.

 

 

 

 

How do you find Antitode compared to Grammarly? Grammarly is my favorite so far, also over ProWritingAid. I just bought Mellel 🙂

Edited August 3, 2023 by stighagen

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I haven't tried Antitode. Grammarly is decent but I don't love it and don't even use it much anymore.

[R. Mansfield]

On 8/3/2023 at 6:29 AM, stighagen said:

How do you find Antitode compared to Grammarly? Grammarly is my favorite so far, also over ProWritingAid. I just bought Mellel 🙂

 

I’ve not done side-by-side comparisons, but I use Antidote because it is more reasonably priced than Grammarly. Also, I have an undergrad degree in English and feel like I have halfway-decent writing skills, so I’m not too dependent on these kinds of tools. I’ve not had much need of Antidote since resigning from my position with Accordance (where I did a fair amount of writing). However, I’ll be starting a new degree program at the end of this month, so I imagine I will be putting it to good use once again. 

[Lorenzo Cuppi]

Hello everyone! I am new to the forum but I am using accordance and mellel since Accordance 8.1 and Mellel 2.2. I am still very happy with both! I read with much interest your comments above.

 

I was wondering if someone could kindly suggest a link to download mellel 5.1.1 or 5.1.2. The former is probably the last free update I can use since I renovated my license on May 2020. I forgot to update Mellel for a while ad now I am stuck with version 5.0.7. Mellel website, as you all know, does not show these old versions anymore...

Thank you very much again!

[darrylmy]

Hi @Lorenzo Cuppi, welcome to the forums! You should be able to update to the latest version if you have Mellel installed on your machine. Here is a link to the Mellel website to walk you though the process depending if you bought the app from website or the App Store: https://www.mellel.com/update/ Alternatively, you can also download the most recent version here; https://mellel.com/download/ You can also contact them directly here: https://www.mellel.com/forgotcode/

 

HTH!

 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Mellel 6 is also coming. I plan to upgrade when it's out. It might be delayed due to the situation in Israel.

[Lorenzo Cuppi]

Thank you very much for you kind replies! My point is that I need to pay $29 for the update to 5.1.6; however, I would be entitled to get 5.1.1 for free because, according to mellel's policies, this version appeared within my two years of free updates. This is why I would be happy to find this older version. ☺️

[darrylmy]

Ahh. Makes sense. In that case, I would suggest going to the Mellel Forums and asking for a link to 5.1.1. or contacting them through the last link that I pasted.

 

HTH!

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Keep in mind they may be a little slower in responding right now since they're based in Israel, but their support is still fantastic.

[Lorenzo Cuppi]

Ok, thank you so much again to both of you! In fact, I wished to avoid writing them directly because of what they wrote us about their present situation… But, yes, I shall try that…

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Mellel 6 is out!

[Michael Hunt]

On 12/18/2023 at 7:26 AM, Dr. Nathan Parker said:

Mellel 6 is out!

Came here to say the same.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

There's an update to Mellel 6 that's been pretty fun.

[Alex Huggett]

On 2/17/2024 at 7:14 AM, Dr. Nathan Parker said:

There's an update to Mellel 6 that's been pretty fun.

 

Wondering if I can get your (or anyone else's) opinion on Scrivener vs Mellel. I'll be starting a thesis next semester and I'm trying to settle on my writing tools. I despise Word so that's out and everything I've read says Pages is terrible for large documents. My shortlist is Mellel, Scrivener and Nisus Writer Pro.My thesis is in ministry practice so languages won't be a driving factor in my decision.

 

I'm wondering if there's really any benefit to using Scrivener over Mellel since AFAIK you can move blocks of text around in Mellel plus you don't have to compile. I'll be using Bookends most likely, so tight integration seems like a bonus. I have Scrivener but prefer a more traditional word processor. 

Any thoughts appreciated.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I used both (plus Nota Bene, and Microsoft Word, etc, and I've used Nisus Writer Pro). Here are my thoughts:

 

• Scrivener is a great tool for outlining your dissertation and writing a rough draft. That's what I did. It was easy to keep track of word count, plus I could move major sections around. Where footnotes needed to go, I just added sections that told the record number of the work in my citation manager and page number. An example would be {250; 49}. It helped me to focus on getting a lot of content written without thinking about formatting off the top.
• I then brought my documents into Nota Bene for my formatting/citations since you can't beat their integration with Ibidem and their formatting templates, but Mellel+Bookends would be good too. I used Mellel to assemble the dissertation. I still had to export to Word and spend more time in Word than I wanted do on edits of files I needed to give my supervisor, since he wanted them in Word over RTF or PDF. I would still avoid using Word and spend as few of time as possible in Word.
• Mellel and Nisus are both solid word processors for academic use. I've written papers in both. Both are good with biblical languages as well. Mellel shines with Hebrew for sure. Nisus is a little easier to learn and natively saves in RTF, so I've moved to it from Word as my primary everyday word processor. Mellel has a slight learning curve, but it also syncs well with iPads and has rock-solid performance for major papers. Of the two, I'd use Mellel for academic writing.
• I don't use Pages for academic writing. I mainly use it for page-layout documents like a "Microsoft Publisher" alternative. Pages was originally geared for that, and even though the word processing side has improved, I still can't get it out of my mind that it's a page-layout tool.

 Hope this helps!