Maple Pro impressions, bugs and wish list

Maple and Maple Reader
Post Reply
hollins
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2004 1:49 pm

Maple Pro impressions, bugs and wish list

Post by hollins »

Glad to see a user forum. I was hoping one would be deployed. Thanks, CrystalOffice!

I'm pretty happy with Maple Pro, after finding Microsoft's OneNote to be too clumsy and expensive for my needs (it seems better suited as a collaboration tool for people using tablet PCs). I tried trial versions of a number of hierarchical note organizers in the $20-$40 price range and settled on Maple Pro. The all had some unique features and bugs, Maple seems the closest to what I need and tends to be snappier when changing notes.

Here are a list of bugs I've noted and features I'd like to see. I'm curious about other people's experiences:

bugs
  • CTRL-W is assigned to two hotkey functions - 'add node' and 'word-wrap toggle'
  • inserting an object or picture as an icon does not seem to work. A blank, resizable frame appears which stores the document
  • When running at high resolution with large fonts (selected in OS display properties) under Windows XP, text in the status bar overlaps. Also, the registration prompt screen cuts off most of the buttons in the unregistered version. This can potentially make the trial software unusable for some users.
  • on my laptop, applying a style to selected text causes repeated refresh of the window for 10-20 times, lasting about one to two seconds as the window flickers. Also, typing text at the end of a longer document causes a visible refresh with each keystroke. This does not occur with my desktop system at home. Laptop is running WinXP Pro with GeForce 440mx. Home is WinXP home with GeForce 3. It is possible that I need to install a newer graphics driver; however, I'm unable to do so because newer drivers introduce a show-stopper bug when using SolidWorks (a machine design program)
  • automatically created email links do not work, I have to manually edit them to include the actual link location.
  • automatically generated hyperlinks that contain a '?' get truncated before the '?'. As in: http:??www.regsoft.net?orderstatus.php3?tid=xx ... xxxxxxxxxx
  • table border widths are inconsistent.
  • on desktop machine, will occasionally get cascading series of 'unable to open clipboard' error dialogs open in background when program is minimized
  • copying text to another program removes formatting. As a workaround, I export as html and copy and paste from there.
    pasting formatted text removes all formatting (bold, lists, etc.)
Wish List
  • better style management. applying a style should 'stick' so that updating that style updates all occurrences in a document. I'd like styles to be saved with the tree, rather than as a setting. Ability to assign styles to hotkeys. Bonus points for a style selection task pane, ala Word XP
    nested lists, both bulleted and numbered.
  • ability for node to only be an embedded OLE object, rather than embedding OLE objects as frames. When node is selected, only that document (say a pdf) is displayed in main window, and it is scaled appropriately.
  • custom node templates, such as for 'todo lists' with check boxes and contact lists where each contact is a sub-node and information is filled in as forms (WordPlace's now defunct YeahWrite had a pretty decent system for doing this with common word processing documents)
  • a built-in web browser (acting as an IE wrapper) such that nodes can be hyperlinks to web pages, thus remote, dynamically changing content can be accessed from within Maple. This is not intended as a replacement for a web browser, just a way to consolidated project-related bookmarks.
  • ability to customize hotkeys in addition to menu buttons. tool-tips for all menu buttons
    better table formatting behavior
  • if a node is blank, but it has children, have its text display a bulleted list of links to the node children. Editing the node will blank this list. I don't know why, but blank nodes annoy me, I always feel the need to fill something in.
  • system for synchronizing between two computers, such as the ability to backup and restore to and from an FTP site.
  • smaller bullets - they're huge! very low priority
xcodex

also nice to see

Post by xcodex »

* fix the printing bugs so that the printout comes out correctly - you have to change the margins frequently to get this to work - how come they don't stay saved - like defaults and a per document setting.

* enable any node and children to be saved to a file by concat all nodes into file name specified in top node

#file myfilename.txt
node 1
node 2
node 2.1

all the above nodes would make up myfilename.txt

* fix the tab width so that it reflects characters as opposed to centimeters, or whatever it is...
indy

I wish this

Post by indy »

I wish,

there is an option of non-java based html tree export function. so you can generate winhelp easily.

(this is more like a bug. try this yourself)

1. copy any figure to clipboard
2. paste it to maple pro
3. do it multiple of pages with some articles.
4. try to export it with html tree type

pictures will not be seen in your html documents.

this should be fixed. however I exported in one large html and it worked.
but it's still painful.
Prowler
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Oct 02, 2004 7:56 am

Post by Prowler »

I'm glad to see that there's a user forum - I've been using Maple Pro for almost 2 years and have been generally pleased with the software. A couple of things I'd like to see, which have already been mentioned above:

1. Tab size - would like to be able to set the tab size in characters (a feature which was available in some of the earlier versions of Maple Pro) as opposed to inches, or be able to set the tab size at less than an inch.

2. Improved print function and preview - often the print preview of the text in maple doesn't match what comes out on my printed version of the document and I have to go back and adjust the margins.

3. Improved hyperlink detection - as mentioned above, some copied links (e.g. those which have a "?" i them) aren't automatically detected. For example, I tried to copy and paste the link to this thread and it wasn't automatically detected in Maple Pro + I do have the URL detection box checked in my settings. Would prefer to just be able to paste the text of the link rather than having to go through the process of having to use the "insert > hyperlink" function.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 19 guests