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Loosing Heading Formatting in User Tools When Editing


Ron Priest

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This is the 2nd time I have lost all of my heading formatting in a user tool for content below the content that I'm editing. Here's what is happening.

 

I have a user tool which contains 6 sermon outlines from a series of sermons our pastor has preached. I initially have placed a "T" title heading for each of the 6 different sermon titles, and have used sub headings for the various subheadings and lower level headings for subheadings etc... Later when I have more time to listen to the recorded sermon, I will edit the user tool to add more content in the middle of the document (i.e. I'm not simply adding more content at the end of the document). What I am seeing is that when I go to update the document with my added content, I loose all of the heading levels below the area that I have edited in the rest of my document. I can see in the window behind my editing window that when I click on update, all of my other headings disappear in the browser. The headings numbers are still in my edit window, but they have disappeared in the document itself.

 

This is quite frustrating. So far I believe I have only seen this behavior in one specific document, but and it's a small document with only 6 total main title headings. But now afraid to edit any larger documents. One of my user tools for example has 16 different title headings, i.e. 16 different sermons. I would sure hate to edit anything in it, say for the first sermon, then loose all of my formatting for the rest of the document. So, I'm concerned now to edit any documents, that's not a good feeling.

 

Is this a known problem?

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Here is an Update:

 

It just happen again, and here is what I've seen.

 

After the last time it happen and I lost all of my heading and sub heading formatting controls in the left column of the editing document, I simply went in and re-added only the "T" control for each title section, I did not add the sub heading controls, i.e. 1,2,3 etc.. So this last time when I saved out the added content (to the first section btw) I again lost all of my main title headings in the document evident by looking at the browser which now did now show any other titles except the first title of which I was adding content to.

 

As I scrolled down in the document and got to the each of the other 5 headings on the right side of the document (user tool window) I noticed the browser was following the document as it was scrolling to empty (blank lines in the browser) it was in fact scrolling with the document and when I would get to a place where the next title started, it was indicating a white line/space in the browser. So I opened the document in an editing window and what has happen this time is the "T" in the left column that was originally at the place of the document title had slipped up one line of the document above the actual Title text of the document. In other words, the "T" control was now on a blank line above the actual Title. and all of the rest of the title controls in the document followed suite.

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And finally, 1 more update to this problem. Every time I edit content by adding content, run it though the spell checker and update the document not only does the title headings slip up one line, but also all of the sub headings slip up one line. Until I close the editing window, I can see the heading controls have slipped out of place, but once I close that editing window I loose all of my heading controls. Their all gone below the added content of my last save/update then next time I open an editing window.

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I can feel it. It has happened to me. However, I thought it was my inexperience that made it happen. I lost some of my info. Thank you for bringing it out. The answer will help me as well.

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I can feel it. It has happened to me. However, I thought it was my inexperience that made it happen. I lost some of my info. Thank you for bringing it out. The answer will help me as well.

 

Yeah, this appears to be a bad, bad bug. I've easily duplicated the problem in a different document now so it wasn't just a case of that one document being corrupted or anything. I tested a larger file which had 16 Title headings. After adding some content, just 4 lines and assigning them a "T" heading and some sub headings, then I preformed a spell check and saved out the document, all of my headings below the content that I added were off for the rest of the document. I've also lost some content somewhere as the file size of the document was 311 KB before I added the new lines of content, and now the file is 303 KB, so I've lost 8K of data somewhere. Of course I made sure I had a good backup of the document before I attempted to duplicate the problem.

 

I almost want to say it has something to do with spell checking a document because until recently, I was NOT typing my text directly in Accordance. I was typing it up in another application which uses OSX spellchecking procedures and would then copy and paste the text into Accordance, therefore no spell checking was needed. So just recently I've started typing directly into Accordance and decided to start using the spell checker, and it's after this that I have seen this problem, persistently anyway. This brings a question to mind, why can't Accordance use the OSX method of spell checking a document while your typing, why does Accordance chose to use it's own method of spell checking? Seems old like an outdated way of doing things to me.

 

So anyway, I now know that I can't trust the application to any further editing until there is a fix for this problem. This is disappointing because I have spent many hours working on several long documents most of which has been copy and paste into Accordance. I've just started using Accordance within the last month, so I don't know how long the problem has existed. Perhaps this bug snuck in from the latest update, I have no way of knowing myself.

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After testing the same document again (as last time) all I did this time was spell check, I didn't add any content, and it messed up the document and lost data (again the files size went from 311 KB to 303 KB) just as from my last test. So it defiantly is a problem associated with spell checking a document. Not to say that editing the document by adding content couldn't also be another problem. I'll try that next I suppose.

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Update: I still need for verify it, but I don't think I am actually loosing any content when I spell check a file. It appears when spell checking is accomplished, the headings will slip out of sync as well as many paragraph alignment justifications, i.e. some paragraphs that should be center justified, will be left justified, some that should be left justified will be center (basically is messes things up a bit).

 

Of course it will only mess up the specific block of the document that you are editing (spell checking) therefore if you have a large document and have your preferences set to edit small blocks of content, then you will have to do that many more edits to the document to spell check the whole document. Therefore, every time you edit (or spell check) a block, the headings will slip out of sync for that specific block only and will leave content below that block in the document alone, until of course you edit (spell check) the next block of your document. What Im saying is that if you need to spell check the entire document, you will end up having to recreate all of your headings for the entire document. If I would of set my preferences to edit "large blocks" I could of edited the entire document at one time (or however you want to look at it, messed up the entire document at one time).

 

My 311 KB document took 3 times (edits) to spell check the whole document as I had my block size set to "small". Each time I did a block edit (spell check) on the document, the size of the file got smaller. But here is the strange thing. Each time I went back in and re-established my headings and sub-heading levels (1 block at a time) the documents total file size grew. For example, I saved out a copy of my document after each edit and the file went from 311 KB to 307k, 303k, then as I reformatted my misaligned paragraphs and added back in the heeding levels the document grew back to 311 Kb, one block edit at a time, keeping in mind NO actual content was intentionally added or subtracted to the document. The file went back up from 303k to 307k and finally ended back up at 311k, the original file size.

 

So since the file size is back to the original file size, I'm assuming I haven't actually lost any content, just a lot of work to get the document reformatted back to it's original state. So I will now physically view the content to see if I am missing any since I had printed a PDF of the original file before I started troubleshooting this problem.

 

It sure would be nice to get some feedback from Helen or someone at OakTree. I'm starting to feel the Rapture has occurred and I've been left behind. :(

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I am sorry for the lack of comment. I have been quite busy at the ISBL meeting in Tartu followed by IOSOT in Helsinki. Our programmers are all very busy, and so is David who usually replies to User Tool edit issues. I really have no answers for you.

 

Obviously there is a bug, but we have tried and tried to clean up these problems without complete success. It's such a difficult problem to create a fully editable/fully featured tool. It shouldn't be used to import major works. You could do your editing and spell-checking before you import to Accordance.

 

Anyway, I will get a programmer to look at your issues, but it may not happen immediately. Please be patient, and thank you for your careful documentation of the issues you encountered.

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.... Please be patient, and thank you for your careful documentation of the issues you encountered.

 

Will do Helen. It's just REALLY good to know I haven't been left behind. :unsure:

 

After carefully comparing my original files and those re-orgaized files that were messed up by the spell checking procedure, it appears that I'm NOT in-fact loosing any content, so that's good news.

 

And yes I will remember to always spell check and completely edit all text prior to importing content into a user tool. Hopefully someday, spell checking in an Accordance user tool could be accomplished as it is in most other Mac applications, in real time. Not as separate stand alone step as I remember doing on a PC years ago.

 

I understand that it may take the programers a while to get to this issue and that's fine, I don't have any problems with that. However, it would be ideal if someone at OakTree would at the very least, attempt to duplicate and verify the existence of this bug. Then inform all Accordance users of it's findings in an effort to prevent further frustration by users that are unaware of this issue.

 

Thanks.

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  • 1 month later...

Anyway, I will get a programmer to look at your issues, but it may not happen immediately. Please be patient, and thank you for your careful documentation of the issues you encountered.

 

Hi Helen

 

I take it no one has had a chance to look at this problem yet? It has really become a nuisance. I have to wonder if I'm the only one using User Tools?

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Perhaps I should be more specific about what's becoming a real nuisance. I'm not talking about trying to preform a spell check which will cause me to loose content. (Im sure that problem still exists (unless someone has taken care of it without mentioning it. because I have stopped trying to use Accordance Spell check functions.) Since originally discovering the problem a month or so ago, I accomplish all of my spell checking outside the user tool before I import my text.

 

But I'm talking about text inside a user tool loosing it's paragraph alignment. If I go to edit content in a user tool, it appears to mess with paragraph alignments for the rest of the document. i.e. I use center alignment for paragraphs that have a "T" or "1" level heading and everything else is left aligned. When I edit content, things below that edit that should be center aligned end up falling back to a left alignment... usually EVERYTHING ... every paragraph that is center aligned ends up left aligned below the place I open to edit. Then some paragraphs (not all) that should stay left aligned end up center aligned. It's very frustrating, especially with long documents. Now I have to take the time to go back and reformat paragraph alignments for the rest of my document... again, and again, and again.

 

I believe I've seen a pattern here. It seems to happen almost every time I edit previously saved content using the "Edit Windows" preference setting of "Small (faster editing)" but doesn't seem to happen as much when that preference setting is on "Large (fewer updates)" setting but it still happens, and once again is quite frustrating.

 

I've read that you are coming out with a new version, it sure would be nice to see this nasty bug fixed before you do.

 

Thanks.

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Ron:

 

It's not that we don't care, but we've tried to fix this before and failed. It will need to wait now until after 9,0 comes out, then perhaps we can work with you to see what is happening. Thank you for your patience.

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Ron:

 

It's not that we don't care, but we've tried to fix this before and failed. It will need to wait now until after 9,0 comes out, then perhaps we can work with you to see what is happening. Thank you for your patience.

 

 

Oh... I see. Okay ... So why couldn't someone of simply told me that a month ago instead acting as though it was a new bug just discovered? Someone could of saved me a lot of frustration and wasted time trying to document the problem. Is this documented anywhere on Accordance's website that's it's a known problem so more people in the future don't became frustrated and end up wasting their time and loosing data? With all of the training videos and podcasts on the use of user tools, why wasn't this known issue mentioned?

 

Forgive me if I sound frustrated, and I surely don't mean to be nasty. However, the way this issue has been ... well first ignored, and then sweep under the rug if you will just doesn't seem right for any software company, much less a Bible Software Company. I won't mention it again. Thanks for your time.

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If you look back at my post from August 6 you will see that I said the same things back then. We are not sweeping it under the rug, we are doing our best. But right now, about to release 9, we have more urgent matters to deal with.

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