info-mac@uw-beaver (01/08/85)
From: Michael Rubin <RUBIN@COLUMBIA-20.ARPA>
The version I've seen (a beta from Consulair dated 29-Aug-84) seems to be a
good general-purpose editor for text files, and it can handle multiple
windows which MacWrite still can't, but it has a few major bugs (which I hope
have been corrected in the release version):
-- Certain nonprintable characters in the input file cause it to bomb; I'm
not sure exactly which character(s) are the problem, but it can't read a
MacTalk file.
-- Saving a file occasionally causes the new text or all of the text to be
lost. This seems to happen more often when there is a lot of new text.
-- When you attempt to Open an additional file it sometimes refuses on the
grounds that it's out of memory, and sometimes just bombs, either immediately
or after an operation or two on the new file.
Duvall Edit was designed to handle code, not prose, so it isn't good
at dealing with long lines. It just does horizontal scrolling. There should
be some option for handling MacWrite-style paragraphs as well.
That brings up the issue of MacWrite 3.x versus the rest of the world: it
seems that Apple really doesn't want you to have plain text files. Reading
in a text file (even one produced by the same version of MacWrite) now gives
you a bunch of intimidating dialog boxes ("I'm converting your file, and
unless you give me what I want you'll never see it again") and sets the file
name to Untitled. Why can't it just remember that the file was originally
text, and what flavor of end-of-line markers it had, and default to the same
settings when you save it again? A way to set a default font and ruler, or a
command to change the font of the whole document, or even a Select All
command would also be helpful. At least it can now deal with files that have
CR's at the ends of lines....
(Waiting for the 1985 Super Bowl ad)
--Mike Rubin <Rubin@Columbia-20.Arpa>
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