info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (09/08/84)
From: LEVITT%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA I played with a version of the new MacWrite and can report on a version that existed 1 month ago; any of these parameters might have changed since then. The file format is different from the old MacWrite's; when you open an old MacWrite, you must confirm a "Converting format" dialogue box. The encoding is sufficiently obscure that you CAN'T read the text by looking at the ASCII with utilities like "Examine File", which I found frustrating in an emergency. There are various reasonable limits, like "can't Cut or Copy more than 100 paragraphs", but of course much less severe than old MacWrite's. There are just a few improvements: the page number appears cutely inside the scroll elevator, even when you're dragging it; Find Next is wired to clover-f, and Goto Page is wired to clover-g. There is also a "6 lines per inch" toggle, which, though ugly, makes better use of the screen by stacking lines slightly closer. It is actually SLOWER than the old MacWrite on floppies, since it uses the disk more. It was painfully slow with a single-floppy configuration. It was very nice with a Corvus hard disk though. There were bugs in the version I played with, including some the implementors were aware of "in the vicinity of disk full". Some were serious enough to generate an emergency, so I don't recommend anyone who comes across the same "NEW MacWrite" use it for serious work. It will be very nice when it's debugged, though.