gordon@uw-june (Russell Owen) (08/30/86)
(flame on) I recently had the misfortune to purchase Cortland's TopDesk, and want to warn other innocents away from it. TopDesk is a set of desk accessories, including a print spooler, a MacWrite-file-reader, a menu-command-key adder, etc. On the surface, it looks pretty good. The spooler is fast, the reader opens multiple files... However: 1) The DAs are copy-protected! Font/DA Mover, ResEdit, or copying System will turn the DAs into bombers. As a consequence, you can't run their DAs from ...Sampler, Double-Apple, Other..., etc., nor can you install their DAs into applications (though Cortland will do this for you -- whoopie). 2) The print spooler crashes with all ramdisks tried. Cortland admits this, but the guy I talked to said they have no idea why it fails, it "should work". So...you can just imagine how soon it'll be fixed. (My guess is it's the copy-protection -- can't copy System, but wouldn't they have thought of that?) 3) The print spooler crashes if you spool a file while one is printing, the MacWrite reader crashes if you give it a MacWrite 2.2 file. I guess Cortland considers crashing a normal failure mode (the spooler crash is mentioned in the manual, and not as a bug, either). If anyone knows how to break the copy protection, please tell me; it would make the stuff partially useful, anyway. (flame reduced) MORE is the successor to ThinkTank (a.k.a. septic tank). Unlike TT, it mostly uses the standard Mac user interface, and isn't copy protected. Like TT, it's clumsy, poorly designed, and ridiculously overpriced. It's second-rate at the basics. For instance there's no command for starting a subtopic. Instead, you start a regular topic and then move it -- clumsy. There is no UNDO (remember, MORE is HUGE and costs 100s of $; it should have UNDO). It has some nice features, like clones (linked copies -- changing one changes all) alternate display modes (like block diagrams), and multiple-topic-select; but they're all clumsy. You can't add/change data in the alternate display modes; you can't see if clones have subtopics, and mult-top-sel is kludgy (not shift-click). Save your money until someone does it right. Meanwhile, I suggest ACTA. It doesn't have all of MORE's features, but it's much better at basic outlining, yet it is inexpensive, small, a desk accessory (and even has undo). (flame off) Disclaimer: These views are copyrighted. If you hold them, I want my royalties. Now! -- Russell Owen owen@uwaphast.bitnet uw-beaver!uw-june!phastvax!owen