jpalmer@uwovax.uwo.ca (J. Palmer) (10/25/89)
A copy of a letter recently mailed to:
Central Point Software
15220 NW Greenbriar Parkway #200
Beaverton OR 97006
USA
Dear Sirs:
I am now the proud owner of PCTools v. 5.5. I had been familiar
with PCTools 4.11, and so when you made your offer last year to
upgrade from Sidekick Plus to PCTools v. 5.0-1 for only $25, I jumped
at the opportunity.
I have no regrets about having spent the $50 or so (US) for ver-
sions 5.1 and 5.5 of the product. I do, however, have some sugges-
tions that I hope you will consider for making the product even better
and more useful.
As things stand, I use PCBackup and Compress and not much more.
Despite your attempts to be everything for everyone, I don't quite find
your other programs in PCTools as good as many of the old standbys.
Let me begin with PCShell. The two display list is terrific. I wish
others had it. However, unlike SK+, it does not allow 43-line display,
which many of us prefer so we can see more on the screen. Also unlike
SK+, I do not have complete control over the window sizes and colours,
and so I am stuck with some colour options I don't like and I cannot
shrink (narrow) the tree side of the display. And even though I like
the two-display list, whenever I resize the windows (why can't I com-
pletely choose the upper and lower sizes, too? the sizes seem limited)
and save the configuration, the size of file window reverts to the old
size, not the one I saved. Also, if I say I'd like to see some informa-
tion, but that information runs out of the window to the right, it would
be nice if I could scroll over there to see it. Ctrl-rt. arrow might be
handy for such a feature.
Here's another inconvenience: suppose I'm tagging a bunch of files I
want to move. First, I find that the XtreePro tag, untag, ctrl-tag, and
ctrl-untag are much more convenient and use fewer keystrokes than
PCShell. Second, after I've selected a few files, suppose I come to one
I'd like to view to see if I want to include it -- after viewing that file,
I'm returned to the first file in the file window, not to the file I just
viewed. That "feature" is terribly inconvenient!
The file view features are nice. I like being able to see a spread-
sheet file without entering the spreadsheet program. Some of my
spreadsheets are pretty big, though, and it would be nice if the
spreadsheet view would access EMS. It would also be nice if the end-
arrow keys had the same use here as in Lotus. And I presume (hope!)
you are working on a Word Perfect file viewer (some shareware ones
exist) as well. That would be a real help to me. I get the impression
that Mace and/or Norton already have this feature.
When I want to edit a file from PCShell, there are far too many
keystrokes involved compared with XtreePro. In addition, why not
identify the file name with a different background colour so that it is
not confused with the first line of a file? Ditto file view. Also, the
PCShell file-edit feature does not tell me what line I'm on, nor does it
allow me to use Ctrl-Y or Ctrl-end (or any command I could find) to
delete to the end of the line. Integrating the Notepad features of Desk-
top with the File Edit should be on your short list for future improve-
ments. I actually resent not having reformating and other easy, common
editing features in file edit.
Finally on PCShell, I went to some effort to try to set it up to
replace PowerMenu, but to no avail. I find that if I load PCShell memo-
ry resident, I cannot execute any applications; but if I don't load it
resident, I can't start any big programs (e.g. Word Perfect, etc.)
because there isn't enough memory left. And setting the time and date
permanently was a problem on wife's XT clone when I was trying to
convince her to buy the program, too.
Now for the Desktop. The notepad is nice, but involves too many
keystrokes again. I don't like having to move my hands, and so a
mouse (which I bought through your promotion) is not the answer. And
I have come to prefer ctrl/alt/shft key combinations to function keys
for the same reason. This point holds for your entire program.
I haven't tried backtalk or your comm. pkg yet. I can't. My modem
is set up on comm port 3! and port 2 is hard-wired to our local vax. I
still haven't figured out how to use your package with a hard-wired
serial port.
The appointment book is nice. I like the to-do list, and miss it in
SK+. Once again, though, it takes too many keys to get started; there
must be some way to load the default appointment book automatically,
but I haven't found it. I know it will return to the appointment book if
that is the last thing I used, but I'd prefer a default opening of the
desktop. Nor have I figured out how to set alarms, if they exist.
The Database is useless for me. I much prefer the SK+ phonebook
for my phone/address information, and I use WordPerfect for more
serious mail merges.
These are a lot of points. Let me make them in a different way:
Your programs are very nice and have the potential to be great. If
they didn't, I wouldn't bother to write you about them. Nevertheless, I
don't use them (except backup and compress and some of the utilities).
I prefer XtreePro for directory and file manipulation because it involves
fewer keystrokes, the keystrokes are more intuitive, and its file editor
is adequate. If it had 43-line display and your two-list display feature,
it would be even better. Sidekick+ doesn't have an easy-to-use file
editor and it requires far too many keystrokes to accomplish anything,
so it loses big here; I do, however, like its feature that if I type a
single letter, it goes to the next file/directory beginning with that
letter.
For an opening menu, I use PowerMenu. It is easy to configure,
and it swaps itself out of memory so that I can run big programs from
it. The PCTools applications menu is not very useful.
For communications I use Procomm+ or Pibterm (I prefer Pibterm
since it allows 43x132 displays and has enormous capabilities for key-
board macros and redefinitions). Background communications would be
nice, but not at the expense of the other features of these programs.
And they both address more than the first two comm. ports!
For desktop, I use SK+. I like the 43-line displays, the ability to
select the location, size, and colour of every single window and to open
every feature with very few keystrokes. The appointment book is ter-
rific except for not having a to-do nagger. The phonebook is simple
and easy to use.
I hope these suggestions have been helpful. I look forward to see-
ing your next version with, I hope, some of these suggestions added.
Sincerely yours,
John P. Palmer
cc: Internet>comp.sys.ibm.pc
--
reply to jpalmer@uwovax.uwo.ca The Economics Institute for Journalists
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The New Economics: Overlapping Generalizations & Rationalized Expectorations jsa00564@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (10/30/89)
You can reduce the number of keystrokes needed to start-up any PC Desktop application by the use of the Macro Editor. I can bring up my current calendar, etc. with a single ctrl-<key> sequence. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Autor "I need a disk de-frag utility jsa00564@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu for my brain...." Student at the University of Illinois Also Affiliated with Valmont Electric Opinions (and facts) expressed are my own. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------