stuartb@microsoft.UUCP (Stuart Burden) (05/11/89)
The Word program manager has asked me to post this to the net. Brian,
all the mail to your site seems to bounce. If you send me a "good"
return path to you, I'll forward this to the program manager as he would
like to open up a dialog to get more information from you.
Stu.
__Paths to my door:_______________________
microsoft!stuartb@beaver.cs.washington.edu - Usual disclaimer, that all
microsoft!stuartb@uw-beaver.arpa - the above is pure fantasy
microsoft!stuartb@uunet.UU.NET - and Microsoft only
[DE01HB]stuartb@DASNET# {from AppleLink} - gave me the Mountain Dew
stuartb@microsoft.uucp {well connected} - to dream it all in a
D2012 {@applelink.apple.com - shared acct} - caffeine haze :-)
__________________________________________________________________________
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian... sorry this is so long getting to you... I had a little
trouble with the mailer.
.................
Thank you for your quick feedback about Word 4. You are correct that
Word 4 is one of the best-tested products in our company's history,
and we are anxious to be sure that it meets the high expectations
that customers have for it.
In addition to the months and months of testing by our internal
testing team, hundreds of people of different levels of experience
and sophistication have spent tens of thousands of hours beta testing
Word. We believe the product is of very high quality.
We investigated the points you made in your letter, and have the
following comments:
| April 24, 1989
|
| Microsoft Customer Service
| 16011 NE 36th Way
| Box 97017
| Redmond, WA 98073-9717
|
| Dear Microsoft:
|
| I have just spent a few hours with Word version 4. From this short
| experience, I can only conclude that I will not use this upgrade,
| even though I paid for it.
|
| I am not a complainer by nature. When version 3 came out, I was
| enthusiastic about the program, the performance, and the
| documentation. I was amazed that it got a bad rap. However, in
| version 4 I have encountered bugs (some left over from version 3),
| dropped features, feature implementations that do not support the
| simple specifications I need, and instances where non-standard
| implementation leads to inconvenience. Here's the list:
|
| * When the Page Setup... setting for unlimited downloadable fonts (in
| the Options button dialog) is checked, documents using downloadable
| fonts show major portions in Courier font. This indicates that the
| LaserWriter is not getting the downloaded font when requested.
| Unchecking the unlimited downloadable fonts option fixes the problem,
| but limits you to a very few downloadable fonts. This bug remains
| from version 3.
This is a bug with the LaserWriter driver. The same symptom occurs
with FullWrite, WordPerfect, MacWrite, and, yes, Word 3.02. We
expect that it will be fixed in future System Software releases.
| * With page view on, I cannot place the insertion point in the
| header. The conditions for this are complex: I have a header that is
| a table. The table has one row of cells. The cell where I want to
| place the insertion point has three lines of text. Below this cell,
| on the page and not in the header, is a positioned paragraph in the
| right margin area. The vertical alignment of the positioned paragraph
| is in line. When I try to put the insertion point in the bottom of
| the cell, the cursor is placed in the positioned paragraph instead. I
| can get around this by going out of page view and opening the header.
| This is simply a bug.
I have been unable to recreate this situation here. I can create a
page that appears as you describe but I have no difficulty selecting
anywhere in it.
Can you describe more precisely the settings in the Position dialog
that cause this selection problem?
| * In version 3, there was a difference between shift-return and
| command- return, when they were applied to justified text.
| Shift-return created an in-line return, where the last line before
| the return was justified to full paragraph width. Command-return also
| created an in-line return, but the last line was not justified.
| Though this was not a documented feature of version 3, it was
| well-known enough to be published in magazines such as MacUser.
| Version 4 has dropped the command-return feature, and does not use
| the command-return sequence for any other purpose.
I think you are referring to Option-Return: in Version 3,
Command-Return just beeps. Option-Return has been removed. Its
operation in Word 3 was a bug and no beta tester objected to its
removal.
In Word 4, Return inserts a paragraph mark, which leaves an
unjustified line and begins a new paragraph. Shift-Return inserts a
line break, which leaves a justified line and continues the
paragraph.
What purpose were you using Option-Return for? Maybe there is a
better way to achieve that in Word 4.
| * I cannot adequately control the vertical placement of positioned
| paragraphs. I want to have a side paragraph appear in the margin
| area, at the same vertical height it would be placed if it were not a
| positioned paragraph. I assumed in line would do that, but it
| doesn't. Not having that, I could get by with vertical positioning
| relative to the top or bottom margin, just as I can do with
| horizontal positioning. After a long period of trying and playing, it
| appears I cannot do what I need at all. This indicates one of two
| problems: either the design of the human interface is too confusing
| (always a Microsoft weak point), or the feature which is otherwise
| fantastic has not been completely implemented.
This is another situation that I cannot recreate. Many users create
sideheads with Word 4 without problems, including our own user
education department. What is the particular problem that you are
having? I hope you will describe it in more detail.
| * The menus have been implemented with a custom font, one that mimics
| the standard Chicago font. Many Macintosh users have long since
| replaced the standard Chicago font with something more readable. For
| those users, Word menus appear as a sudden return to the bad old
| days. Of course, such a user is sophisticated enough to perform the
| same modifications on Word's fonts as on the System fonts. However,
| such non-standard implementation can indicate an attitude orientation
| within Microsoft that "we don't have to be standard, we're better."
| Microsoft should have learned by now, though the continued existence
| of such things as non-standard print dialog boxes indicates
| otherwise.
We use a different font in our menus so that we can represent the
shift, command, and option keys in the keyboard accelerators that are
displayed next to the command names.
There is no Macintosh user documentation for changing the font used
in menus. As you say, users who are savvy enought to change the font
of their menus can change our font as well. None of our hundreds of
beta testers objected to our use of a different font in the menus.
I am surprised that you mention "the continued existence of such
things as non-standard dialaog boxes" as an indication that we have
an arrogant attitude about compatiblity. The Page Setup and Print
dialogs on Word 4 are done completely and utterly by the book,
extended in the Apple-blessed way, as described below.
| * The Print... dialog box provides a series of boxes into which the
| user can type numbers. There are the typical boxes for number of
| copies, and for page range if a portion of the document is to be
| printed. There are also boxes for a range of sections, which is a new
| and useful feature. However, the tab ordering of these is
| non-standard. Usually, a Print... dialog box comes up with the number
| of copies selected, and tabs move you successively to starting and
| ending page boxes. Word 4.0 tabs you first to the starting and ending
| section boxes, and only then to the starting and ending page boxes.
| Thus, you have to remember when using Word 4.0 to hit two extra tabs
| to get to the normal function (page range), or else you get the
| unique feature instead (section range). Simply re-ordering the tab
| sequence of this dialog box would make the program standard and
| friendly.
The print dialog tab ordering is this way because it is more
standard. We add items to the dialog box in the recommended way
(adding to the Dialog Item List) and thus are able to let users access
these added items without interfering with the operation of the box.
If we were to modify the operation of the Print dialog box as you
describe, it would be less standard and compatible, not more.
| * The "feature" of having menus that are completely reconfigurable is
| two-edged. Version 3 got lots of complaints, many of which indicated
| that people were not willing to spend the time to learn to use their
| tools. However, version 3 was difficult to learn not only because it
| was powerful and feature-rich, but also because of its human
| interface. In version 4 the human interface problem has not been
| addressed, it has simply been thrown back at the user to solve as
| best he may. Word is the only Mac- intosh program to resort to this
| "solution," or to find it necessary to do so. It is a symptom of
| greater problems.
Human interface is obviously much more complex than the organization
of commands on a menu. We have spent a great deal of effort
improving the overall human interface of Word 4.
Page View is the most complex feature in Word 4. Yet it does not add
a single new formatting or editing capability to the product. Its
entire benefit is in human interface.
We chose to change Word 4's menus minimally to accomodate new
features wihtout disturbing current users. We also allow users to
reconfigure the menus easily to suit their needs. Word is a very
rich product, and many users may only use 20% of its features.
Cusomization of menus and key assignments lets users set up their
program to get at those 20% they use in the fastest, easiest way.
| Word version 4 is well-known in the industry as having been tested
| thoroughly. The fact that this user has encountered this variety of
| problems in a short time is symptomatic of beta-testing that does not
| rely on a wide-enough range of users. It might be that testing is
| being done by people familiar only with the Macintosh market, and not
| by people who are familiar with such top-end publishing tools as
| Interleaf running on Sun workstations. Without such a depth of
| background, testers might not have the experience with such page
| layout capabilities to thoroughly understand the usage of the
| features. I would hope that testing is being done by a wide range of
| users, with widely varying backgrounds.
We have testers who are familiar with many kinds of systems. We
chose our Beta sites carefully to get a rich set of experiences to
draw on.
| I would be interested in being such a beta-tester for the bug-fix
| release of Word version 4. From what I see, Microsoft needs to begin
| development immediately.
|
| Sincerely,
|
| Brian Diehm
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Three additional notes:
|
| First, yes, this is the OFFICIAL, COMMERCIAL release of Word 4.0. I am NOT a
| beta site, and yes, I've been waiting for this for a long time too.
|
| Second, the program has crashed on me, for no apparent reason. I
| realized when this happended that it has been a LONG time since a
| commercial program has done that to me. Like a couple of years.
| Still, it wouldn't be worth mentioning on a huge new release except
| for Bill Gates' arrogant promise.
This is interesting. I definitely want to know more about the
circumstances of the crash you are reporting, especially it has
happened repeatedly. Please send me a message describing the
situation.
| Third, I realize that Chuq has been a beta-test site for Word 4.
| Sorry Chuq, I do not question your capability or depth of experience
| with desktop publishing tools. But golly, Chuq, how much did you
| wring this howling dog out, anyway?
|
| -Brian Diehm (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply)
| Tektronix, Inc.
| briand@tekig4.TEK.COM or {decvax,cae780,uw-beaver}!tektronix!tekig4!briand
I am sorry that you do not share the opinions of our tens of
thousands of happy users of Word 4. We truly believe that Word 4 is
of very, very high quality. I hope that you find a word processor
that suits your needs better than Word.
Paul J. Davis
Program Manager
Word for the Mac
Microsoft.