stores@unix.SRI.COM (Matt Mora) (04/27/89)
Below is a letter I wrote to Jeff Erickson early this morning but my
mailer spits it back at me. (i'm no good at this UNIX stuff)
Since then Richard Scorer also wrote me and asked for more
info so I thought I would post it. Those people at Claris
sure seem to care!
Jeff,
I am the biggest advocate for the new mac Write here at SRI, I'm sorry if
I sounded negative. Before MWII there was no alternitive _but_ to use word.
I heard or read somewherethat MWII was trying to play catch
up with word and that its a litle too much to late. HOW WRONG THEY ARE!
I Love the (editable) multiple columns, Color (I have a mac II),
Psudeo styles (i wish that when I create a newstyle, that the paragraph
parameters would be included. Maybe in version 1.1 :-)), and the way
that it imports files. You don't have to retype the name of the
file that the computer already knows (User interface guidelines).
I love the whole page metaphor. I like to see when one page ends
and the next one begins. I like to see the headers, footers,and footnotes.
In Summary I think that you (guys and/or gals) at Claris did an excellent
job in creating an easy to use but very powerful word processor (one
of the hardest things to develop on a PC. I should know I am also a
developer.) and will still run on a one megabyte mac. It has the best
interface and cleanest design of any word processor for the mac. I think
my mom would even love it. (I think she still uses macwrite 4.5 on her 512)
Thanks for a wonderful product.
Matt Mora
SRI International
P.s. Now if I could only get my money back for Word :-)
________________________________________________________________________
Richard Scorer writes:
<I read you letter on Usenet with interest, having written major parts of
<MacWrite II - I am glad you like our interface, and I am sorry it is crashing
<for you. Is your crash totally reproducible, 100% of the time ?
<If so, we would like to know how you manage this, and if you would be so kind
<as to detail your environment (memory, INITs, etc...) then I will be happy
<to examine the situation and perhaps fix it.
<Come to think of it, even if it is not 100% reproducible I would still be
<interested in how it happens !
<Have you called our tech support people already ?
<Thanks for your response.
<--
< Richard Scorer * UUCP: {ames,apple,portal,sun,voder}!claris!richard
< Claris Corporation * AppleLink: Scorer1 * CompuServe: 74017,344
Yes I called Tech Support and they will send me an upgrade but they said
that they haven't heard of any problems with headers,footers or footnotes.
Here is my environment:
MacII with 2megs
Apple Hi rez color monitor (256 colors)
system 6.0.3
Uni-finder
Running as a Macserve 2.4 disk Server
Installed Inits:
Programmers on line companion
SFVol Init (Ray Lau)
SFScroll init (Andy Herzfeld)
Super clock
Pointer cdev
Responder (apple's Interpoll init)
Dimmer (no longer installed)
Sheild Init (SUM)
Here is a list of the problems I had with MWII.
System Crashes not 100% reproduceable when changing a header/footer.
this happened about 5 times. It crashed so bad that the system bomb
dialog box didn't get drawn. No buttons even!
When footnotes start on one page then get transfered to the other page
by editing changes, it didn't show up. I had to actualy create another
footnote before it showed up again.
This happened only once so far.
When printing some documents (I had five open at once, isn't it wonderful!)
it crashed with an ID error 01. But its probably not MWII fault.I think
its MacServes fault.
There is an anoying problem that is minor with regards to footnotes.
When you create footnotes and they appear at the bottom of the page,
when you go back and edit anything on that page, the footnotes get
redrawn with every key stroke! Like I said its minor but it would be nice
to have a show/hide footnotes menuchoice or something like that.
There are a few more things that came up but I can't remember them now.
I will send you a complete list when I am done with the project I am
working on now with MWII.
I'm using the Savior DA now to make sure that my documents are saved now and
then. (i lost an hours worth on typing with the last header/footer crash.
and i don't like to type.)
Just a few things that i would like to see make it into the
next version.
Include the paragraph parameters when saving a style.
An auto save feature like savior.
Picture Cropping.
The ability to paste a picture in the background. That way I could
scan in the company memo and paste it in the background and fill out
the to:,from: fields right over the picture.
Thanks for listening and for caring. Its programmers like
you that make the Mac the ultimate Computer.
--
___________________________________________________________
Matthew Mora
SRI International stores@SRI.COM
___________________________________________________________mwan@PacBell.COM (Miu Wang) (04/28/89)
A major sore point for me: Claris should provide a way to merge user spelling
dictionaries (for example, the old one from MacWrite 5.0) into the new format
User Dictionary. Also, there should be a way to do mass edits (split, merge,
copy, etc) of the User Dictionary.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Miu Wang 415-867-6476
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This space provided by permission of the Minister of Disinformation...... :-)steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield) (04/29/89)
In article <1670@pbhyg.PacBell.COM> mwan@PacBell.COM (Miu Wang) writes:
#>
#>A major sore point for me: Claris should provide a way to merge user spelling
#>dictionaries (for example, the old one from MacWrite 5.0) into the new format
#>User Dictionary. Also, there should be a way to do mass edits (split, merge,
#>copy, etc) of the User Dictionary.
#>
#> Miu Wang 415-867-6476
Admittedly, I haven't used all the spelling checkers available on
the Mac or even the latest versions of some. But I haven't been
impressed with the features of any I've seen as compared with
one I once bought for less than $50 for a Z-80 CP/M machine.
Somebody could probably make a bundle writing such a product.
The features I'd like (some but not all are available in some
programs I've used) include:
Speed: Nobody wants to wait around while the speller is doing
its thing.
Context Display: seeing the word in its context.
Easy lookup for suggested replacement: (i.e., not just one
choice but several words in the immediate vicinity)
Ease in adding word to main dictionary: Yes, it used to be
fairly easy to add to the main dictionary rather than
creating alternate dictionaries.
Ability to mark words found by speller to locate them
in an editor: sometimes faster.
Ability to back up: Sometimes you change your mind on how to
spell something, such as a transliterated name (Qaddafi, Kadaffi,
Qadhafi--intifada, intifadah) or a word with more than one correct
spelling (modeling, modelling).
There are probably some more useful features I'm not recalling
right now.
My CP/M program had all the above. An additional nice feature,
which is now available only in grammar checking programs as far
as I know but would be desireable in a spell checker, would be
to also locate repeated words, such as "the the," which is more
of a typo than a grammatical error.
Now put all this into a desk accessory, make it dirt-cheap,
and you'll have something.
Steve Goldfieldmilne@ics.uci.edu (Alastair Milne) (05/02/89)
The spelling checker built into WriteNow version 1 does all but the last 2 of these things (I haven't tried version 2 yet): >Speed: Nobody wants to wait around while the speller is doing its thing. If you were using a Z80 machine before, you'd like the speed in WriteNow. And it's faster than Word 3.02's, too. >Context Display: seeing the word in its context. WriteNow video-inverts the word right in the document -- though to be fair I believe this is standard practise for built-in checkers. >Easy lookup for suggested replacement: (i.e., not just one > choice but several words in the immediate vicinity) WriteNow's checker window provides a GUESS button. Clicking it causes all the similar words it can find to appear AS BUTTONS themselves. Just click the word you want. Or click FORGET. Or IGNORE. >Ease in adding word to main dictionary: Yes, it used to be > fairly easy to add to the main dictionary rather than > creating alternate dictionaries. Click the LEARN button in the checker's window. I've found this a very quick way to add plurals and possessives to the dictionary. >Ability to mark words found by speller to locate them > in an editor: sometimes faster. Well, it doesn't attach anything to the word that would help you find it later -- but since it's work directly in the document anyway, and has in fact already found the location -- do you really need this? The checker is a modeless dialogue, so you can alternate between it and the document with no difficulty. >Ability to back up: Sometimes you change your mind on how to >spell something, such as a transliterated name (Qaddafi, Kadaffi, >Qadhafi--intifada, intifadah) or a word with more than one correct >spelling (modeling, modelling). Since WriteNow's checker always advances from the current cursor position, and the dialogue is modeless, you only need to move up to the top (or in fact to anywhere you want) and click in the text. The check will continue from there. Your only problem here is that if you've told it to ignore Qaddafi (because you consider it correct, but don't actually want it in the main dictionary) it will continue to ignore it, rather than landing on it for changes. >..., would be >to also locate repeated words, such as "the the," which is more >of a typo than a grammatical error. Nice. This I haven't seen. >Now put all this into a desk accessory, make it dirt-cheap, >and you'll have something. Try Thunder. My brother, on a 6-year old Mac 512+, swears by it.