fisher@gazelle..UUCP (Chuck Fisher) (05/11/88)
I have used the "Pre-Release" version of FullWrite Professional since receiving it last January. I just got my version 1.0 last week and here are some of my observations... The program is a definite memory hog, 1 MB is not enough if you plan to use the built-in graphics drawing capability. Running on a greater than 1 MB system you should UN-check the 1 MB size in the "Doc Setup" command dialog window. Otherwise you'll get "out of memory" warnings even though plenty of memory remains. Now for my "hot buttons"... FullWrite still does not support paragraph spaceing control except on a entire document basis! I complained about this on the Pre-Release version and it still hasn't been fixed. If you import a Word 3.0x document, get ready to have your paragraph spaceing ignored. (Of course it does alert you to the fact that "some formating information is ignored.") My second complaint is the production of tables. You can't use column rules or boxes unless you create the entire table in the "Picture" module. Painstaking, but it can be done. No wonder there's no example of generating a table in the entire two-volume documentation! On the positive side... I attended the Apple Business Forum held in San Francisco last week and was able to button-hole the product manager for FullWrite. I explained my displeasure and he told me that the paragraph spaceing problem was already fixed for the next release due out this fall. (The next two upgrades are free to original purchasers of FullWrite when it was of a more etheral nature.) When complaining about table production, the product manager said that a "table module" like the "picture" and "sidebar" module will also appear this fall. I breathed a sigh of relief... The product manager also commented on the memory aspects of FullWrite. He said that a new "basic" editor module one-fifth the size of the current one has already been written. Besides being more compact, it is also much faster. He was unsure if it would be included in the fall upgrade, however. Now back to some nice things about FullWrite... I really like the ability of "classifying" Figures, Tables, and the like. It's easy to reference them with them with "see Figure 1 on page 10" types of citation. Something Word still can't do! Also, the "picture" module is very MacDraw like. Although not as feature laden, it does have full text editing/styling capabilities, arrows, and bezier curves. I now can compose most digram within FullWrite rather than pasting from other applications. Guess I'll have to wait until fall before I'm Fully satisfied however. :-) Chuck
moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) (05/14/88)
In article <787@elxsi.UUCP> fisher@gazelle.UUCP (Chuck Fisher) writes: >I attended the Apple Business Forum held in San >Francisco last week and was able to button-hole >the product manager for FullWrite. I explained >my displeasure and he told me that the paragraph >spaceing problem was already fixed for the next >release due out this fall. (The next two upgrades >are free to original purchasers of FullWrite >when it was of a more etheral nature.) When >complaining about table production, the product >manager said that a "table module" like the >"picture" and "sidebar" module will also appear >this fall. I breathed a sigh of relief... This is indeed good news; the paragraph spacing problem is the only thing that is biting me about FullWrite right now. Did they say whether it might be setable in a custom style description? Custom styles could need something to allow different first-line indention, too. I'll have to attend the ABF in Seattle next month and track soem answers down... The table module sounds REALLY neat. Any bets on it working with "Full Impact"? Ashton-Tate tends to try getting their products inter-related. I must say that this news is something of a relief. After filling out Ashton-Tate's registration information, I felt like I'd been dealing with IBM; phone help costs $$ after the first 90 days, something I'm not used to -- whatever complaints I have had about Microsoft products, their customer support has always been top-hole, and free to boot. I was wondering whether they were going to be improving FullWrite as they went along; a Fall release is much better than I had hoped for, and the "table module" shows that they must be listening to their customers, and are making fairly major upgrades. Of course, I'll fully believe it *when* I see it... The basic editor sounds good, too -- something I can put in MultiFinder with VersaTerm... >Guess I'll have to wait until fall before I'm >Fully satisfied however. :-) I doubt I'll ever be fully satisfied, but I'm definately happy now, and if their Fall release contains these new features, I'll be contentedly sated. "Mind your manners, son! I've got a tall pointy hat!" --- Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, microsoft}!fluke!moriarty CREDO: You gotta be Cruel to be Kind... <*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>