peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) (02/25/88)
My copy of FullWrite has finally arrived, and although I haven't used
it extensively yet, here are some random comments.
o A minor complaint is that it doesn't have a "% complete" indicator
like Word. WordPerfect doesn't either. Too bad. Long operations
like save and global changes need this sort of thing and it
certainly shouldn't be difficult to implement.
o I've encountered one bug in the manual so far. In one place it says
that cmd-shift-plus (+) and cmd-shift-minus (-) is used for increasing
and decreasing font size. In another place, it says these commands
move text up/down one point, like super/sub -script commands. I tried
them and they did the latter. I wonder if there is a keyboard command
for increasing/decreasing font size. Anyone know?
o Another minor complaint is that it does support split windows. In
Word I've found this convenient for updating one part of a document
based on text extracted from various other locations in the document.
o Their use of cmd-arrow to extend a selection doesn't follow user
interface guidelines. Word uses shift-arrow to extend a selection
and this is more logical. In FullWrite, shift-arrow acts the same
as pressing the arrow key by itself.
o Page sizing is too restrictive. It should allow you to specify
any dimensions, not just the list in the standard page setup
dialog.
o I've haven't had much opportunity to test it out yet, but most
word processors for the Mac scale the margins when switching
from the imagewriter to the laserwriter or vice versa. FullWrite
doesn't appear to do anything, yet the printouts I've tried look
okay. Has anyone else tested this more thoroughly?
o I really like the way it automatically adjusts margins when you
a scaling factor. Using Word I had to do this manually. I do
this frequently in preparing Mac documentation containing screen
dumps. I like to scale by about 15% so the screen dumps don't
take up so much space on a page.
o FullWrite appears to be really intelligent about the size of
monitor being used. I have a full page monitor on an SE and
when I tried the spelling checker it placed the modal dialog
on the vacant SE screen rather than overlaying the document
in the big screen. As an experiment, I re-sized the document
window and moved it over to the smaller SE screen then called
up the spell checker again. This time it placed the spell
checker dialog on the now vacant large screen. As one further
test, I open a document on the large screen and re-sized it
so there was room below the window for the spell checker
dialog. It again showed considerable smarts by placing the
dialog in the space I made for it on the large screen.
Various other features (e.g., the thesaurus) use the same
logic for placing their windows.
o Definitely a poor implementation of columns. Fixed width and
from what I could tell newspaper style only (i.e., no side-
by-side columns). WordPerfect is much more flexible. Now, I
realize that side-bars could be used to achieve variable
width columns and side-by-side paragraphs, but in my opinion
its not really the same thing. It it was, why bother having
a column feature at all--do it all with side-bars. Definite
improvement needed here.
o Minor complaint: I always liked the way I could select the
end of line "character" in Word by double-clicking beyond
the end of a line. In FullWrite, I have to click beyond the
end of the line and drag down. It then hilights everything
from end of the line to the right margin. It works, but I
don't like it as well as Word's approach. Like I said, though
minor complaint.
o Double-clicking on a word to select it is a little slow. Is
this perhaps because it also recognizes triple-clicks to select
a whole paragraph? (I like this feature, although my triple-
clicking needs some practice.) On a related note, FullWrite does
not use intelligent word selection. When you double click on a
Word, it should select the space on either side of it as well
and either include or exclude that space in future operations
on that selection. For example, pressing delete should delete
the word and the space, while entering a new word to replace
the selected word should leave the space and not delete it.
This is how Word does it and there is a similar discussion
on this subject in Inside Macintosh. Double-clicking on a word
in FullWrite selects only the word, not any surrounding space.
o Minor complaint: Printing in progress dialog should have cancel
and pause buttons, not just the standard cmd-. to abort.
o The Show Pages command is under a menu called move. Seems poor
placement. I think it should go under the format menu. The same
goes for Show Outline. It just seems wrong under this menu.
o I read in a Word 1.05 document and the formatting was incorrect
in several places. In another experiment on a large (30 page)
Word 1.05 document, it crashed when I did my first "page up"
command (clicking on the scroll bar).
o I created a simple document, placed in a sidebar or two, and
was generally experimenting with various features. Nothing
too fancy though. I saved the document, left FullWrite, and
tried to reload it and no go--it just sat there with the
hand of the watch going round and round and accessing my
hard disk. I left and watched some Olympics and it still
was done when I came back. I had to reboot.
o I would rather they call their "chapters" sections, especially
since you can only change certain settings on a chapter basis
(like the number of columns).
That's all. If I'm wrong about anything, I apologize. I am new
at it and that's to be expected. My general impression is that
I like it, although there are definite areas that need improving.
Let's hope the real release that comes out in 1991 will be better.
Xcuz te typos...
--
Peter Steele Acadia Univ Wolfville NS Canada B0P1X0 (902)542-2201x121
UUCP: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}dalcs!aucs!Peter
BITNET: Peter@Acadia Internet: Peter%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDUpeter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) (02/26/88)
I'm following up on my own posting to add a comment or two.
o Graphics is nice to have built in, but I would like to see it
in the way PageMaker does it rather than having to use a note.
In PageMaker, if you have text you want to draw a box around,
you just select the proper drawing tool. Not as easy in FullWrite.
o All in all I'm impressed with the stability of the product. It appears
to be acceptable in speed as well. It is certainly better than the
betaware released for WordPerfect--slow and buggy. If you look at it
wrong it crashes. There's nothing all that impressive about WordPerfect
either, although it certainly has more flexible columns than FullWrite.
o Does anyone know how to use the "french curve" tool and not have it
join the two ends to make a closed object. I may be doing something
obviously wrong, but I don't know what...
That's all...
--
Peter Steele Acadia Univ Wolfville NS Canada B0P1X0 (902)542-2201x121
UUCP: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}dalcs!aucs!Peter
BITNET: Peter@Acadia Internet: Peter%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU