merchant@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Peter Merchant) (02/19/88)
I just picked up demonstration versions of MacWrite 5.0 from a local BBS and thought I would give some unsolicited opinions. Call me weird. I stopped using MacWrite about a year ago. But I haven't gone back. So it looked strange when I started up a word processor and saw that familiar ruler that I'd been so used to seeing. It's kind of like an old friend. First, I had to register my name and business with this program. I like this feature -- it's a relatively painless form of copy protection. It removes the anonymity that a casual software copier has. I couldn't believe I had to do it with the demo, but... MacWrite 5.0 wants to run in a partition of 480K. That's fine, but I couldn't run both it and my terminal program at the same time, so I moved it down to 240K. It didn't even complain. It also seemed to get along quite well with MultiFinder. MacWrite 5.0 adds a spelling checker. That's about the only feature I could honestly see. It's a nice spelling checker, having the ability to both check the spelling of the document or to check it as you type. It will beep on any word with an error. I like that -- it makes me look up, but I don't have to spend time telling the computer "Yes, I REALLY mean that." The dictionary seems to be a good size, although it didn't contain my favourite word to throw into text when I'm testing things, "antidisestablishmentarianism." If I make a mistake, all I need to do is tell it to check the word that it beeped about. There's even a command key equivalent, making things even faster. The grumble that I have is that it seems to be added by someone else, kind of like some of the desk-accessories. Which means to actually correct the mistake, it seems to send fake keydown events for backspaces followed by the corrected word. Slow? Not to be believed. The entire spelling checker seems pretty slow, in fact. The only other thing that Claris seems to have done is gone crazy with keyboard equivalences. Way back when, I remember seeing Inside Macintosh with the "standard" keyboard equivalences for Plain Text, Bold, Italic, etc. Plain Text was cloverleaf-P. Works was the first to leave this behind and use cloverleaf-P for printing and use cloverleaf-N for what they called "Normal Text." I grumbled about having to rethink what I called text with no formatting, but it at least made sense. Claris has cloverleaf-P for Print now and they're using cloverleaf-T for Plain Text. Of course. That's what I'd immediately think of for Plain Text. "Read the Macintosh User Interface Guidelines? No thanks, I'm waiting for the movie." In fact, cloverleaf equivalences seem to have been removed, changed, and added at random. Gone are the cloverleaf equivalents for Outline and Shadow. Also gone are the cloverleaf equivalents for Superscript and Subscript. I admit that I don't miss Outline and Shadow one bit, but Superscript and Subscript are things that people use quite a bit, especially for end-noting. Checking spelling for an entire document is done with cloverleaf-=. Command-keys have also been added to Insert Ruler and Hide/Show Ruler (R and H respectively), which is a welcome addition. Command keys were changed for Align Left, Center, and Right. What were once cloverleaf-L,C,and R are now cloverleaf-[,\,and ]. The other one that I thought was a big waste was a command-key for Select All. I think it's necessary to remind Claris that one of the features of the Macintosh is that you have to spend less time memorizing commands. Try to attach some kind of significance to the command letters you choose. Personally, I don't think I need a command-key equivalent for printing or checking spelling for the entire document. I do need RATIONAL ones for the common things I'm doing while I'm typing a document. All in all, it's a nice upgrade to an old friend. But I have new friends now, and I don't think the old friends are anywhere near as good. WriteNow still wins out on the low-end. By the way, Apple/Claris, whatever happened to the old MacWrite 4.6 (supposedly called MacWrite Plus) with the icon bar along the top? Somewhere, I stumbled across this and like to bring it out on occasion. --- "Never knowing who to cling to..." Peter Merchant (merchant@eleazar.UUCP)
macbeth@artecon.UUCP (Beckwith) (02/20/88)
In article <8189@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> merchant@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Peter Merchant) writes:
<
<The only other thing that Claris seems to have done is gone crazy with
<keyboard equivalences. Way back when, I remember seeing Inside Macintosh with
<the "standard" keyboard equivalences for Plain Text, Bold, Italic, etc. Plain
<Text was cloverleaf-P. Works was the first to leave this behind and use
<cloverleaf-P for printing and use cloverleaf-N for what they called "Normal
<Text." I grumbled about having to rethink what I called text with no
<formatting, but it at least made sense. Claris has cloverleaf-P for Print
<now and they're using cloverleaf-T for Plain Text. Of course. That's what
<I'd immediately think of for Plain Text. "Read the Macintosh User Interface
<Guidelines? No thanks, I'm waiting for the movie."
One of the giggles I got while looking at Fullwrite Pro was their use of
clover-K for Strikeout. Maybe I should cross-post this to rec.sports.baseball...
--
+ David Macy-Beckwith Artecon, Inc. {sdcsvax,hplabs}!hp-sdd!artecon!macbeth +
+ The Company has enough on its plate || "I didn't come here to argue!" +
+ without supporting the crazed postings || "Yes, you did!" +
+ of its newsaholic minions. || "No, I didn't!" +