pugh@cornell.UUCP (01/27/87)
I've run into a major bug in WriteNow that prevents me from using it for any
serious word processing, and wanted to let the net know about it.
The problem is that it places the first line of text on a page at a random
distance down from the top of the page. To see this problem, select a
paragraph which crosses page boundaries. Increase the line spacing of the
paragraph a point at a time until the last line on the first page is forced
onto the second page. Notice that the new line is positioned at a different
distance down from the top of the second page than the old page had been.
Apparently, the distance between the last line on a page and
the bottom of the page effects the distance between the top of the next page
and the position of the first line on that page. While I can see how they
might have programmed it that way by accident, I can't see any reason why you
would want this feature. Even in a document which only has a single line
spacing, the randomness is cumulative, so that the position of the first line
of every page is different.
I talked to T/Maker today, and they said that they were aware of this
behavior, but had not considered it a problem. I told them that I thought it
was a serious problem and considered WriteNow unusable until it was fixed. They
said they would keep me informed but had not yet made plans to fix the problem.
They suggested that by changing such things as the page wrap factor and the
height of the headers and footers I might be able to find a combination which
minimizes the problem. While this might be possible, I don't consider it an
acceptable work-around because it wouldn't work if any pictures larger than
the line height were used.
Perhaps its a personal fixation, but I think documents don't look very
professional when the first line of each page starts in a different location.
Its a shame because I really like WriteNow and would like to make serious use
of it and it should be simple to fix the problem. I'm not sure how seriously
T/Maker will take my complaint since I'm just one user; I'm sure they will get
around to it in the next release but that might be a few months.
If you find that this is a serious problem for you which prevents you from
using WriteNow, I urge you to call T/Maker and let them know that you consider
it to be currently unusable. Hopefully if a lot of people feel this is a
serious problem, they will be encouraged to find a work-around, patch or make
a swift release of a new version which fixes the bug. The phone number for
T/Maker is (415)962-0195, and they're on California time. If I hear any news
about a fix I'll keep the net informed.
--
Bill Pugh
Cornell University
..{uw-beaver|vax135}!cornell!pugh
607-255-4934/257-6994