weems%umass-cs%csnet-relay@sri-unix.UUCP (11/11/83)
From: Charles Weems <weems%umass-cs@csnet-relay>
I have been using Perfect Writer for about 10 months now, on both a
Kaypro II under CP/M-80 and a Columbia MPC under MS-DOS. A good friend of
mine has also been using Mince and Scribble (the two main components of
Final Word) on a Compupro S-100 based system for over a year. Essentially
these are the same thing. The impression I've been given is that some
people from Mark of the Unicorn made an amicable split from the company
to enter the bundled/integrated software market, leaving MOTU to cover
the rest of the software market. Early versions of Perfect Writer were
essentially identical to Mince/Scribble. For example, when Kaypro left
out the configuration program that let users change the size of the
swap file, I was able to figure out how to write my own version of this
by looking at Hex dumps of different sized swap files generated by my
friend's Mince config. (I've since sold my Kaypro, so don't send me requests
for the program -- it was published in the latest issue of KUG News, Box 100,
Malverne NY)
Later versions of the two editors have begun to diverge in the features
offered but they are still very similar. Both editors are limited clones
of EMACS. Having used EMACS for about a year on a VAX I had no trouble at
all just sitting down and using the editor. The commands are very similar.
All of the basic commands are the same and there are some extensions for
convenience. A number of useful commands have been left out, but I find that
I barely miss them. Unlike EMACS there is no provision for extensibility
(no mock-lisp interpreter). With Mince, however, I'm told that you can do
some monkeying around by linking in programs written in BDS C. There is
also no dynamic rebinding of keys in Perfect Writer. The Kaypro version
did allow you to edit a bindings file and run a separate PWBIND program
to rebind key definitions but the Columbia version doesn't have this. These
editors are certainly the most sophisticated that I've seen on a micro. They
allow up to 12 buffers, 2 windows, interwindow moves, a variety of editing
modes (normal, wrap, examine-only, and a vertical oriented mode that's good
for editing columns of numbers or assembly language programs), up to 256K
files and lots of handy commands, and files that are in standard format.
I've been quite pleased with the Perfect Writer editor.
Perfect Formatter and Scribble, on the other hand, have been nothing but
trouble for me. I'm writing a dissertation which is, admittedly, an extreme
test of a formatter (University Microfilms we love you). PF, however, seems
to be designed for more standard documents (business letters and manuals
mostly). If that was all I needed it for, it would be great. It comes with
a whole bunch of predefined formats and styles that let you do common things
with extraordinary ease. The problem is that it isn't flexible enough to
let you define your own esoteric format. Most of the major style parameters
must be set at the start of the document (like line spacing and margins) and
cannot be altered. Nor does it provide for concatenation of documents with
different styles. There is simply no way for me to switch to the alternate
format required for the first page of each chapter in my dissertation. If
you intend to do normal, average formatting jobs, I highly recommend PF or
Scribble. If you are trying to produce camera ready copy for picky journal
editors, forget it.
One nice thing about the perfect pack is that it is well integrated.
Perfect Speller can be called directly from within PW and will then re-enter
the editor to let you make corrections. (although I have to admit that I
liked The Word Plus a little better, just for its more friendly style)
Perfect Calc and Perfect Filer all generate compatible files. If I wanted to
write a business letter with a table from my spreadsheet and send it to people
on a mailing list, this would be the perfect combination. The Columbia even
came with Fast Graphs which can graphically display Perfect Calc tables, and
Perfect Linc which is a pretty good terminal emulator/file transfer system.
(These last two are not from Perfect Software, but are nicely compatible.)
Currently I'm looking into Wordix as a formatter -- I've been told that
it's similar to TROFF. Anybody had experience with it (or Edix?).
chip weems