stores@unix.SRI.COM (Matt Mora) (04/27/89)
Below is a letter I wrote to Jeff Erickson early this morning but my
mailer spits it back at me. (i'm no good at this UNIX stuff)
Since then Richard Scorer also wrote me and asked for more
info so I thought I would post it. Those people at Claris
sure seem to care!
Jeff,
I am the biggest advocate for the new mac Write here at SRI, I'm sorry if
I sounded negative. Before MWII there was no alternitive _but_ to use word.
I heard or read somewherethat MWII was trying to play catch
up with word and that its a litle too much to late. HOW WRONG THEY ARE!
I Love the (editable) multiple columns, Color (I have a mac II),
Psudeo styles (i wish that when I create a newstyle, that the paragraph
parameters would be included. Maybe in version 1.1 :-)), and the way
that it imports files. You don't have to retype the name of the
file that the computer already knows (User interface guidelines).
I love the whole page metaphor. I like to see when one page ends
and the next one begins. I like to see the headers, footers,and footnotes.
In Summary I think that you (guys and/or gals) at Claris did an excellent
job in creating an easy to use but very powerful word processor (one
of the hardest things to develop on a PC. I should know I am also a
developer.) and will still run on a one megabyte mac. It has the best
interface and cleanest design of any word processor for the mac. I think
my mom would even love it. (I think she still uses macwrite 4.5 on her 512)
Thanks for a wonderful product.
Matt Mora
SRI International
P.s. Now if I could only get my money back for Word :-)
________________________________________________________________________
Richard Scorer writes:
<I read you letter on Usenet with interest, having written major parts of
<MacWrite II - I am glad you like our interface, and I am sorry it is crashing
<for you. Is your crash totally reproducible, 100% of the time ?
<If so, we would like to know how you manage this, and if you would be so kind
<as to detail your environment (memory, INITs, etc...) then I will be happy
<to examine the situation and perhaps fix it.
<Come to think of it, even if it is not 100% reproducible I would still be
<interested in how it happens !
<Have you called our tech support people already ?
<Thanks for your response.
<--
< Richard Scorer * UUCP: {ames,apple,portal,sun,voder}!claris!richard
< Claris Corporation * AppleLink: Scorer1 * CompuServe: 74017,344
Yes I called Tech Support and they will send me an upgrade but they said
that they haven't heard of any problems with headers,footers or footnotes.
Here is my environment:
MacII with 2megs
Apple Hi rez color monitor (256 colors)
system 6.0.3
Uni-finder
Running as a Macserve 2.4 disk Server
Installed Inits:
Programmers on line companion
SFVol Init (Ray Lau)
SFScroll init (Andy Herzfeld)
Super clock
Pointer cdev
Responder (apple's Interpoll init)
Dimmer (no longer installed)
Sheild Init (SUM)
Here is a list of the problems I had with MWII.
System Crashes not 100% reproduceable when changing a header/footer.
this happened about 5 times. It crashed so bad that the system bomb
dialog box didn't get drawn. No buttons even!
When footnotes start on one page then get transfered to the other page
by editing changes, it didn't show up. I had to actualy create another
footnote before it showed up again.
This happened only once so far.
When printing some documents (I had five open at once, isn't it wonderful!)
it crashed with an ID error 01. But its probably not MWII fault.I think
its MacServes fault.
There is an anoying problem that is minor with regards to footnotes.
When you create footnotes and they appear at the bottom of the page,
when you go back and edit anything on that page, the footnotes get
redrawn with every key stroke! Like I said its minor but it would be nice
to have a show/hide footnotes menuchoice or something like that.
There are a few more things that came up but I can't remember them now.
I will send you a complete list when I am done with the project I am
working on now with MWII.
I'm using the Savior DA now to make sure that my documents are saved now and
then. (i lost an hours worth on typing with the last header/footer crash.
and i don't like to type.)
Just a few things that i would like to see make it into the
next version.
Include the paragraph parameters when saving a style.
An auto save feature like savior.
Picture Cropping.
The ability to paste a picture in the background. That way I could
scan in the company memo and paste it in the background and fill out
the to:,from: fields right over the picture.
Thanks for listening and for caring. Its programmers like
you that make the Mac the ultimate Computer.
--
___________________________________________________________
Matthew Mora
SRI International stores@SRI.COM
___________________________________________________________mwan@PacBell.COM (Miu Wang) (04/28/89)
A major sore point for me: Claris should provide a way to merge user spelling
dictionaries (for example, the old one from MacWrite 5.0) into the new format
User Dictionary. Also, there should be a way to do mass edits (split, merge,
copy, etc) of the User Dictionary.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Miu Wang 415-867-6476
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This space provided by permission of the Minister of Disinformation...... :-)