pfrennin@altos86.Altos.COM (Peter Frenning) (05/27/90)
In article <45720@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bose@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Bhaskar Bose) writes: > >I am considering purchasing a word processor for windows. The choices are: >AMI, AMI Professional, or MS Word for Windows. I am looking for a word >processor that isjust as easy to use for short one page memos, as well as >large documents. The word processor should be simple to use, but still be full >featured (spell checker, index generation, etc). Any comments would be >helpfull. Thanks in advance. Go for Ami Professional, it's available for 3.0, it's full featured as per above and much more, it's fast, and it's very easy to use. +-------------------------------------------------+---------------------------+ |Peter Frenning, Altos Computer Systems, San Jose | ***** TANSTAAFL ***** | |2641 Orchard Parkway, San Jose, CA 95134 | There Ain't No Such Thing | |pfrennin@Altos.COM (..!uunet|sun!altos!pfrennin) | As A Free Lunch (Heinlein)| +-------------------------------------------------+---------------------------+
wargopl@image.soe.clarkson.edu (Peter L. Wargo) (05/27/90)
From article <3378@altos86.Altos.COM>, by pfrennin@altos86.Altos.COM (Peter Frenning): > In article <45720@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bose@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Bhaskar Bose) writes: >> > >I am considering purchasing a word processor for windows. The choices are: > >AMI, AMI Professional, or MS Word for Windows. I am looking for a word > >processor that isjust as easy to use for short one page memos, as well as > >large documents. The word processor should be simple to use, but still be full > >featured (spell checker, index generation, etc). Any comments would be > >helpfull. Thanks in advance. > Go for Ami Professional, it's available for 3.0, it's full featured as > per above and much more, it's fast, and it's very easy to use. I disagree. If you have a fast enough machine (16MHz+), I recommend Word for Windows. As both a professional writer and a graphics layout person, I haven't found a better tool than WfW. (p.s. Anybody see something wrong with the style of my previous sentence?) (Blame it on 4am...) Pete -- Peter L. Wargo - wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu, amoung others... "I don't believe it - I just spent 4 years at an expensive university- and I end up as a top-40 DJ..."
spage@cup.portal.com (S spage Page) (05/27/90)
It depends how sophisticated you are, what your needs are, etc. Right out of the box, Ami Pro is easier to use than Word for Windows. Both support style sheets. WfW goes beyond in having an excellent programming language in which you can write really powerful macros, and in its notion of template documents which bundle text, style sheet, macros, and field capability (fill-in and calculated). All this may not mean much to you if you don't do a lot of repetitive work, but for an organization that wants to invest in it, WfW provides the hooks to revolutionize and standardize the way documents are developed. You can draw directly in Ami Pro. WfW has nifty annotation/revision capabilities (someone else can non- destructively mark-up your document). I think Ami Pro lacks this. WfW is very close to Macintosh Word (except for its macro language). Both WfW and Ami Pro can save in RTF (Rich Text Format). Skip Ami unless you're desperate to save money, and go straight for Ami Pro. Ultimately, it's your decision. These are both huge great wonderful complex frustrating programs. *** DON'T TRUST any magazine review of them, because it takes weeks-months-years to really come to grips with either. Hence ignore my comments, since I only spent a few days perusing Ami Pro and WfW. I decided to stick with (non-Windows) Word 5.0 because WfW under Windows 2.1 had memory problems with my very complex documents, and recommended that others in my company use WfW because of its family relationships with Word 5.0, and Mac Word. But I notice that several people rebelled and use Ami Pro instead because it's cleaner and easier at first. Have fun, don't lose too much sleep over the decision :-) =S Page P.S. Anyone else kicking themselves for not putting every spare cent into Microsoft stock? With hindsight, a company with quality products on every platform, that's written two of those platforms, and writes the programming languages and networking as well... WILL SOON TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!
bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson) (05/27/90)
In article <30244@cup.portal.com> spage@cup.portal.com (S spage Page) writes: > >WfW is very close to Macintosh Word (except for its macro language). Both >WfW and Ami Pro can save in RTF (Rich Text Format). I use Mac Word at work, WfW at home, and just disposed of my Word for DOS. Mac Word, while graphically oriented, has the power of Word for DOS and IMHO is well behind WfW. I suspect an upgrade for Mac Word to incorporate the newer features of WfW will be coming soon. For simple quick notes, I use to use MS Write (over Word for DOS), but now use WfW for all my short one pagers. Bruce --------------- Signature Block ---------------
akm@comix.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) (05/28/90)
In article <30244@cup.portal.com> spage@cup.portal.com (S spage Page) writes: >WfW is very close to Macintosh Word (except for its macro language). Actually, WFW can do a bunch of things that Mac word can't, like sequence fields, bookmarks and so on. I got really frustrated going back to word on the mac. So, I guess Micorsoft will come out with another upgrade, which will hopefully fix the incompatibility mentioned below. >Both WfW and Ami Pro can save in RTF (Rich Text Format). It is the ability to read and write RTF that makes WfW and MacWord compatible with each other. Unfortunaely, the compatibility does not go as far as graphics embedded in WfW files. So, if you use RTF to convert between WfW and Macword, the resulting on the Mac file has no graphics. Microsoft's documentation on the WfW end is very misleading on this point, as I learnt to my cost. >my comments, since I only spent a few days perusing Ami Pro and WfW. I >decided to stick with (non-Windows) Word 5.0 because WfW under Windows 2.1 >had memory problems with my very complex documents, and recoxDmmended that >others in my company use WfW because of its family relationships with Word >5.0, and Mac Word. But I notice that several people rebelled and use Ami Pro >instead because it's cleaner and easier at first. I use WFW on a 386 w 4Meg and 9 meg of swapdisk (Win3), and it runs like a charm. It was uhappy on 286 2.10, as well as 386 2.11, though less unhappy on 386 2.11. The demo version that MS ships, which I tried out at a local store, would frequently run out of memory. I think a lot of this has to do with Word Basic, and I wish that MS had made wordbasic a seperate module, which was loaded only when required. kartik ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anant Kartik Mithal akm@cs.uoregon.edu Department of Computer Science akm@oregon.BITNET University of Oregon
wallwey@snoopy.Colorado.EDU (WALLWEY DEAN WILLIAM) (05/29/90)
In article <1990May27.080939.18019@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> wargopl@image.soe.clarkson.edu (Peter L. Wargo) writes: <stuff deleted> > > If you have a fast enough machine (16MHz+), I recommend >Word for Windows. As both a professional writer and a graphics layout >person, I haven't found a better tool than WfW. >(p.s. Anybody see something wrong with the style of my previous sentence?) >(Blame it on 4am...) > >Pete > >-- >Peter L. Wargo - wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu, amoung others... >"I don't believe it - I just spent 4 years at an expensive university- > and I end up as a top-40 DJ..." I agree with Pete. I just got Microsoft's $9.95 dollar demo of Word for Windows. In it you can actually use a very limited version of the program. Let me put it this way----I am a 5 year Word Perfect junky and after playing around with this demo this past weekend (in windows version 2.1 on a 10MHz mono EGA 286), Word Perfect will probably never be used again in my house once I can actually afford to buy Word for Windows!!!! I don't know much about the AMI word processors though but I hear they also are very good! I also have to admit that I use on occasion a Mac so I am familiar with how Microsoft Word for the Mac works which is a lot like the Windows version. [The windows version is actually better, but considerably slower!] On another note, after seeing Windows 3.0 in the store and now after reading the information I got on it included in my update notice, I am cured of Mac-Envey and can even go so far as to say that Windows 3.0 is as good as(if not better than) Motif for X-windows! [X-windows as far as I know doesn't have proportional fonts]. My $0.02 worth....maybe less.... Dean Wallwey
gardiner@cs.umn.edu (David Gardiner) (05/29/90)
In article <7343@fy.sei.cmu.edu> bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson) writes: >Mac Word, while graphically oriented, has the power of Word for DOS and IMHO >is well behind WfW. I suspect an upgrade for Mac Word to incorporate the I heard from someone in Microsoft that WfW has been their focus for a couple of years and that all of the neat new stuff in Mac Word 4.0 was originally developed for WfW. David -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- David Gardiner University of Minnesota Computer Science Dept. gardiner@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu
gardiner@cs.umn.edu (David Gardiner) (05/29/90)
One nice thing about Ami Pro is that it is more visually oriented than WfW. Everything is WYSIWYG (ok, ok, WYSIWYGMoreOrLess). This means you don't have to keep going to preview mode since everything is done in preview mode. Adding a running header, for example, involves simply typing in the top or bottom margin. I have to agree with a previous posting, though, that both Ami Prof or WfW are complex programs and using them effectively takes a LONG time to learn. David -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- David Gardiner University of Minnesota Computer Science Dept. gardiner@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu
gustwick@wf-aus.cactus.org (Bob Gustwick ) (05/30/90)
spage@cup.portal.com (S spage Page) writes: > WfW is very close to Macintosh Word (except for its macro language). Both > WfW and Ami Pro can save in RTF (Rich Text Format). except that Word for Mac is more compatible w/ Word 5.0 than WFW is w/ Word 5.0. > I > decided to stick with (non-Windows) Word 5.0 because WfW under Windows 2.1 > had memory problems with my very complex documents, and recommended that > others in my company use WfW because of its family relationships with Word > 5.0, and Mac Word. But I notice that several people rebelled and use Ami Pro > instead because it's cleaner and easier at first. WFW and Word 5.0 are not compatible. even on simple documents WFW will paginate differently than WFW... on more complex documents, especially w/ style sheets, WFW may produce output that not only is not similar to Word 5.0 output, but is completely unrecognizable. don't get me wrong, WFW is great for producing brand spankin new documents... especially if you don't want to attach your word 5.0 style sheets. but if you have a bunch of old documents on your hard disk and you'd like to view/print them in the future, be sure not to throw away word 5.0. w/o word 5.0, your old documents will be useless. ...bob
gustwick@wf-aus.cactus.org (Bob Gustwick ) (05/30/90)
bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson) writes: > In article <30244@cup.portal.com> spage@cup.portal.com (S spage Page) writes: > > I use Mac Word at work, WfW at home, and just disposed of my Word for DOS. > Mac Word, while graphically oriented, has the power of Word for DOS and IMHO > is well behind WfW. I suspect an upgrade for Mac Word to incorporate the > newer features of WfW will be coming soon. don't be too certain. when i called to complain about WFW <--> Word 5.0 compatibility i mentioned that word for mac seemed more compatible w/ word 5.0 than WFW did. responce from several different people in the WFW group was that they didn't have any idea what the word for mac people were doing. "We don't talk to those guys, they are upstairs" was the typical responce. as far as i can see, there is no real effort (other than RTF (which is not the same on the Mac as it is on the PC) (and may not even move things well between WFW <--> word 5.0)) to make all the Words compatible. i expected to be able to take my documents from WFW, Word for Mac, and Word 5.0 w/o a hitch... balderdash. they are all different. Word 5.0 and Word for Mac seem to be the closest cousins. you might suggest that i'm not using the same printer driver w/ all the versions and that that might screw me up... but i'll bet you that if you take a standard business letter, produced w/ a style from the microsoft press published book "microsoft word style sheets" by rinearson & woodcock, and print it w/ word for mac, word for windows, and word 5.0, all using the apple laserwriter postcript driver, that you will get different results. ok, maybe word for mac and word 5.0 will be similar, but word for windows has a 50/50 chance of just being screwed up, or being completely unrecognizeable. when i have complained to microsoft about WFW <--> word 5.0 incompatibility, there was first denial re: my claims... when i substantiated my claims, i was told that i should be willing to live w/ the incompatibilities in exchange for the the new wonderous WFW capabilities... i don't agree. as i've said before, i like WFW. i create all my new stuff in WFW. but i keep word 5.0 around for viewing/printing older stuff... or if i want to use any of the rinearson/woodcock style sheets... these were a godsend when i first found them, and i don't recommend using word 5.0 w/o them. i'm just dissappointed that i can't use word 5.0 to create documents on my laptop, and then use WFW to do the final preview/graphics inclusion prior to printing on my deskjet. the two programs are just too different. i haven't tried works yet, but i bet i'll have an easier time moving documents between works <--> WFW than i do word 5.0 <--> WFW. ...bob
jeff@samna.UUCP (Jeff Barber) (05/30/90)
In article <21617@boulder.Colorado.EDU> wallwey@snoopy.Colorado.EDU (WALLWEY DEAN WILLIAM) writes: >On another note, after seeing Windows 3.0 in the store and now after >reading the information I got on it included in my update notice, I am >cured of Mac-Envey and can even go so far as to say that Windows 3.0 is >as good as(if not better than) Motif for X-windows! [X-windows as far as >I know doesn't have proportional fonts]. Slight correction: X-windows *does* have proportional fonts. In fact, for X11R3 (the minimum that most people now have), Adobe and Bitstream donated several font families to the X world including Times, Helvetica, Courier, Charter, and New Century Schoolbook, each in several different sizes; these are all proportionally spaced. In addition to this, several fixed pitch fonts are provided. Jeff
bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson) (05/30/90)
In article <P0eZJ1w161w@wf-aus.cactus.org> gustwick@wf-aus.cactus.org (Bob Gustwick ) writes: >spage@cup.portal.com (S spage Page) writes: > >> WfW is very close to Macintosh Word (except for its macro language). Both >> WfW and Ami Pro can save in RTF (Rich Text Format). >except that Word for Mac is more compatible w/ Word 5.0 than >WFW is w/ Word 5.0. This matches my experience, as I use WordMac at work and Word 5.0 at home, and have converted over to WfW. >WFW and Word 5.0 are not compatible. even on simple documents >WFW will paginate differently than WFW... on more complex >documents, especially w/ style sheets, WFW may produce output that >not only is not similar to Word 5.0 output, but is completely >unrecognizable. You need to move/adapt the style sheets to WFW. Without the style sheets, of course, output can be drastically different. This is not a problem with WfW or an incompatibility at the document level. There is a lot of power in style sheets, just like in macros, and everything has to be moved to the new system. I've had no real problems. >>hard disk and you'd like to view/print them in the future, be sure >not to throw away word 5.0. w/o word 5.0, your old documents >will be useless. Nah, too strong a conclusion and certainly not true. For a power user who has used every last trick of the system moving to a new system is always tough. I've tossed my Word 5.0 to save the space, have a couple hundred documents with a few involved style sheets, and have never once considered reloading Word 5.0 to print or update an old document. Doing adaption and making adjustments help one to learn the new system. A new system *always* results in some temporary loss of productivity as an individual adapts. Maybe one day the system will adapt to the individual. Bruce
bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson) (05/30/90)
In article <e4FZJ2w161w@wf-aus.cactus.org> gustwick@wf-aus.cactus.org (Bob Gustwick ) writes: >don't be too certain. when i called to complain about WFW <--> Word 5.0 >compatibility i mentioned that word for mac seemed more compatible w/ >word 5.0 than WFW did. responce from several different people >in the WFW group was that they didn't have any idea what the >word for mac people were doing. "We don't talk to those guys, they >are upstairs" was the typical responce. The Words (Mac, PC, WfW) are too similiar for this to be an accurate picture for what is going on at Microsoft, but I don't doubt you may have gotten this kind of answer. >things well between WFW <--> word 5.0)) to make all the Words compatible. >i expected to be able to take my documents from WFW, Word for Mac, >and Word 5.0 w/o a hitch... balderdash. they are all different. >Word 5.0 and Word for Mac seem to be the closest cousins. >that if you take a standard business letter, produced w/ a style >from the microsoft press published book "microsoft word style sheets" >will be similar, but word for windows has a 50/50 chance of just >being screwed up, or being completely unrecognizeable. >i substantiated my claims, i was told that i should be willing >to live w/ the incompatibilities in exchange for the the new >wonderous WFW capabilities... i don't agree. The most recent product will always have the latest and greatest features. That is probably why you bought it. (It may also be the buggiest, esp. if it is an x.0 version.) I'll opt for the newer features over compatibility, because as you mentioned you can always use the old version. Keeping 100% compatibility pretty much guarantees a software engineering nightmare, and a buggy product. >word 5.0 w/o them. i'm just dissappointed that i can't use word 5.0 >to create documents on my laptop, and then use WFW to do the final >preview/graphics inclusion prior to printing on my deskjet. the two Agreed. What MS needs is a small version of WfW for laptops, instead of trying to make word5.0 do the job. I use MS write as my small version, but of course it doens't have style sheets, etc.. Bruce
wallwey@snoopy.Colorado.EDU (WALLWEY DEAN WILLIAM) (05/31/90)
I have just a few more comments about Word For Windows--- Remember we all are comparing WFW version 1.0 to Words 5.0 and Word Perfects 5.X.....There are bound to be some bugs and inconsistencies. I still would take WFW's first try over the others 5th try any day! I personaly think WFW is destined for great success....Has anybody tryed it running under MS Windows 3.0? Is there much difference? -Dean Wallwey
jeffmu@microsoft.UUCP (Jeff MUZZY) (05/31/90)
[Comments about Preview mode and Ami always being in preview mode deleted]
Word for Windows has PageView mode {VIEW PAGE} which will keep you in a
preview mode. You will see text flow around graphics and objects. You
will see header/footers and footnotes in their correct positions.
This can be used as default view.
Jeff Muzzy
Tech Lead for WfW 1.0 Test group.
--
jeffmu@microsoft or uunet!microsoft!jeffmu MaBellNet: (206) 882-8080
<Insert your favorite disclaimer about opinions and companies here>akm@comix.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) (05/31/90)
In article <21701@boulder.Colorado.EDU> wallwey@snoopy.Colorado.EDU (WALLWEY DEAN WILLIAM) writes: >I personaly think WFW is destined for great success....Has anybody >tryed it running under MS Windows 3.0? Is there much difference? A huge difference, though I haven't tried to quantify it as yet. I haven't run out of memory yet on my m/c, which is 386/4MB. I used to run out of memory with win 2.11.... kartik ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anant Kartik Mithal akm@cs.uoregon.edu Department of Computer Science akm@oregon.BITNET University of Oregon
gyugyi@portia.Stanford.EDU (Paul Gyugyi) (05/31/90)
WFW lets you use 'preview mode'. but only full-size. Ami will squish the page down to fit in my window, or at whatever magnification I want. I have a bruise from banging my head against the wall trying to get WFW to do likewise. -Paul Gyugyi gyugyi@hotstuff.stanford.edu
jmerrill@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Confusion Reigns) (06/02/90)
In article <1990May31.062241.28241@portia.Stanford.EDU> gyugyi@portia.Stanford.EDU (Paul Gyugyi) writes: >WFW lets you use 'preview mode'. but only full-size. I assume you are talking about "View Page" mode. > Ami will squish the page down to fit in my window, Try "File print preView" in WFW sometime. > or at whatever magnification I want. True, WFW won't do that. > I have a bruise from banging my head against the wall >trying to get WFW to do likewise. Not very productive, was it? I generally use the keyboard when I'm trying to get my computer to do something. :) -- Jason Merrill jmerrill@jarthur.claremont.edu
gustwick@wf-aus.cactus.org (Bob Gustwick ) (06/02/90)
bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson) writes: > >WFW and Word 5.0 are not compatible. even on simple documents > >WFW will paginate differently than WFW... on more complex > >documents, especially w/ style sheets, WFW may produce output that > >not only is not similar to Word 5.0 output, but is completely > >unrecognizable. > > You need to move/adapt the style sheets to WFW. Without the > style sheets, of course, output can be drastically different. This is not > a problem with WfW or an incompatibility at the document level. There is > a lot of power in style sheets, just like in macros, and everything has > to be moved to the new system. I've had no real problems. i did move the style sheets. most worked.... however, several documents were screwed up beyond all recognition. ie: side by side columns switched sides of the page serendipidously. > >>hard disk and you'd like to view/print them in the future, be sure > >not to throw away word 5.0. w/o word 5.0, your old documents > >will be useless. > > Nah, too strong a conclusion and certainly not true. For a power user > who has used every last trick of the system moving to a new system is > always tough. I've tossed my Word 5.0 to save the space, have a couple agreed. my frustration has not really been because there are incompatibilites, but because Microsoft representatives claimed that there were none. i called Microsoft as soon as i loaded my first document, and stared in disbelief at what i saw. my question was 'what migration tools or hints do you have for word 5.0 to word for windows users?' the reply i got was that no migration was needed, because everything worked perfectly. after several phone calls, i finally got someone to admit that style sheets had changed from word 5.0 to WFW. in word 5.0 there are three categories of styles: character, paragraph, and document. in WFW there is only one type of style: paragraph. the word 5.0 --> WFW conversion changes the character styles to direct formatting, uses the paragraph styles as you would expect, and kind of sort of sets default document parameters according to the document style. (you don't have more than one document style in your style sheet do you?) after sending a disk of document examples to microsoft, i got a nice letter explaining that yes, there were some differences, but i should find the new features so splendiferous that i shouldn't mind the changes. perhaps. but i should have been warned from the start. i shouldn't have been told over and over that the two words were completely compatible, and that there are no migration problems. an appendix explaining such things would have been nice. one of the kind people i talked to in customer support suggested that if enough people complain about compatibility, then perhaps the software designers would do something about it. i suggest that anyone seeing similar problems complain. i can understand some of the new nifty stuff in WFW not moving to the other words... such as the fields, templates, and macros. but features that all the words claim to support such as directly formatted text, indirectly formatted text (style sheets), and included graphic images should move seemlessly between them all. i loaded all the conversion filters w/ WFW and was surprised to find that there was no converter for Word for Mac to WFW. you must save your word for mac document in RTF or word for dos format from mac word *before* moving it to a PC. heaven help you if you thought that you could read a mac disk on your PC w/ a CopyII PC option board and load that file into Word for Windows. ideally i should be able to have a TOPS network that has low end PC's running word 5.0, higher end PC's running WFW, and Mac's running word for mac. all the machines should be able to load each other's word files, and all should be able to print to a networked laserwriter and get the same results. if one were to restrict oneself to features that seem to be implemented similarly across all words, one couldn't use style sheets or graphics. and it is likely that the same file printed w/ each WFW and Word 5.0 to the same networked laserwriter will still look different. perhaps the look and feel of the words is similar. perhaps some amount of data can be moved between them. but they aren't compatible. it occurs to me that PC Word 2.0 features are probably pretty common to all the Words... if i remember correctly there were no style sheets or graphics back then... in all my letters and calls to microsoft product support, i always talked to kind well-meaning people. they offered what help they could. but even when i sent a disk of WFW screwups, i was never told that any of my problems were their problems... problem reports were never opened, and there were never any replies such as 'thank you, that will be fixed in the next release.' instead i've been told that i should work around things. i work around things by using word 5.0. ...bob
bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson) (06/04/90)
In article <PF65J1w161w@wf-aus.cactus.org> gustwick@wf-aus.cactus.org (Bob Gustwick ) writes: >i did move the style sheets. most worked.... however, several >documents were screwed up beyond all recognition. ie: side by side >columns switched sides of the page serendipidously. You must use more involved style sheets than I do. I have not tried to print any of my side by sides. I'll have to look into it. >in all my letters and calls to microsoft product support, i always >talked to kind well-meaning people. they offered what help they >could. but even when i sent a disk of WFW screwups, i was >never told that any of my problems were their problems... problem >reports were never opened, and there were never any replies such as >'thank you, that will be fixed in the next release.' instead i've >been told that i should work around things. i work around things >by using word 5.0. Microsoft doesn't seem to be in to admitting problems. When win 2.0 (?) came out, Write had a problem where if you did a quick save (alt-file-save), the hard disk access light would go on, write would show a xxx bytes saved, but in actuality nothing was saved. My letter to MS came back with a reply to use alt-file-save-as. This is in contrast to Borland. When I stumbled over a problem in Quattro (randomly encrypting my files) they asked for example files and then later sent me a free upgrade (I didn't ask for it). To get a fix for Write, I had to buy the 2.01 (or 2.1, I forget) upgrade. The experiences seem similar enough that it sounds like a company policy on handling bug reports. I suspect they do track the problems, but just won't admit it. Bugs they probably work on to be fixed in the next release, but other complaints (compatability) they probably wait for a critical mass of letters/calls before deciding on any change in policy. If it only affects a few power users (who don't write columns for a national publication) they will probably not worry about it. Bruce Bruce Benson + Internet - bwb@sei.cmu.edu + + Software Engineering Institute + Compuserv - 76226,3407 + >--|> Carnegie Mellon University + Voice - 412 268 8496 + + Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890 + + US Air Force