qureshi@ocf.berkeley.edu (Mohammad Qureshi) (05/21/91)
Several weeks ago, I asked this group for an evaluation of Wingz versus
Excel.
Below are the responses I recieved pursuant to my request. I hope it will
be of some use.
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I have not used Excel 3.0 at all, and do not have a whole lot of time
to comment at the moment, but here are a few comments:
Excel 3.0 is an attempt to approach the "tool bar" ease of Wingz (and
Full Impact). It is also an attempt to approach the graphing abilities
of Wingz. Excel 3.0 still cannot do a 3-D contour or wireframe plot,
however. There are other things in these areas that Excel still lacks.
On the other hand, Excel now offers style sheets and outlining, two
features that, as of yet have not shown up on Wingz. If these features
are important to you, this is something to consider.
One thing which Wingz has going for it that Excel is not likely to gain is
a scripting/macro language that is readable. Excel, as you know has the
=GOTO(), etc. type of form in its scripts, whereas Wingz is much more similar
to Pascal (as is Full Impact). Due to backwards compatibility issues, this
situation is not likely to change. Wingz's scripting language also allows
complete customization of the menus, dialog boxes, and the function of these.
I have used Wingz quite heavily for the last year or so, and have used Excel
2.2 occasionally. If you have any specific questions, I would be glad to
attempt to answer them, but at the moment I do not have time to say much
more than I've said here. I'm sorry if the above ramblings are not of much
help (I am very pressed for time).
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First off, I can give you some relatively unbiased opinion, since I come from
the same background (i.e., started on IBM with Lotus and later moved to Mac).
Wingz used to have a couple of serious advantages over Excel. Let's do it
this way. Wingz has advantages over Excel 2.2. These are:
Color graphs
3-D graphs
Buttons on the spreadsheet (programmable)
But now Excel 3.0 eliminates those differences. Excel 3.0 also has some really
cool new features that I've never seen before:
Auto-total (go to a cell, click on a button, and it automatically
totals that column!)
Linked subtotals and totals (hard to describe, but nice to have)
Spreadsheet scribbling (want to put an arrow pointing to an important
cell? Now you can do it!)
And a few other things. If you're familiar with Windows, Excel 3.0 will be
very comfortable to you. It is based upon Microsoft's Excel for Windows, so
the two platforms are virtually identical. Also, being able to use the mouse
for navigation and selection is unbelievably easier than Lotus' method. There
are subtle differences in formula syntax, but it won't take long to learn them.
Aside from all that, I can't think of much else to tell you. Excel 3.0 is also
compatible with System 7, right down to recognizing AppleEvents, so when the
next version of Word comes out (I expect it to be real soon now), hot links
between the two will be even better than they are now (right now there are warm
links...you have to tell Word that the Excel info has changed).
Hope this helps!
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I used to own Wingz 1.1, but now I own Excel 3.0.
Wingz's macro (called Hyperscript) is much more powerful than Excel's.
It is better than macro capability of Excel 3.0, and it eats up 2.2's
macro for lunch. If you are a programmer type, especially who has
programmed in Hypercard before, you should feel at home with Wingz's
macro.
However, Wingz's user interface is god-awful. While I usually don't mind
hierarchical menu, Wingz went far too much with it: finding a right menu
command takes a long time due to the complex menu structure.
One minor thing that I find Wingz cumbersome is that when you insert a
row or column, the format turns to default. Excel, howerver, would try
to retain the format that was applied in near-by regions. Having to
reformat the rows whenever I insert a row bothered me a lot.
Copying a chart from Wingz was also bothersome. Due to some kind of bug,
I had to apply two extra commands every time when I wanted to copy a
chart to other applications such as word processors. I won't go into
details, but let's just say that it was the last straw that made me sell
my copy of Wingz.
Wingz used to be much more powerful in graphs than Excel. Wingz's
graphics is still better than Excel 3.0's, but the gap has narrowed. For
example, Excel 3.0 is still not able to handle 3-D wireframe charts, but
it can handle other types of 3-D charts such as bar or columns.
Of course, the fact that all other people that I know use Excel plays a
role, too. If I liked Wingz significantly better than Excel, I would
have used Wingz, but it is not the case here. (I own both MacWrite II
and Word. Although all other people use Word, I spend 90% of word
processing time with MacWrite II because I prefer it over Word.)
Here are some things that you should know about Excel 3.0.
* Graphs can be incorporated into spreadsheet. Old way of having
separate files for chart is retained, though. I like having both
options because sometimes I only need to print out charts.
* There is a tool bar in the screen. It looks very similar with "ribbon"
feature in Word for Windows.
* As I mentioned earlier, 3-D charts are available.
* Macro language has been revamped. Block-If statements are possible
now.
* It is system 7 "savvy" application, incorporating balloon help and
publish/subscribe features.
* A program that can solve non-linear and linear programming is
included. For me, that alone was worth $120 that I paid for educational
version of Excel.
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Mohammad Qureshi qureshi@ocf.berkeley.edu
Institute of Transportation Studies