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Qued/M 2.5 review

Nisus Software (formerly Paragon) has finally released a 32-bit clean
version of Qued/M, their plain-text (e.g. source-code) editor. On the good
side, the upgrade is inexpensive ($30/copy). On the bad side, the Qued/M
2.5 includes little that is new and is still missing many features of Nisus
(Nisus Software's word processor) that are useful for editing plain text
files.

Improvements in Qued:
- can mark differences in files and help you merge differences into a 3rd
file (haven't tried this, but it sounds very nice)
- can save a file without changing its existing resources (optionally
adding Qued resources if you like)--finally a good way to edit text forks
of any file!
- balloon help (well done, too)
- supports the MPW tool server
- accepts user-written code modules to add functionality
- FINALLY (after years of begging) has a genuine Windows menu
- FINALLY (") has the ability to insert a file at the cursor
- 32-bit clean (why did this take so long?)

Omissions and Misfeatures
- no column editing! Arrgh! (unlike Nisus)
- no Nisus-style easy-grep! Arrgh! (PowerSearch)
- no glossary! Arrgh! (unlike Nisus)
- no multiple selection (unlike Nisus, but somewhat less useful for plain
text)
- text hiding (collapsed text) still has the same old bugs. It has needed a
complete overhaul ever since it was first introduced, but apparently
they've just given up--in fact they left the feature out of Nisus entirely.
- the ability to edit a text fork (preserve resources and file type) is a
global preference. You cannot temporarily override it to work on a single
file. This makes the feature far more difficult to use and dangerous than
it should be.
- many features shared with Nisus still work like old Qued instead of like
Nisus, generally to the detriment of Qued
- the "Catalog" (an alternative to the standard open--which is also
available) always auto-opens on startup--can't turn this off
- menu key equivelents cannot be assigned via Now Utilities' NowMenus (same
as Word and Nisus--and Now Utilities does it so much better!)
- no publish and subscribe

Good Features Shared with Nisus:
- multiple undo
- grep
- macros (ugly but useful)
- user-assignable menu keys
- good handling of multiple windows
- can search unopened files
- probably robust--Qued/M 2.09 certainly was, and Nisus is
- multiple clipboards

The long wait for Qued owners wasn't worth it. When Nisus came out it was
immediately a better text editor than Qued, and that is still true in most
respects. However, Qued has a few useful features missing from Nisus,
including MPW tool server support, collapsed text and the ability to edit
text forks w/out disturbing resources. If you need those features, maybe
you should buy Qued. Otherwise, use Nisus. Nisus is by far the best plain
text editor I have used, and a good word processor as well.

Russell Owen
owen@astro.washington.edu