🚀 go-pugleaf

I got some new toys this week and thought I pass on the comments.  First
is on Andy Hertzfeld's QuickerGraf (was QuickerDraw).  It was uploaded
to Compurserve Monday and I downloaded it Tuesday.  It is a combination
CDEV/INIT in one file so you put it in your folder and reboot.  It is
designed to speed up 8-bit mode on Mac IIs only, so it's a waste of time
of you don't use 8-bit mode (256 colors) on your Mac II.  From the
control panel you have two options you can set, one to enable QuickerGraf
and the other to let you disable QuickerGraf whenever you have the Caps
Lock key down.

Whether you notice any speedup or not depeneds alot on what your doing.
If you drawing you will notice a speedup.  For example, with Giffer 1.0,
drawings that took over a second to draw would with QuickerGraf take
about 1/4 of a second (timings are obviously approximate).  You'll
notice less of a speed-up with text windows.

The name change, btw, is courtesy of Apple's Legal department.  They
claim QuickerDraw is too close to the trademarked QuickDraw and Andy
didn't want to fight them.  

I also got this week Claris's upgrades to MacPaint and MacWrite.  For
$25 each, Apple has finally managed to come up with a reasonably priced
upgrade (:-).  Somebody else wrote about the demo version and the same
comments apply to the real thing.  The spelling checker is slow, even
on a Mac II, it takes 5 to 10 seconds (or more) just to start up.  It
was written by somebody else, see the About MacWrite box for details.
One good point about the spelling checker is it does do a good job
of finding corrections for the misspelled word.  By comparison, WriteNow
often can't find any correction for words it should find and the word
has to be re-misspelled to get it to come up with a correction.
It also supports a check as you write mode, but I didn't try it since
with my typeing abilities the machine would sound like a pinball machine
from all the misspellings.  MacWrite is still limited to one file open at 
time, and it takes you two commands (close then open) to get to a new file.  

While MacWrite hasn't changed much (except for the spelling checker),
MacPaint does at least look new.  The changes are noticable even when
you start MacPaint, the old tool palette is gone and is now a tear-off
menu.  The MacPaint window now has the standard scroll bars and zoom
box and fills up the screen (except for a space for the Trash Can).
New features include the ability to zoom in and out up to 8 times.
Fat Bits still exists, but you can choose the size.  There is a ruler
window that shows you the current mouse position in various units
(inchs, centimeters, etc.)  An options window lets you decide to save
the position of the tear-off menus, as well as various defaults for
things.  Still only black and white, however.  

The upgrades include new manuels in all new Claris packaging.  If
you got your MacWrite and MacPaint for free it's probably worth the
$25 each to get the upgrade (unless you never use them at all).



Jerry Whitnell				Been through Hell?
Communication Solutions, Inc.		What did you bring back for me?
						- A. Brilliant