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In article <408@hydra.riacs.edu> julian@hydra.riacs.edu.UUCP (Julian E. Gomez) writes:
>In article <1742@druhi.UUCP> clive@druhi.UUCP (Clive Steward) writes:
>> Just wondering about this (relative) slam on FullWrite.
>> 
>> Their ad in March MacUser (the one with *two* reviews of Word) is
>> very, very impressive, at a lower list price.
>
>All right, let's be fair. On March 16 Word 3.0 is a product that has
>been shipped to a number of people, and FullWrite is a series of ads
>in various Mac magazines.  Like many other people, I prefer word
>processors made out of software rather than pieces of glossy paper.
>The former lets me produce text, the latter is fireplace fodder.

To attempt to continue being fair, I'd like to point out a few other things.

On March 16 Word 3.0 is a product that is out on the makert and shipped to a
large number of people.  This product has been glowingly reviews by a number
of magazines.  It has also significantly underwhelmed many of the people who
have used the product, myself included.  It is buggy, many of the features
are ill-thought out and unwieldy (in some cases useless) and there are some
nasty glitches in the user interface.

On the plus side, there is a lot of neat new functionality, it is fast, it
DOES work, mostly, and I wouldn't consider for a moment switching back to
1.05 or any other existing WP. I'm still fumbling through many of the
features, trying to figure out how to really use them well, and I expect
that as I get more used to it, my fumbling will lessen.

My opinion is that Microsoft rushed 3.0 out the door, before it was ready.
I'm hoping that they are already getting 3.05 ready, because they need it,
and I'm not going to be happy until some of the bugs are cleaned up. 

And Fullwrite doesn't exist, except on paper, so for all we know it will
have all these same problems as well.  Or it might be perfect, you never
know, until it is out.

Which is probably what's twitted me off the most on these Word reviews.
They all were written from Beta software (fairly obviously) and discussed
bugs/misfeatures that the reporters hoped would be fixed.  Many weren't.
And I sort of feel many of the glowing reviews came from people who talked
to glowing Microsoft PR people, or from reporters blessed with early copies
and joyous to thank the publisher for them, or something.

Microsoft Word 3.0 is not a bad product.  But it certainly isn't the product
I'm reading about in all the rags.  I think 3.05 might be, but they
certainly didn't ship ME the software all the reviewers are drooling over.

this is a quick list of the problems I know about from reading delphi, here,
and talking to folks (if you don't care, stop now):

o Bombs with ID=84 (purged menu) in short memory situation.  Evidently an
	optimizer went overboard somewhere and set something purgeable they
	shouldn't.

o If you open and close lots of files, Word can hang, forcing a reboot.

o Word leaves lots of temp files in various places (have you looked in your
	System folder recently?)

o the spell checker is primitive, and I think it is buggy -- I've seen it
	let words through that I don't see HOW they could be in the
	dictionary, but I haven't had time to track this. It is not quite
	bad enough for me to re-load Spellswell (a mediocre spellchecker in
	the WP is better than a separate application, but ask me again after
	I get 2 Meg and load them both into switcher) but close.

o the outliner is useless.  Thank god for Acta.

o If you're running a LW, and switch to manual feed, Word STAYS on manual
	feed, rather than switching back to tray feed.  You have to switch
	it back manually.  This is different from every other application
	in the world, and has to be considered a bug.

o I've had it randomly switch back from landscape mode to portrait mode 
	when my back was turned.  Not sure how or why.

o The menu modification is neat, but woefully limited.  You can't add all
	the menu items you might want, especially in the font and style
	areas. foo.  And you can only change certain menus -- if you never
	plan on using the outliner, for instance, you can't pull it from the
	menu.  A neat feature half done.

o They mucked with all the dialog boxes, especially for page setup and
	printing. And they are all so crowded as to be basically impossible
	to read.  Try to bring up Page Setup and quickly see if you are in
	portrait or landscape mode.  Then get asprin for eyestrain.  whoever
	'designed' the dialog boxes has no sense for user interface.
	They're ugly.

o Word isn't just unhelpful if you're trying to use a file format other than
	3.0, it is downright antagonistic.  Since all layout programs need
	to be revised to read the new file format, if you want to import
	into PageMaker or RSG, you need to save stuff in 1.05 format.  When
	you open a 1.05 file, it converts it, and turns it into an Untitled
	file.  When you save it, you have to go in and change the file
	format, then tell it YES DAMMIT I DO WANT TO OVERWRITE THE STUPID
	FILE and then it saves it and TURNS THE WINDOW BACK INTO AN UNTITLED
	WINDOW.  If you save it as a word 1.05 file and then immediately
	close it, it ASKS YOU IF YOU WANT TO SAVE IT. (do this on 15 files,
	one after another, and you can understand why I'm a bit ticked.
	This liturgy gets old, fast).  Why Microsoft doesn't allow a default
	file format to be defined (and WHY won't they remember that I
	clicked the stupid "Make Backup" box?  It is basically useless,
	since I have to remember to use 'save as' to make a backup every
	time.  Once I set it, it should STAY SET.) 

o And yes, converting 1.05 files to 3.0 seems okay, but going the other way
	has problems.  

o I've yet to figure out how to redefine styles, despite their mountains of
	documentation.  Delete the old style, redefine it, and store the new
	version under the old name.  Of course, when you do, any stlyes that
	depend on the style you deleted get mucked up...

o They changed a number of keyboard commands. You now can't get a glossary
	entry without the mouse, since you can't type the glossary name
	and then hit the keystroke to activate it - you now activate the
	glossary and type the glossary name down in the corner.

chuq
Chuq Von Rospach	chuq@sun.COM		[I don't read flames]

There is no statute of limitations on stupidity