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Article #6239Re: MacAuthor Review (long)
From: Lennart Augustsson
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1986 01:46
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1986 01:46
50 lines
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2862 bytes
Some more points and comments on MacAuthor:
In article <694@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU> korn@pavepaws.UUCP (Peter "Arrgh" Korn) writes:
> 1) You cannot change font from within a paragraph.
You can change font by defining your own "highlight" style (under the Text
menu), and you can give this command a command character so you don't have
to pull down a menu to change the font as you have to in MacWrite.
> 3) All paragraphs below the one you are currently editing disappear from the
>screen, and only re-appear during the above-mentioned pause, during which the
>words are recounted. This one is a biggie!
Agreed!! This is really annoying.
> 4) I get the impression that one can do with headings what MacAuthor allows
>you to do with Paragraphs; ie.: set up "heading scripts". I don't know for sure
>b/c I refuse to look it up in the manual (you should *never* need a manual with
>a non-database macintosh program), and I can't figure out how to invoke it (if
>it does indeed exist).
You can.
> 5) The mac-like interface isn't as mac-like as it could be. For instance, I
>should have an I-beam whenever I'm over the text of the document; there is no
>"about MacAuthor" option under the Apple menu, ...
There is an About MacAuthor when there are no windows, but it doesn't give
much information.
>
> 6) Because of all the many things that it's doing (keeping track of the page
>length, number of words, etc. etc.), editing is just a tad slow.
Sometimes, e.g. when moving the cursor, MacAuthor is unbelievably slow.
>
>And, of course, the bugs:
>
> 3) MacAuthor is copy protected. Version 5.2 of CopyIIMac (the latest,
>as of this review) won't copy it.
But not unbreakable.
Further bugs..
The watch cursor is sometimes lost and replaced by some random pattern
(probably due to some handle dereferencing).
Summary:
Of the wordprocessors/layout systems I have tested on the Mac (MacWrite,
Word, PageMaker, and MacPublisher) I like MacAuthor the best. The low
speed is its biggest drawback.
--
Any resemblance of the opinions above to real opinions, living or dead,
is purely coincidential.
Lennart Augustsson
UUCP: {seismo,philabs,decvax}!mcvax!enea!chalmers!augustss
ARPA,CSnet: augustss@chalmers.csnet
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Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!ut-sally!seismo!mcvax!enea!chalmers!augustss From: augustss@chalmers.UUCP (Lennart Augustsson) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac Subject: Re: MacAuthor Review (long) Message-ID: <609@chalmers.UUCP> Date: Wed, 25-Jun-86 21:46:15 EDT Article-I.D.: chalmers.609 Posted: Wed Jun 25 21:46:15 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jun-86 09:43:09 EDT References: <694@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: augustss@chalmers.UUCP (Lennart Augustsson) Organization: Dept. of CS, Chalmers, Sweden Lines: 50