Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma!grahamt
From: grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: 1st Word Plus
Message-ID: <4053@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
Date: 17 Dec 90 17:47:59 GMT
References: <1990Dec14.041723.1996@mailer.cc.fsu.edu>
Organization: SPRU, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Lines: 63

From article <1990Dec14.041723.1996@mailer.cc.fsu.edu>, by boyd@mailer.cc.fsu.edu (Mickey Boyd):
> I understand that 1st Word Plus is a really good 
> product, well supported.  Now that Neocept is history, I just may invest my 
> word processing dollars in this program, since the company is based in 
> britain (and therefore has a chance to survive as an ST developer!!).  If 
> anyone has this guy, a review would be great!!
> 

People at our research unit have been using 1st Word Plus for several
years.  IMHO:

Wordplus is OK, but has not been upgraded as well as it might.  Its
advantages include:

Good easy-to-learn interface; easy setting of common things like bold,
underline, etc.; adequate, extensible spelling checker; .IMG files can
be imported & moved (though not rescaled or resized); handles multiline
footnotes OK (though will not split footnotes across two pages); printer
drivers are quite easily configurable; comes with mail merge program
(separate) and 'snapshot' accessory to capture images if you don't have
a better program to do this; can print multi-columns, but only after
you've finished editing (multi-columns is a mail merge feature!)

Disadvantages include:

Paragraphs are not automatically reformatted when text is inserted or
deleted; no support for multiple fonts; no *proper* support for
half-line spacing; suffers from variations on the 'phantom typist' theme
(worst one is in v3, which sometimes just freezes keyboard & mouse
input, giving you no chance to save); no autosave feature; no thesaurus;
no option to view control codes or spaces (extra spaces at the ends of
lines are significant during reformatting); slow scrolling if you're a
line-at-a-time keyboard-type of person; no outliner.

I'd call it an OK middleweight program getting a bit long in the tooth
now.  Producers GST Software Products make more money out of PC stuff
than ST stuff, so they've neglected to upgrade ST programs recently. 
They do have an upgrade to Timeworks Publisher in the pipeline (though
from what the guy said it's not going to be anything major), and I heard
they showed an improved TT version of Wordplus at a recent show.  I
still use it (in preference to ST WordPerfect), and its easy interface
counts for a lot, but I'm not sure I'd buy it if I were starting from
scratch. 

French people are lucky.  I've seen Le Redacteur v3, and that looks
pretty wonderful.  The document processor Calligrapher is about to be
relaunched in the UK, and that sounds promising.  Apart from that,
Protext has lots of features if you can stand the non-GEM interface;
maybe new (to me) programs like Script, WordFlair or That's Write are
good, and Tempus Word will certainly be fast.  I'd be interested to hear
of any experiences people have had with these programs.  The ST
certainly isn't short of word processors, but few dealers outside
favoured countries like Germany stock many of them, so it's hard to find
out how good they are.

Cheers,

Graham
-- 
Graham Thomas, SPRU, Mantell Building, U of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RF, UK
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