Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!think!ames!oliveb!sun!plaid!chuq From: chuq%plaid@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Word 3.0 evaluation Message-ID: <15152@sun.uucp> Date: Tue, 17-Mar-87 12:14:32 EST Article-I.D.: sun.15152 Posted: Tue Mar 17 12:14:32 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 19-Mar-87 01:05:44 EST References: <2809@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> <1742@druhi.UUCP> <408@hydra.riacs.edu> Sender: news@sun.uucp Reply-To: chuq@sun.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) Organization: Fictional Reality, uLtd Lines: 123 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