Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!peregrine!elroy!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!TRINCC.BITNET!REWING
From: REWING@TRINCC.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: AppleWorks GS
Message-ID: <8810291344.aa12357@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Date: 29 Oct 88 18:45:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: SMOKE.8810291344.aa12357
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
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For those of you that are interested, CLaris tells us that AppleWorks GS
just went "Golden Master" last week, and should be in the stores sometime
the first week of November.  The beta copy is still a little buggy,
but the release we're told is very stable.  A quick rundown:

The wordprocessor:  Very nice.  More or less like a MacWrite (or more
properly, MultiScribe GS) for the IIgs.  I can't compare them for
feature pound for pound until I sit down with both of them longer.

The draw program:  Wonderful!  Basically, if you've seen Canvas on the
Macintosh, its alot like it.  Both object oriented drawing (in color)
and bitmapped graphics are supported.  Bitmaps are treated like
individual "objects", unlike the layered approach with SuperPaint.

The PageLayout section:  Print Shop, watch out!  This gem has most of
the features that PageMaker 2.0 has, and actually works!  If you can
ignore the fact that TIFF and scanner support are absent, its a
great program.  It is also capable of importing text and graphics
from most popular formats.

The spreadsheet:  This supports color charts, rows that are different
sizes by merely dragging, and many advanced features.  I don't think
we get macros in this version, though, but I could be wrong.

Database:  All the graphics you wanted, as alot of it looks suspiciously
like FileMaker II with an AppleWorks twist.  Graphics in the
database are now supported, as well as more new features.

Communications:  Haven't seen this section, except that it is supposed
to recognize "most popular modems". If it works with my Apple Cat, I'll
be happy.  No word on VT-100 yet, but I'll find out.

And all this comes for $299 and works on a IIgs.  Now the bad news.
Parts of this program are sloooowwww! (In fact, the orginal Appleworks
does some operations faster).  It comes on three 3.5inch disks, and
takes about 3 and a half minutes to load.  Take heart, this wasn't
nearly as bad as the 6+ minutes that the beta took!  But it only
takes 45 seconds on an Apple HD20 hard drive, so if you don't have
a hard drive, you should seriously think about one.  Also, it will only
run on a 1.25 megabyte machine, and GS/OS is mandatory.  As soon as
I get get back to a IIgs in the office to see more of it (mine is
still on order), I'll give back a more detailed survey.

And one more feature which I forgot to mention.  "Hotpasting" allows
you to copy or cut something out of one software module and
instantly paste it into another section.  So spreadsheet charts can
be pasted into word processing documents or pagelayout or the
draw package, database stuff can go into the spreadsheet or pagelayout,
communications into word processing, or anyway you like.  Also, the
package comes with a 80,000 word dictionary and thesaurus.

--Rick Ewing
  Apple Atlanta