Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!eutrc3!rcbamw
From: rcbamw@eutrc3.UUCP (m.waucomont)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: WingZ
Keywords: spreadsheet, presentation manager, hypertext, slow
Message-ID: <598@eutrc3.UUCP>
Date: 20 Apr 89 18:07:29 GMT
Organization: Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Lines: 42

To whom it may concern...

Recently I received my long-awaited copy of the 'test flight' of WingZ.
WingZ is a product of Informix. It is a spreadsheet, enhanced with
a HyperTalk like programming language and nice graphics. Because of
the capabilities to visualize information in a spectacular way, it is
also called a 'presentation spreadsheet'. 

All the advertisements from Informix and a review in MacUser made me
very anxious about WingZ. Until I received my test flight last week...

In their ads they stressed things like impressive graphics, high speed
calculations etc. Well, the demo contained a 3D graph, a grid in the 
shape of a hat (well, it actually looked like something else, but I
do not want to be called sexist). Anyhow, it took about 2 minutes to
generate the 3D 'hat'. Speedy graphics??? 

When it was finally finished, I wanted to see the result on paper, so
I chose 'page setup' to see what was inthere. They support 2 resolutions,
72 dpi and 144 dpi (on an imagewriter,that is... if you choose 144 dpi
the picture will be enlarged and printed spread out over 8 pages...).
I chose 72dpi and clicked 'OK'.
THE STUPID THING STARTED REDRAWING THE GRAPH!!!!
(Would it be a stupid idea to BitCopy the area where the dialogue box
will apear into an array, then display the dialogue box, remove it when
done and BitCopy the array back to the window? Would have saved me
another 2 minutes)

The calculation speed wasn't very impressive either. Must be the way
they index cells... sparse matrices... revolutionary... yeah, but
slow! 

I have to sign off now, the pizza's I ordered just arrived :-))
But I would like to hear from other Mac users about their experiences
with WingZ. Is there anybody outthere who does have a copy of it 
and who would like to share experiences with me and others who
are interested??

M. Waucomont

PostScript.um: If the pizza's wouldn't have arrived, I  would have
               written a bit more. Maybe even some positive things..