TidBITS#285/10-Jul-95
Geoff Duncan
=====================
Info this week on a new version of Apple's Sound Manager, plus an
update on the compatibility of Open Transport, Apple's
replacement for MacTCP. We also bring news on a set of useful
Mac-oriented Web sites, speculation on possible contention
between OpenDoc and the growing trend toward mega-applications,
and the conclusion of Tonya's two-part review of FullWrite
2.0, a high-end word processor contender.
This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- <sa...@apstech.com>
Makers of hard drives, tape drives, and neat SCSI accessories.
For APS price lists, email: <aps-p...@tidbits.com>
* Northwest Nexus -- 206/455-3505 -- http://www.halcyon.com/
Providing access to the global Internet. <in...@halcyon.com>
* Hayden Books, an imprint of Macmillan Computer Publishing
Free shipping on orders via the Web -- http://www.mcp.com/
Mac Tip of the Day & free books! -- http://www.mcp.com/hayden/
Copyright 1990-1995 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
Information: <in...@tidbits.com> Comments: <edi...@tidbits.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------
Topics:
MailBITS/10-Jul-95
OpenDoc & Netscape
More Mac Web Sites
FullWrite, Part II of II
Reviews/10-Jul-95
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/issues/1995/TidBITS#285_10-Jul-95.etx
MailBITS/10-Jul-95
------------------
**Open Transport 1.0 Woes** -- Orren Merton <orr...@darkling.com>
writes:
Open Transport, Apple Computer's highly-touted new networking
system (currently only available on the new Power Mac 9500s -
version 1.1 will reportedly appear this fall for the rest of the
Mac line), in its current form does not allow for stable,
consistent PPP connections. Apple has released a patch for Open
Transport that supposedly improves SLIP and PPP reliability, and
MacPPP 2.2 is supposedly more Open Transport-friendly than other
versions, but these fixes do not work for everyone. Hopefully,
enterprising freeware and shareware programmers can work with
Apple to make programs work better with Open Transport, and to
make Open Transport's MacTCP emulation work better with existing
applications. It is also noteworthy that in my personal
experience, the most Open Transport-friendly program has been John
Norstad's NewsWatcher 2.0b27.
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com//pub/tidbits/tisk/tcp/mac-ppp-22.hqx
ftp://ftp.support.apple.com//pub/apple_sw_updates/US/mac/n_c/
other_n_c_sw/Open_Transport_1.0.1_patch.hqx
**Sound Manager 3.1 Hurrahs** -- Last week, Apple released version
3.1 of the Sound Manager, which consists of a new Sound control
panel (version 8.0.5) and a new Sound Manager extension. Along
with numerous bug fixes (some of which have saved me a lot of
trouble), Sound Manager 3.1 includes support for IMA 4:1
compression (often used for 16-bit, CD-quality music) and uLaw 2:1
compression (often used for voice and telephony applications, and
the basis of the ".au" file format seen so often on the Web).
Sound Manager 3.1 also includes more PowerPC-native code and
(finally!) allows asynchronous playback of alert sounds. If you do
any audio-intensive work - or just want to give your Power Mac
games a little boost - it's worth a look. [GD]
ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/pub/apple_sw_updates/US/Macintosh/
system_sw/other_sys_sw/Sound_Manager_3.1.hqx
**ClarisWorks 4.0 & Kanji** -- Dan Miller
<7251...@compuserve.com> of ZiffNet/Mac wrote in regard to
problems displaying Kanji text in ClarisWorks 4.0 reported in
TidBITS-284_, saying that he had experienced no trouble using
ClarisWorks 4.0 with version 1.2 of the Japanese Language Kit
(although it may well have problems with earlier versions of the
JLK). Dan Kogai <dank...@jms.jeton.or.jp> - who reported the
original problem - adds that on further investigation, the
troubles he experienced seem related to FontPatchin', a common
freeware Control Panel that lets applications using Roman fonts by
default show Kanji correctly. FontPatchin' also comes with an
extension called UnderLineEnabler, which allows underlining text
in KanjiTalk - something critical for using the World Wide Web.
Dan Kogai adds, however, that the HTML translator in ClarisWorks
still had problems using Kanji. [GD]
ftp://ftp.tohoku.ac.jp//pub/mac/KanjiTalk/fontpatchin2.2.sit.hqx
http://www.austin.apple.com/productinfo/datasheets/as/japanese.html
OpenDoc & Netscape
------------------
by Adam C. Engst & Geoff Duncan <edi...@tidbits.com>
**Dave Martin** <da...@gerga.tamu.edu> made an interesting comment
in regard to the MailBIT about how future versions of Netscape
Navigator will integrate Macromedia Director's Shockwave playback
technology (see TidBITS-281_). Dave wrote:
I just thought I'd comment on this increasing rash of what appears
to be anti-OpenDoc thinking. The whole concept of the Web browser
being for browsing the Web and the "helper apps" being a user-
selected preference as to how to view files from the Internet
seems very OpenDoc-ish. This trend of Netscape's towards
integrating Director and Acrobat - and who knows what else - goes
in the other direction. Wouldn't it be enough for Netscape to ship
with preset settings that would launch an Acrobat viewer or a
Shockwave player if present, much like any other helper
application would be auto-launched? This decline towards sumo-
sized applications makes me wonder whether Netscape will become
the Word 6 of the Web world.
**Netscape's Horizon** -- Dave's comment caused us to think
OpenDoc may face a more serious obstacle than user acceptance. The
hurdle may be the combination of the corporate alliance and its
attached desire to shut out the competition. Dave is right -
there's no reason Netscape couldn't come configured to launch a
Director or Acrobat helper application. But where's the advantage
in that? Any Web browser could do the same thing, and all of them
would. By building Shockwave into Netscape, Macromedia wins by
associating with Netscape, whose public relations rocket continues
to rise. And Netscape wins by including a technology not present
in other Web browsers.
Netscape plans to use the Acrobat and Shockwave technologies to
add additional value over the helper application approach. Future
versions of Netscape are slated to do more than simply open the
appropriate document type within Netscape's window. For instance,
the Acrobat technology will be page-based rather than document-
based. So, if you find a 200-page Acrobat document on a site and
want to see page 132, you'll be able to go to page 132 without
having to slog through the intervening pages. With today's Acrobat
player, you can jump to page 132 only after you've downloaded the
_entire_ file.
Shockwave will work similarly, allowing users to interact over the
Internet with Director presentations that reside on remote
machines without having to download the entire file. Of course,
typical Director presentations require more bandwidth than any
modem can deliver to provide a "true multimedia experience." Lingo
scripts, cast members, high-resolution graphics, animations, etc.,
would have to be downloaded and played back on the client machine.
Some effects - transitions for example - might be relatively
painless, and it'll probably be possible to design some relatively
effective, low-bandwidth Director stuff for the Web. But anyone
who's tried to use an interactive Director presentation over a
LocalTalk network knows how painful that can be - and LocalTalk is
significantly faster than any modem (or most typical Internet
connections, for that matter).
Of course, all this is contingent on support from Netscape's
partners - not only for the playback code, but also for support in
the authoring environments so people can create documents for
direct online use. Both the Acrobat and Director authoring
environments will probably have to be enhanced to properly support
these Web-savvy features.
**OpenDoc Alliances?** But this situation with Netscape is perhaps
an isolated example in regard to OpenDoc's overall future.
Companies make alliances for a number of reasons, and both
companies have to benefit in one way or another. Will the loss of
the exclusivity benefit (since the entire point of OpenDoc parts
is that they can be replaced) make it significantly more difficult
for the corporate wheelers to find common ground with their dealer
counterparts? From a user's standpoint, of course, no one cares,
but in the real life of the industry, the openness of OpenDoc may
work against its acceptance.
Individual developers and small companies will likely work
together on OpenDoc parts, but support from the big players may be
necessary for such a sweeping change to take place. So, assuming
OpenDoc is indeed the right way to do things because of the
flexibility and choice it offers, the companies promoting OpenDoc
over the existing method of creating mega-applications and over
Microsoft's OLE have their work cut out for them. They may not
have to convince developers, but convincing management may be a
difficult task.
**Why Not OpenDoc?** Continuing to use Netscape as an example,
could Netscape use OpenDoc to accomplish its goals if they wanted
to? There are a few sticky issues to consider:
* More than the Mac in mind: Netscape has to provide these
capabilities on at least three platforms (Mac OS, Unix, and
Windows). Despite the best efforts of Apple and Novell, there's no
realistic way OpenDoc can be leveraged across all those platforms
in the near future (Mac and Windows, perhaps; Unix is less likely,
although admittedly a smaller market). Furthermore, Adobe and
Macromedia have already sunk significant development resources
into making their products work on other platforms. By integrating
those technologies as they stand, Netscape can leverage off their
experience.
* Technological dependency: Netscape is licensing Acrobat and
Shockwave technology, not writing it from scratch. The more third-
party code Netscape integrates, the more control they surrender in
regard to schedule, delivery, and the techniques used to develop
the components. If Macromedia and Adobe decide not to go with
OpenDoc - and there's nothing to suggest they would - Netscape
can't do anything about it. Similarly, if Macromedia decides
Shockwave must have OLE, then Netscape will be obliged to install
OLE; if Acrobat decides ATM is necessary, then Netscape will be
obliged to install ATM.
If you think this sounds suspiciously like "the road to
bloatware," you're right.
**So Where Might OpenDoc Fit In?** OpenDoc proponents shouldn't
despair: a lot of the idea behind OpenDoc is to let developers be
fast on their feet, creating small, reusable, wildly useful
components that do one or two things _really_ well. This
development approach can run circles around bloatware
applications, especially those that have significant dependencies
on outside companies. And Netscape so far has shown no inclination
to put all its eggs in one basket. Given the right pitch, it's a
good bet Netscape could be persuaded to put OpenDoc hooks into its
applications. You have a better way to handle FTP? Great - plug it
in. You have a better bookmark manager? Great - plug it in. You're
a small, efficient startup company that's made an OpenDoc
component that plays Director movies? Great - plug it in. It's in
Netscape's interest to keep their browser as flexible as possible
so they don't get blindsided by savvy, platform-specific products
- like Cyberdog - that might beat them at their own game. (It
remains to be seen to what, if any, extent Cyberdog will be cross-
platform thanks to its OpenDoc heritage.)
**Before the Fat Lady Sings** -- Predicting the future of a major
new technology is always difficult, but in the past, the industry
has proven tenaciously conservative, particularly on the Windows
side of the fence. That conservatism, combined with the realities
of today's fast-paced world of software development, may prove
dangerous for OpenDoc's acceptance. We'd hate to see OpenDoc fail,
but these deals between Netscape and Adobe and Macromedia may
foreshadow the difficulty of the task OpenDoc faces.
More Mac Web Sites
------------------
by Adam C. Engst <a...@tidbits.com>
I don't want to continually list Web sites that contain Macintosh
information, since for the most part, they're all linked on the
Web itself. We'll make this the last time for a while...
**Well Connected Mac Moving** -- Elliotte Harold
<elh...@shock.njit.edu> informs us that his Well Connected Mac
site is moving to:
The old URL will server as a mirror for a while, but will
eventually disappear.
Elliotte said the move was prompted in part by the fact that the
old URL was almost impossible to remember and hard to type
properly. He also commented that he was a bit concerned about the
trademark implications of the "Mac FAQ" name, and getting the
domain name for the Well Connected Mac site reduced those
concerns.
However, the main impetus for moving the site and getting a new
name is that a group called c|net, the Computer Network, has
licensed the Well Connected Mac, so they will help support
Elliotte financially. Elliotte can use that money to spend more
time and money improving the Well Connected Mac site.
I think it's great to see someone provide an excellent service to
the Macintosh community for free, and to reap some financial
rewards for all that hard work. But then again, I'm biased about
that sort of thing.
**Australian MacCyberCentre Appears** -- Although it's still under
construction, you might want to check out a useful new site at:
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~pkortge/mac/mum.html
The site is aimed at Macintosh users in Australia, and it has
sections on user groups and Macintosh magazines and the like with
not only Australian entries, but also entries from the U.S., U.K.,
Japan, and so on. It may not always be obvious, but it's good to
remember that the Internet is international, and so is the
Macintosh.
**Robert Lentz's Welcome to Macintosh site** was mentioned by a
couple of readers as having excellent technical information along
with the more-standard information that you can find elsewhere.
The most obvious feature to note is Robert's "What's New" section,
where he lists important software releases and events. If kept up
to date, such a feature could be handy for those overwhelmed by
the massive amount of new software that appears every day for the
Macintosh.
http://www.astro.nwu.edu/lentz/mac/home-mac.html
FullWrite, Part II of II
------------------------
by Tonya Engst <to...@tidbits.com>
This review continues from last week's issue, TidBITS-284_. Last
week I looked at how a high school student (my youngest sister)
and how a graduate student (my other sister) might use FullWrite.
This week I wrap up the review by looking at how my Mom and myself
might use FullWrite.
**Home User** -- I'd like my Mom to use a Mac, but my parents use
Windows machines because my Dad uses Windows at his job. If Mom
were to get a Mac and use FullWrite, she'd use it for desktop
publishing, editing jobs, and for creating signs and information
sheets relating to the upcoming exhibit of her paper collages.
Mom would probably start with the Base Styles dialog box, where
she would set the font, size, space before a paragraph, indents,
and tabs for the default document style and other common document
elements, such as headers. When she set tabs for the default
document style, she could take advantage of a nice feature - say
she set a tab stop at .66 inches and wanted the stop to repeat
every .66 inches after that. She could set the stop to "Repeat
Every" .66 inches.
After setting the default indents and tab stops, if Mom needed to
change them for a particular paragraph, she'd insert a Paragraph
Ruler and change the indents or tabs on that Ruler. The new
settings would apply to all text until they ran into a different
Paragraph Ruler. If Mom selected a block of text before inserting
a new Paragraph Ruler, FullWrite would insert two Rulers: one at
the beginning for Mom to adjust, and one at the end so the
original formatting stays applied to text after the selection.
Paragraph Rulers can be copied, pasted, and deleted.
In addition to the simpler default styles set in the Base Styles
dialog box, Mom will want to use the Edit Custom Style dialog box
to define custom styles for headings, quotes, and other special
elements. She'll manage fine, although the box needs to be
simplified. There are no quick ways to create styles using quirky
keyboard shortcuts or clicking techniques. On the plus side, it's
easy to delete a batch of styles for a document.
If you change the tabs or indents in a custom style, the changes
override formats dictated by the default document style or by a
Paragraph Ruler. This makes sense, but because FullWrite shows no
visual cue as to what style a paragraph is in, users may become
confused when text beneath a particular Ruler ignores the Ruler's
settings. By a visual cue, I mean a symbol or word might show left
of a custom-styled paragraph in Icon Bar View, or the style name
might appear somewhere onscreen when the styled paragraph is
selected. To verify that a style is applied to a paragraph, you
must click in the paragraph and look at the Style menu.
If Mom gets more involved with the styles she may become
frustrated - there's no hierarchical styling where you can set
things up so that - for example - changing the font in one "base"
style changes the font in a series of styles based on that style.
She may miss options for controlling widows and orphans and miss
formats that make one paragraph always stay on the same page as
the next one or that make the text in a particular paragraph
always stay together on one page. She may also wish she could set
a border as part of a style.
Mom is likely to use columns. Snaking columns must be of the same
width, but the controls for their width, separating space, and
position on the page are easy. Thumbnail-like objects (called
proxies) in the Chapter Layout dialog box make it easy to see what
you're doing. You also get several options for setting column
rules (vertical lines that separate columns) though they do not
show well in the proxies and only show in the One- and Two-Page
Views. The rules can be quickly changed in the One- or Two-Page
View by double clicking them to display a box of options. The
rules come in 16 flavors (2 single and 14 double).
The table controls are easy to use and quick to respond, and
she'll be pleased that scrolling past a table goes quickly. You
can stack separate tables one on top of the other to create
complex tables with different numbers of cells in different rows.
Looking more deeply at the table feature set, I'd like to see
features added. There's no quick way to select an entire column or
entire table, and a row cannot be taller than a page. Applying
borders to tables is a-learn-as-you-go process, and there are no
shortcuts for applying typical bordering patterns.
Sidebars, documents within a document that can be positioned at
will on a page, will come in handy for Mom's more complex layouts.
Sidebars help with placing graphics such that text wraps around
them (including some wrap-to-shape capabilities, not just wrapping
to the rectangular size of the note), setting different numbers of
columns within the same chapter, and placing topic headings or
comments in a side margin. You can position sidebars relative to
the text they go with or in a fixed position on the page
containing the text they go with. You can reposition sidebars
through a dialog box or by dragging them. Sidebars are not
FullWrite's easiest feature, nor are they the hardest. From a
Microsoft Word perspective, though, they are frames done right.
The kerning function is surprisingly capable. The feature enables
you to kern individual letter pairs from the keyboard in
increments of .05 em (an em is the length of an em-dash, the
longer dash you get by pressing Shift-Option-Hyphen in most
fonts). You can get even more precise kerning in the Kern dialog
box (your printer may not print in as fine increments as FullWrite
can kern). You can use the Replace function to kern all letter
pairs in a document alike.
Mom would appreciate Change Bar View, which shows gray or black
change bars and (optionally) displays changed text in a variety of
formats. You can accumulate changes forever or start them fresh at
any time. You can also start fresh every time you save, which
means that you always know what has changed since the last save,
in case you want to revert to the last saved version of the
document.
FullWrite has a number of printing features that Mom would
appreciate. FullWrite helps you print two-sided documents - it
prints the odd pages and an instruction sheet for how to re-insert
the paper and print the even pages. The directions were wrong for
my LaserWriter Select 360, or - more charitably - they were
ambiguous. Another feature helps you print two-up booklets with
the pages correctly reordered so you can fold them in half and
create a two-sided booklet. I expect it works nicely once you play
with it; I failed on my first attempt. Other printing features
print change bars, two-up, with collation, in reverse order,
registration marks, and more. You can use any MacPaint, PICT, or
EPS graphic (or raw PostScript code) as a watermark, and FullWrite
comes with several watermark graphics.
FullWrite would be a poor choice for someone intending to do much
indexing or print merging - both features are present, but they
are extremely basic. With only a few exceptions (such as the
kerning), FullWrite is also a poor choice for someone who likes to
have lots of design options _and_ is picky about implementing them
just so.
**Professional Writer** -- Now that I've covered features Mom
might care most about, I'm going to talk about myself. My work
ultimately ends up dropped into PageMaker or converted into setext
or HTML for online consumption, so I don't much care about layout
or printing features.
I'm concerned about Word 6. I know how to use Word 5 very well,
but I've tried Word 6, and I don't much like it. If you are
currently looking to switch from Word, and you know Word fairly
well, you'll find it much easier to switch from Word to FullWrite
than to switch from Word to Nisus Writer. (I haven't spent much
time with WordPerfect or other word processors.)
FullWrite doesn't have a Word converter, and it's a shame because
many writers must submit their work in Word format. FullWrite does
support XTND; unfortunately, it doesn't do the trick. Akimbo is
aware of this problem and may have a solution in the future.
Writers will appreciate FullWrite's Get Info command, which lists
tidbits about a document including: number of sessions, time
overall and time for current session, characters, words, and
readability. On my Duo, it took three seconds to pull up Get Info
statistics on a fifteen page document, five seconds for a thirty
page document.
The Find feature helpfully gives you three choices for what
happens when a search string is found: the string can be
highlighted, or the insertion point can be positioned directly
before or after the string. The Find feature uses intelligent
keyboard shortcuts and can search and replace based on font, size,
style, and so on, but does not feature the more sophisticated GREP
(global regular expression parser) searches present in Nisus
Writer. The simple wildcard feature gives you the ability to
search on a single wildcard character or to search on a wildcard
group. If you search on a group, you can "replace with found" to a
certain extent. For example, if I search for any instance of
"TidBITS" followed by a number, I can replace each instance with
"TidBITS Magazine" and then that same "found" number. You cannot
search across multiple documents simultaneously.
FullWrite supports some Apple events, but does not include an
AppleScript dictionary. Also, FullWrite has no built-in macro
facilities, making it unrealistic to implement a find and replace
macro that does a series of searches for common errors in a
document.
I'm addicted to the functionality of Word's outliner. FullWrite
offers that same basic functionality, and for that I give it a
hearty thumbs-up. I could happily use FullWrite's outliner, though
I would first review the outline instructions in the manual, make
a cheat sheet, and post it near my Macintosh until the techniques
became second nature. Unfortunately, the manual incorrectly
documents several of the menu commands. Outline items can be
numbered using a variety of common outline styles (Harvard,
Chicago Manual of Style, etc.). I encourage Akimbo to add outline
levels to the Base Styles dialog box, such that different styles
can be set and automatically applied to headings created in a
FullWrite outline.
You can have FullWrite pull a table of contents from outline
entries or from special contents notes.
FullWrite's glossaries lets you store commonly typed blocks of
text (such as your address) and then quickly insert them. You can
set FullWrite to insert a glossary entry in response to your
typing a code. For example, you could set FullWrite to type:
"World Wide Web" in response to your typing "www". A glossary can
be used to make FullWrite correct typographical errors, and
FullWrite comes with a glossary of common errors.
FullWrite's Variable feature enables you to insert pre-defined
variables such as the date or page number (or end-of document page
number or end-of-chapter page number), or you can make your own
variables, such as a price that might change.
**Wrap-Up** -- FullWrite users should plan to read the short
manual. Why? Because you need to get oriented to FullWrite in
order to use it efficiently. This holds true for most word
processors, but I've received a number of comments from people who
didn't like the FullWrite demo, and - in most cases - they started
on the wrong foot and made incorrect assumptions about how the
program works.
FullWrite lists for $295, though academic/non-profit pricing is at
$99 and competitive upgrades from other word processors cost $120.
Akimbo is committed to FullWrite, and plans to release a PowerPC-
native version soon. Akimbo is also hard at work on version 3.0,
and they face the difficult task of improving the program without
overloading it. FullWrite doesn't offer every possible feature,
and I don't think it should. All word processors cannot be all
things to all people, and we need programs like FullWrite so that
there will be lots of choices. If FullWrite sounds like your cup
of tea, I urge you to purchase it, read the manual, and use it as
it was intended - as a mid-level word processor for Macintosh
users.
FullWrite-related documents and software, as well as a demo are
available at:
ftp://ftp.std.com/vendors/Akimbo/
gopher://gopher.std.com/11/vendors/akimbo
For information on Math Type and Cambridge Scientific's
engineering and chemistry programs (mentioned in Part I of this
review), check out:
http://www.mathtype.com/mathtype/
http://www.camsci.com/normalhome.html
Akimbo Systems -- 800/684-9888 -- 617/776-5500
510/843-6888 (international sales) -- 617/776-5512 (fax)
<full...@akimbo.com>
Cambridge Scientific Computing -- 617/491-2200
<in...@camsci.com>
Design Science -- 800/827-0685 -- 310/433-0685
310/433-6969 (fax) -- <do...@applelink.apple.com>
Niles and Associates -- 510/649-8176 -- <nile...@well.sf.ca.us>
Reviews/10-Jul-95
-----------------
* InfoWorld -- 26-Jun-95, Vol. 17, #26
Power 100 -- pg. 1
Live Picture 2.0 -- pg. 76
* InfoWorld -- 03-Jul-95, Vol. 17, #27
ClarisWorks 4.0 -- pg. 74
$$
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