AmigaWriter has had an unfortunate history.
Previous users are not strangers to the flashing red box, and even worse, those wonderful programs that allow you to re-build the remains of your hard drive!
Version 2 promised to be different.
Yeah ... like we've been promised WorkBench 4, and I've been promising to fix those shelves.
AmigaWriter appears to be a jack-of-all-trades. Sadly, it's master of none.
It claims the system requirements are '030 and OS 3.x, Hard drive, CD-ROM drive, and at least 8 Mbytes of RAM.
A graphics card with some more RAM may well be an improvement, too.
You'll also need to be able to speak German, a sense of humour, and bags of patience. Oh, and a printer. Yes, I know that a writing program obviously needs a printer, but H&P did specify a CD-ROM (duh, where does this big shiny disc go?) and a hard drive, but said nothing about a printer!!
Just by way of experiment, I tried to install it on a WB2 A2000. Didn't want to know. 32 Mb RAM, 1.5 Gb storage, '030 processor simply didn't make any difference.
So I supplied an A1200 with an '030, OS 3.0, Hard disk, CD-ROM and 32 Megs of RAM.
Oh yeah, and a Seikosha SL96 kuller printer.
I fired the 'mig up, and installed AmigaWriter. Installation was quite simple with nothing to scare ladies and horses. The whole thing (including a few .ttf fonts that I bunged in) only comes to around 5 meg.
On opening, AW2 puts a little box in the top left corner of the WorkBench screen, which contains buttons for open new document, open existing doc, text box and text box resize mode, and image box and image box resize.
On initial opening, AW2 also opens a page that can be used immediately, but on the second and subsequent times the program is started, you have to open this manually.
Forgive me, but that seems an odd thing to program in!
To get the best display, drag the bottom right corner down and right as far as possible, and alter the current page magnification to 120%, and then choose a font size of 14 point. Finally, adjust the left-right slider so that the entire width can be seen. Experiment!
But I don't want to play about like that if I just want to write a quick note! I want to be able to hit 'open' and start typing!
If I have to sod about with the screen and font sizes, I'll either not bother in the first place, or I'll open another program.
I then opened a document, (YAM read-me) and went into Search and Replace. Ooops! Big mistake!
The first 'wash through' did nothing. It didn't search, and it didn't replace, so, thinking my mouse had 'missed' the button, I tried it again.
Total lock-up.
Oh well, give it the three-fingered salute, and try again.
Let's have a go at Search and Replace again. No crashing, but it still doesn't tell you what it's done or when it's finished.
I found a thing called 'Page Format Catalogue'. Along with 'character format catalogue', 'paragraph format', and 'chapter format', it seems to be just another method of locking the computer up again!
Although there is supposed to be a spell checker, I could not get it working! I couldn't find any reference to it in the manual either.
Perhaps something that H&P may want to look at in the future.
And the manual is something that you'll have to print out yourself! There's not many pages, but things could get a little difficult without a hard copy!
Another oddity; the 'manual' is written in AmigaGuide!
People take the mickey because I still use QED and PageSetter 3, but they don't keel over when I ask them to do something difficult, like search and replace. And to be honest, although QED is just a basic text editor, aside from the facts that it won't import pictures, and only uses the default screen font, it is as good as AmigaWriter!
In fact, I'm using QED to write this now, and the only way I can make it seize up is to keep hitting Right-Amiga N (for a new window) so quickly that it can't keep up! Then all it does is sit and sulk. The only way of shutting it down is to give it the old Vulcan Nerve Death Grip.
I just tried to make PS3 crash by opening a large document, cutting bits out and pasting them back in, changing fonts and increasing them to 720 point! Eventually the Amiga will run out of ram.
I also used to run PS3 on a 1 meg floppy-only A500! Just to save any hassle I soon learned to re-boot after each document.
One thing I found extremely useful in AmigaWriter was the .ttf handling, which is 'missing' from PS3. But then I also have TypeSmith, so I just convert any .ttf font to CompuGraphic (CG) format and away!
Care also has to be taken with loading pictures. Whether it's a limitation of the program, or of the machine, I don't know, but it just locked up again!
Every time I use this program, I find something new. Usually by locking the machine up! This shouldn't be. Everything should be available instantly.
Except for the missing spell checker and the need for plenty of RAM, there are no real disasters with AmigaWriter 2, but there are many little points that show that the program has been thought about, even if the execution was sloppy.
AmigaWriter really seems to have problems loading anything more complex than a straight ASCII file!
I loaded a Word file without too much hassle, but when I tried loading a Word file with a picture in it, oops!
The first time, AW loaded the file and then locked up. Vulcan Nerve Death Grip, and reboot. On the second loading, I managed to scroll halfway down the document, and the screen turned to garbage!
Hit the big switch, and boot again. Load a different document with a tiny graphic in it and AW locks up again!
I expected more from H&P. A lot more. I kept finding things that were missing, like sitting in a car from the 1960's and still expecting to find all those cossetting little details that we take for granted nowadays.
Even if you're used to a very basic car!
All-in-all, I wasn't very impressed with this effort.
It requires hard work and perseverence to get anything done, and let's face it, unless you're programming, you don't want to do that, do you?
I've never used AW 1, but I was told that it was no great shakes. Sadly, AW 2 isn't much better! I daren't try comparing it to FinalWriter, or even Pen Pal (remember that???) At least Pen Pal had a database in it!
Sehr gut? Nein!
Chris Skelhorn