+++++++++++++++++++++++ + Public Domain + + and + + Shareware reviews + +++++++++++++++++++++++ Another month, another disk. What little tit-bits of info can I give you in relation to PD/Shareware in this new series? Now then, below is a list of the titles that I'll be covering in this month's issue: 1. Magnetic Pages 2. D.M.S. - The Disk-Masher (ver 1.02) 3. Uedit MAGNETIC PAGES (Fred Fish No.372) (Available from Amiganuts for £2.00) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is a program that impressed me a great deal. I know that there is a host of program selector/presenter type utilities on the go within the realms of PD but here's one that will probably become everyone's favourite! If presentation is the name of the game in your eyes then this program should please you as much as it did me. The three major parts of this utility are the Editor, Displayer and Organiser. Let me tackle the largest and most complex part of the program first - the Editor. This section allows you to do a feast of various things with text, graphics, sounds and music. One important point to make here and now is, although this part of the program is called the Editor you are unable to edit any of your text, graphics etc. The main theme of the Editor is to create your page layouts, import your various files and then put them all together. You have to write your articles on a wordprocessor, save them as text files and then load them into the Editor. The same is true for any graphics, sounds or music you wish to incorporate into your final product. You are required to create them with the appropriate programs and then import them into the Editor. Within the Editor there are two types of pages available. The most common is called the 'text page'. Why is it called a text page? Yes, you've guessed - it displays text. The 'text page' is capable of displaying an 8 or 16 colour non-interlace hi-res page ie. 640 X 256 pixels (PAL) or 640 X 200 pixels (NTSC). Each article you create can contain up to 100 pages via the 'text ' page'. Having stated the obvious at the beginning of this paragraph, the text is capable of creating two types of boxes, Text boxes and Graphics boxes. All boxes can be set to allow the reader to branch to different sections of the final product (ie. disk-based magazine) by clicking on them. When a box is clicked on by the user the box works like a push button. A graphics box may have up to 30 frames of animation instead of the push button effect. The second form of page available is the 'graphics page'. No need to inform you what this is used for! You can display a number of different screen modes eg. HAM (Hold and Modify), Extra Half-Brite, Lo-Res 32 colours etc. Now then, let us move on to the Displayer. This is the program used to view your creation. In addition to displaying a magazine, the reader may save text as a standard ASCII file, save an entire page as an IFF picture, or print the text and/or graphics as a page. Like the Editor, the Displayer can be run from either the CLI or the Workbench. In addition to the actual articles etc., the Displayer requires a special control file which holds information about the magazine contents. This control file is created using the Organiser - more on this later. Once the magazine has been compiled there are a number of ways that you can move from page to page or from article to article. This is presented to you via a menu bar (which also may have various sub-menus) and you have the option of using a keyboard equivalent command once you've become a little more familiar with using the displayer. This is an option that I personally prefer in programs (especially wordprocessors). The final part of the trio is the Organiser. As mentioned above, a special control file is constructed using this and without it you are unable to create the special files. This is where the crunch comes in! As the suit of programs come under the label of Shareware, you are required to send off a fee to the author (mine is in the post) for a copy of this part of the program thus completing the set. To sum things up - this is a well presented and professionally put together piece of programming. The disk contains an example of what's possible before you decide to send you hard-earned cash halfway around the world (New Zealand to be exact). There's also an excellent and easy to follow tutorial to give you a feel of how the programs all knit together. It's not exactly bug-free but it still gets 10 out of 10 in my eyes. I'll keep you posted when I receive word back from the author. Oh! nearly forgot, the program is capable of operating on the standard 512K Amiga 500 but 1 meg+ is recommended for a smoother and swifter performance. D.M.S. THE DISK MASHER ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (May be available in some PD library but my version was passed on to me by one of my Canadian contacts). The Disk-Masher is a utility that allows you to compress and archive floppy disks. Why a disk archiver? I am well aware that there are many programs available for archiving individual files (and do a good job of it). However DMS was created for the purpose of archiving whole disks. It is useful for archiving non-filing system disks, archiving library collections, and many other uses. The program takes much less time to put a disk back together than with a file archiver and is less wear and tear on your disk drives. There are a number of various options open to the user before archiving commences and this will therefore influence the number of disks you are able to store on a single floppy. For example, there are 4 compression modes available (mode 1 thro' 4). 1 = Simple compression very quick with limited compression. 2 = Quick compression quick but better compression. 3 = Medium compression good speed/compression ratio 4 = Deep compression slowest with the greatest degree of compression. Other optional commands are LOW and HIGH which enables you to select the start and end tracks of your source disk (default settings are 0 and 79). You can also encrypt your crunched files by supplying a password before archiving begins thus ensuring that any of your 'most sensitive' material is hidden from any prying eyes. By using the default compression mode (medium compression), you are able to store 2, or sometimes 3, uncompressed disks onto one disk. I've only covered part of this program's capabilities in this review but overall, if you do a lot of file/disk archiving then you'll find this a very rewarding and disk saving utility indeed. There are a number of text files supplied with the program, giving you a variety of syntax examples etc. to assist you in getting to grips with this utility. UEDIT V2.6e (Available from Amiganuts for £2.00) ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Here is an excellent Shareware program with literally hundreds of features that will make your text editing/wordprocessing sessions a treat to do. One of the main points of this program is (in my opinion) - if you are not happy with any of the features or key commands, then you are allowed to customise them to your own liking (well, almost any of them). On top of this, you are also allowed to create your own new commands and incorporate them into the program. Pretty neat stuff, eh! Before going on though, I do have to stress that as this is a shareware program there are certain limitations within the freely distributable version. To get the full-blown version you are required to send the author a fee. The price varies for this utility depending on what version and what form of user manual you require. The author of this program (Rick Stiles) is an American and if you're anything like me and feel a little dubious on sending your hard earned cash to some unknown in a foreign land, what I suggest is - drop them a note first. they may no longer stay at the address giving on the disk or don't support that particular program any longer. No reply from the note, then no fee from me! That's what I normally do with shareware programs that require a fee and I haven't been disappointed to date. I can't truly give this program the kind of justice it deserves here on this magazine as there are too many features to cover in a single article alone. Conclusion - if you do a lot of text editing or word processing but can't afford the price of some of the commercial programs on the go then this one should keep you happy. The trial version, which is freely distributable, gives you a very in-depth feel of what to expect from the final version. With the assistance of a tutorial file and various help docs, you will (almost) be able to master this very well put together program/utility. For the more technically minded users out there - there's more than enough to keep you happy also. More information on what's what in (hopefully) the next issue of ACC. If you use or know of any PD/Shareware programs that other users may find of interest then please don't hesitate on dropping a copy in to me for reviewing. Reviews by Ronnie James (Editor of General Amiga) Haven't heard of General Amiga?? Want a copy of this GREAT monthly disk-based magazine covering all areas of Amiga computing? Say no more - send ONLY £1.50 (cheque or postal order only please) to: GENERAL AMIGA 19 Earn Court Alloa Clacks. Scotland FK10 1PT PLEASE,state that you saw our address/review in the ACC disk number 13.