Word Processors 

                      "A different kind of writer's block." 


                                 by Bill Harper.



   Ed: Here's a very thoughtful piece on what a word processor could or
  should be - developers take note! There are numerous good ideas here.


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   With ten years' experience with computers, a degree in computer science
  and a job with the public service as a computer programmer which is
  entering its third year, you'd think I would have more or less decided on
  computing as my career.  But with the constant threat of losing my job
  through public service cutbacks and having it "outsourced" to contractors,
  I have decided to turn my love of writing, a hobby of mine for as long as I
  can remember, into a second career.

   However, this doesn't mean I will be moving away from using computers.  On
  the contrary, computers and computer software are more a part of the
  writer's arsenal than they have ever been - spreadsheets to keep track of
  their income and expenditures, modems to look up information databases and
  even send their manuscripts directly to their editors.  But it is the word
  processor which the writer spends the most time using, and it is this
  particular breed of software I want to talk about.  I've used word
  processors on just about every personal computer I've encountered over the
  years - from the Commodore 64, BBC Model B and Microbee through to the
  Macintosh and IBM PC.  But although most of them were good (some of them
  were absolutely awful, believe me), none of them had all the features I
  wanted from such a program.  They were either too slow, too primitive or a
  combination of both, giving the term "writer's block" a whole new meaning.
  Then I bought my Amiga, and I was convinced my luck was about to change.
  After seeing the likes of Deluxe Paint Two, Sonix and Psygnosis'
  Obliterator, I imagined such hardware power being put into a word
  processor, and I rubbed my hands together in anticipation.  I would
  finally have the word processor I wanted, with both the speed and the
  features to cope with even the most complex document.  That was four years
  ago, and I'm still waiting for that word processor!

Multitasking.

   The problem seems to me that software developers have lost sight of what a
  word processor is supposed to do.  We have word processors which try to
  include features of desktop publishers, databases and even art packages.
  This is fine, providing they do not include these facilities at the
  expense of the word processing functions themselves.  Unfortunately they
  all seem to, in one way or another.  Now I agree there are times when you
  need these facilities, but there are already countless programs out there
  which are written specifically to do the job.  And with the combination of
  the Amiga's multi-tasking operating system, AREXX and now HotLinks to
  communicate between these programs, can't we leave them to do their
  specific tasks and let the word processor get on with the task it's
  supposed to do?

All I want for Christmas is...

   I'm not going to name each word processor I've used and explain what I
  liked and didn't like about each one.  Not only would that be testing the
  limits of my memory, it would also be testing the limits of my machine's
  memory.  Instead I will discuss the features I would like in a word
  processor, and hope the developers out there write one which caters for my
  wishes.

Speed

   There is nothing more frustrating than having ideas for an article lost
  because your word processor couldn't keep up with you.  But few people
  consider speed to be an issue in a word processing package.  After all, who
  can honestly type fast enough to push the machine to its limits, right?
  All I can say is that the people with this attitude obviously don't use
  their word processor for anything more than typing up the odd letter to a
  friend or employer.  You still think your word processor with its WYSIWYG
  display, graphic capabilities and jaggie-free output is fast enough?  Okay,
  then try doing the following.  First load in a decent sized document - say,
  200K or more.  What?  You don't have a document that large?  Try the manual
  of your favourite public domain utility, or even the catalogue disk where
  you chose it from.  I have a document I wrote myself which is about 220K
  and so is a particularly good one to try.

   Take note of how the program loads the document.  Some programs load it
  all into memory in one go, while others read it a little bit at a time,
  effectively slowing down the speed of your hard drive to that of a floppy.
  Okay, so it's now in memory.  Now all your program has to do is format it
  for the display.  Prepare yourself for another long wait.  Still think your
  word processor is fast enough?  Now we are going to perform some typical
  word processing functions to see just how much speed it really has.  Move
  the cursor to the middle of a paragraph somewhere near the beginning of the
  document, and begin typing.  (If you're not a touch-typist like me, don't
  worry about what you're typing - just hit the keys as fast as you can.)
  Now can you honestly say that the display is keeping up with you?  I didn't
  think so.  Move your cursor back to the beginning of the document, and do a
  global search and replace, changing "the" to "speed test".  Gee, that's
  strange.  It doesn't take that long when I load it into CygnusEd.  Now do a
  spell check.  Don't bother correcting your mistakes - just keep hitting the
  "ignore" option.  Takes a while, doesn't it?  But it's important to see
  each mistake in WYSIWYG mode, isn't it?  Now we've almost finished our
  document.  Just a few minor changes to be made.  Shouldn't take too long,
  should it?  First, select the entire document, then alter one of the margin
  settings.  How long did that take?  Now change the layout to three columns
  to see how it will look.  Does it look better in two?  Do you want to wait
  that long to find out?  What about a different font?

   Need I say more?  We often see reviews of new computers containing the
  speed they managed when running certain benchmark programs.  I wonder if
  there should be a similar test for word processors to accurately show their
  speed when performing the functions I've discussed.  That way potential
  buyers of the program can see at a glance if the features it has are worth
  the speed it runs at.

Progress indicators

   Despite the best intentions of programmers, there are times when we simply
  have to wait while our word processor performs the tasks I mentioned
  earlier.  But while it is performing these tasks, couldn't it at least give
  us an indication of how far it's got and, more importantly, how far it has
  to go?

Graphics

   As far as I'm concerned, forget it.  If you want to incorporate graphics
  in your document and have text flowing around it, then what you should be
  using is a desktop publishing program.  And before you object to the poor
  quality output you get from your dot-matrix printer when using such a
  program, have a look at PageSetter II.  It's as good as or better than
  anything on the market today.

Fonts

   Fonts are nice to have, but are for the most part unnecessary in a word
  processor.  For the majority of what I write I have no need for more than
  one font, and this is for display purposes only.  For the most part I use
  my dot matrix printer's resident fonts, except when I want to send my work
  to an editor, in which case I send the postscript output to a file and copy
  the file directly to the laser printer at work.  Again, if you want text in
  multiple fonts of all shapes and sizes then I suspect you should be using a
  desktop publishing program.

WYSIWYG displays

   Despite what I said earlier, I like being able to see how my document will
  look when printed.  But such a display is only needed when you are
  preparing the layout of your document for printing, which is usually the
  very last thing you do.  While you are still editing your document,
  checking the spelling and so forth, you need speed more than anything else.

   One possible solution to this problem is for the word processor to have
  both a text and a graphics mode.  The text mode doesn't show any
  formatting, but is very quick and would be used for the bulk of your
  editing.  When the time comes to format your document for printing, then
  you would switch over to the graphics mode, where the full range of fonts,
  styles and so forth are displayed as they will appear when printed.
  Another solution is to use the system of embedded commands which were used
  in some of the word processors on 8-bit machines.  The various fonts,
  style, etc. they represent would only be displayed on the page preview
  (and, of course, your printout).  While we're on the subject...

Page preview

   At a time when we are being urged to help save the planet by recycling as
  much as we can and stop logging the forests, we still have to waste the
  equivalent of a small forest every time we want to check the layout of our
  document.  It is difficult, if not impossible, to see how a page looks
  when you can see barely a third of it on the screen at any one time, and so
  you have to print it out to see how it looks in its entirety.  But there is
  another way - page preview.  By showing a graphic representation of the
  entire page on the screen (you can't actually read what the text is, but
  you can see the layout of it), page preview saves both time and resources.

   The user can quickly see where changes need to be made without having to
  print out the page in question every time.  There is a problem with this,
  though.  I've read a number of reports where the page preview and printed
  document bear little resemblance to each other.  To combat this problem, I
  suggest the page preview routine perform a mock print and grab its data
  just before it reaches the printer.  By using this data in conjunction with
  any Preferences settings which may be relevant, a true representation of
  the page can be displayed on the screen.

Spelling checker

   When I am composing an article, short story or whatever, I never edit what
  I'm typing because I believe this inhibits the creative process.  As a
  result of my typing prowess (or lack of it) I end up with a lot more
  mis-spelt words than I would if I were writing everything down on paper.
  Most of these mistakes stick out like a sore thumb, but occasionally there
  will be one I miss when I'm editing my work, and so a spelling checker
  becomes invaluable in these cases.  But when I don't know how to spell a
  word, I tend to use the dictionary on my shelf rather than the one on my
  hard drive.  It's not that I wouldn't like the computer to do this
  laborious task, quite the contrary.  It's just that I haven't found one
  that does a decent job of it.

   To begin with, most dictionaries in word processors these days are
  American rather than English.  This not only flags half your document as
  being spelt incorrectly, it makes you think your own spelling is wrong and
  the computer is right.  As a result, y our own spelling ability tends to
  decrease.  Secondly, nearly all spelling checkers insist you correct each
  error it finds as it finds it.  This becomes very frustrating when you have
  a large file to check.  A far better system is to scan the document and
  produce a report of all the mistakes it th inks are there.  You can then
  examine this report, discover where your mistakes are and correct them all
  in one go.  And while such a report is being generated, you can get on with
  other things.  A few word processors detect when you have extra memory, and
  ask if you want your dictionary and thesaurus copied to RAM.  This is
  great, because it greatly increases the checking speed, particularly of a
  floppy-based system.  But why do these programs never remove them from
  memory when they've finished?  Surely there wouldn't be too much code
  involved in saving any files which have been altered back to disk and then
  deleting them all from memory?

Thesaurus

   To me a thesaurus is more useful to have on a computer than a dictionary
  is.  For me it is quite easy to check the spelling of a word in a
  conventional dictionary, but finding an alternative for a particular word
  in a thesaurus is a long and sometimes involved process, particularly when
  it can have different meanings in different contexts.  The thesaurus on my
  hard drive has saved me a lot of time.

Grammar checkers

   There is nothing quite like being told by a machine that the piece you've
  just finished, which you think is worthy of the Pulitzer prize, has a
  reading level of about fifth grade.  However, if you take this information
  with a grain of salt, grammar checkers can be a real benefit to a writer.
  The trouble is that nearly all the programs I've seen work with American
  spelling rather than English.  And you can hardly expect a program to give
  accurate information about a particular sentence when it doesn't know half
  the words in it.  Also the grammar checker should, like the spelling
  checker, be able to produce a report detailing the problems it finds in
  your document which you can print off and study at you leisure.  Correcting
  a misspelt word is one thing, but changing the structure of a sentence to
  comply with the language's rules of grammar is quite a different story.

Table of contents & Generate index

   I have never used these facilities because at the moment I'm not writing
  anything which needs an index or table of contents.  But while I was at
  university I was asked to write quite a lot of reports which did need them,
  and I would have given anything for a word processor which could simplify
  the task for me.

Virtual memory

   An idea I have fallen in love with is the ability to edit documents larger
  than the available memory on my machine.  This may not be feasible for
  floppy-based machines, but when you have a hard drive it can be a real
  bonus.  I doubt if I will ever write a forty or fifty megabyte piece, but
  with several programs running on my machine simultaneously I often run out
  of memory, even on my three megabyte machine.

Postscript output

   Every program which supports output to a printer should have the option to
  print in postscript, both directly to the printer and to a file.  The best
  output is still obtained from a postscript laser printer, and will continue
  to be for a long time to come.  Note: Commodore have developed a
  postscript printer driver, which is part of version 2.1 of the
  operating system.  But there are some of us who are still using 1.3 and
  require such a facility. [Ed: There is a commercial Postscript driver for
  WB1.3 which comes from Finland and which I used and reviewed in a previous
  Megadisc.]

Text formats

   I can still remember when the Amiga 1000 was making its way into the
  world, and amateurs and experts alike gave their verdict on the ideas the
  new machine was employing.  One idea which everyone seemed to give the
  thumbs up to was the adoption of the IFF (Interchange File Format)
  standard.  This allows data to be shared by applications without the need
  to run it through conversion programs.  For example, graphic images are
  usually stored in IFF ILBM format, while sound files are stored in 8SVX
  format.

   For word processors, unfortunately, there are no such standards.  Every
  word processor stores text in its own unique format, and usually doesn't
  like reading any other format unless they have an inbuilt routine which
  will convert it for you.  And even then it's usually a one-way street.
  There is ASCII of course, but you lose all of your formatting during the
  changeover.  What I would like to see is either a standard format for text
  files, or an ability to convert your files from any format into any other
  format.  And remember that users are quite often using their files in word
  processors on other machines (I use an IBM at work) and so these formats
  should be catered for as well.  Perhaps there could be a library designed
  to cater for this.

Multi-tasking windows

   The ability to have multiple documents open at the same time is a real
  boon for a writer.  As soon as the ideas for one piece run out, I quickly
  switch to another and begin work on it.  With each document having its own
  window, switching between them couldn't be easier.  There is simply no
  excuse not to be writing, at least not until you print one of the pieces.
  Once you do that you find you can't work on any of them, and you waste
  valuable time twiddling your thumbs or brewing another cup of coffee until
  the printing is finished.  Surely it wouldn't take too much programming
  effort to make the windows independent of each other, so that while one is
  busy the others can still be used?  As it stands now I have to have
  multiple copies of my word processor loaded to combat the problem - hardly
  an efficient use of memory.

Timed saves

   Some years ago, while I was busy working on a story, I suddenly became the
  victim of a power blackout, and 2500 words which I had laboured over for
  weeks were irretrievably lost.  You feel sick when something like that
  happens, a sickness which gnaws at your stomach and threatens to eat it
  away.  I got over it, but I certainly learned my lesson - back up as often
  as possible!  Developers have made the task even easier by giving users the
  option of timed saves.  I have embraced this option, and now my documents
  are saved to disk every five minutes of so.  But there are problems with
  this arrangement.  I'm not a touch-typist, and so I'm looking at the
  keyboard most of the time and don't notice when a save is taking place.
  Unfortunately while the save is taking place the word processor locks out
  my keyboard, and so I lose whatever I'm typing at the time.  What is
  needed is some way of capturing the keystrokes entered during the save,
  which can be inserted once it finishes.  Either that or set up a system
  where the document is copied to RAM and then saved to disk as a background
  task.

Multiple generation backups

   I'm one of those people who can't bear to throw anything out.  I'm forever
  trying to fit another item of junk in one of my cupboards, believing (or
  hoping) that it will someday be useful.  This is rarely the case, but you
  can bet your bottom dollar that I'll find a use for something just as it's
  making its way down the road in the back of a garbage truck.  Now that I'm
  taking my writing seriously I find myself doing the same thing with all my
  documents.  I have literally megabytes of text archived on my hard drive,
  most of which I haven't looked at for months.  But in this case my actions
  are justified, because I have actually found a use for some of it.  After
  you've written a piece and it's been accepted for publication, you can
  usually rewrite it to suit another editor's requirements and have it
  accepted again.

   So it really is advantageous to keep everything you write, draft copies
  and all.  Problem is, every time you perform a save (or the program does
  one on your behalf) you sooner or later end up overwriting your older
  versions with newer ones.  Usually just after you think of a use for them!
  Some word processors now have multiple generation backups which solve the
  problem.  If one file is about to overwrite another, it's name is altered
  (usually by adding a number to the end of it) to make it unique.  This can
  keep on going indefinitely, but there is usually a limit imposed on the
  number of generations kept.  Nonetheless, this is a feature every word
  processor should have.

Macros

   There are times when I seem to be pulling down the same menus, selecting
  the same option and pressing the same keys, time after time after time.  It
  would be useful if I could record these operations and replay them by
  pressing a single key.  Macros allow you to do just this, or at least they
  should.  Some word processors have this feature, while others make you
  write an AREXX script to achieve the same thing.  I much prefer the
  recording session, but that's not to say AREXX doesn't have its uses.

AREXX

   I never bothered about using AREXX until I discovered it was the only way
  to write macros in ProWrite.  Now that I've begun to get a grip on the
  language I seem to find new things to do with it all the time.  And with
  most programs having an AREXX interface built into them, this facility has
  a lot of potential.  One I particularly like the idea of is linking it with
  PowerPacker to work with crunched files (I'm still working on this one.)

Calling all developers

   So there you have it.  The features I would like to see (and not see) in a
  word processor.  Most of these are currently available, but they are
  distributed across a number of different programs, and I can barely afford
  to buy one.  Now if someone would develop one which brought them all
  together, then I believe the Amiga would have a word processor which would
  set new standards rather than trying to reach the current ones.


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