Final Writer 5

Softwood enters Round 5 of the Word Processor Battle, and they've come out swinging

When Softwood introduced Final Writer a few years back, many people were quite pleased. No, this wasn't a case of "this product has promise;" it was a case of "this is one great product right now!" Well, not to leave well enough alone, they introduced updates at fairly regular intervals, sometimes tuning up little details, and other times, implementing major new features and design revisions.

All of this has culminated in Final Writer Release 5, introduced this spring. This, of course, shortly after the release of version 5 of Final Writer's greatest (perhaps only?) competitor, Digita's Wordworth, which also seemed to gain a favorable reaction from the Amiga press. So Softwood had a lot to live up to.

Upgrade time!

[Registered] owners of Softwood products have probably grown accustomed to receiving notices in Final Writer-printed envelopes and documents in the mail from time to time, either in the form of an announcement for the latest Final Widget program, or an upgrade notice for a current one. Not to knock this; it is good to see a company that actually communicates with its customers (it seems that, in the past, product registration cards were sometimes bundled with products just as a matter of course). Well, the day came in May when I found one such thing in my mailbox. Apparently Softwood had once again defied the idea implied by the word "Final" and developed a new version of its program. In addition, they were offering several upgrade options, with the program by itself, or bundled with the Windows 95 version of the program (which they take great pains to point out was developed by an independent group), or with a web site on Softwood's new web server.

So I wasted no time in calling the order number and requesting a copy of Final Writer 5. No, I had to say, I don't have Windows 95 on my PC, and I already have a web site; but they were pleased to send me Final Writer 5 nonetheless.

Installation

There's almost nothing to say here. Any competently-written Amiga program these days is likely to be easy to install, largely because of the ease-of-use and standardization brought with Commodore's Installer program. Final Writer held true to this standard, and its past precedents, in that regard. The update came in the form of a 3-disk set to replace the previous disks 1, 8, and 9. Also included are explicit instructions for installing it. You really can't go wrong. In terms of manuals, a "Final Writer Release 5 User Manual Addendum" is included which, incidentally, is significantly thicker than the old Release 3 Addendum.

First Impressions

When Final Writer opens, the only difference you're likely to notice at first is the screen title: "Final Writer - Release 5." The first-rate and incredibly thorough graphical user interface remains fairly consistent with Release 5. The improvements are more "internal."

What's new?

After all, people generally don't buy a program for a number that's pinned on it; they are interested in its capabilities. Final Writer 5 introduces a number of new features and updates, so we will cover these briefly (without echoing the manual addendum verbatim).

• "Select Font" requester
  FW5 makes this feature more convenient by giving it its own item in the "Layout" menu.
• Predefined zoom levels
  You can now select from several different zoom percentages from the "Zoom" menu.
• Styles enhancements
  There are several improvements to this aspect of Final Writer. For example, styles can now be created "Based on" other styles, i.e. they start with the same settings as the styles on which they are based. This makes it easier to have relative, rather than absolute, differences in the structure of a document. You can also set up an automatic style sequence, meaning that when you end one paragraph and begin another, the program automatically switches to the next specified style. There are several other enhancements in this category.
• Saving and opening preferences
  Thank you, Softwood! That's what I can hear many Amiga users saying right now. You can now save multiple configurations with Final Writer, so if you have several different preferred "operating modes," you can easily switch between them.
• Saving and opening style sheets
  Yes, yet another style enhancement! It's fairly well self-explanatory, and goes along with the philosophy expressed by the above item.
• Document templates
  This is another "modular" idea in FW5: it allows you to have certain settings, and even text layouts, preset for different types of documents. Examples include 2 each of Fax Cover, Letter, and Memo templates, and an HTML template (to be explained further shortly...)
• Auto Correct
  This is a new feature that goes further to help you write gooder...er, better, methinks. It actually adds several capabilities in one: (each of these features can be disabled independently if you find them annoying, or inappropriate for a particular document) Capitalize First Letter of Sentences, Correct TWo INitial CApitals (yes, that's how it is displayed by the program), and Replace Words as you type. This last one opens several possibilities: first of all, if you are into the habit of typing "adn" and "teh," it will remedy the situation. In addition, it makes it easier to insert often-used phrases. For example, you can set it to replace "FW5" with "Final Writer 5" or, as I do, "cm" with "103165.3700@compuserve.com."
• GUI configurability
  The user interface is a bit more configurable, such as optional use of various click tabs.
• "Type Specs" accessibility
  You can now add "Type Specs" items to the User menu.
• File requesters
  I don't fully understand this addition, and Softwood doesn't fully explain it, but you can now set the program to use ASL requesters (for those who don't know, these are the requesters displayed by almost every program written in the last 6 years or so) instead of the custom ones which are, in fact, quite similar. In fact, when I first got Final Writer Release 3, I wasn't being particularly observant and mistook the file requesters for the standard ASL variety. Basically, the difference is that ASL requesters have keyboard shortcuts for navigating the directory structure, they have menus that let you perform a variety of functions, and they can be resized. Final Writer's requesters in no way violate the Amiga style guide, unless you insist that all programs use the ASL requester, and in fact, many people think they are a better match for Final Writer's GUI than the ASL ones...but apparently, some people wanted ASL, so Softwood gave it to them.
• Changing the order of sections
  You can now rearrange your sections. Very nice.
• Public Screen
  Final Writer 5's custom screen is now a public screen. Plain and simple.
• Preloading Fonts
  You can now set the program to automatically load particular fonts when it first runs. Very nice.
• Tables
  This is fairly self-explanatory. It is a feature that allows you to organize data automatically into row/column cells. The tables also allow different attributes to be set in different regions of the table. I'd call it a home run for Softwood. The dimensions of the tables are automatically handled by the program to accommodate what you type. There is a lot to say about Final Writer's tables, far more than we can cover here. It is a powerful feature with myriad powerful supporting capabilities.
• RTF import and export
  This goes along with the modularization/standardization idea. You can now save and load documents in the Rich Text Format supported by many word processors on the other platforms. You configure this feature by specifying Final Writer fonts to map to the RTF fonts, basically in the form of a translation table.
• Datatype support
  Excellent, excellent, excellent. Datatypes are among the most useful and ingenious of the OS's capabilities, and unfortunately, have been both grossly unused by applications, and grossly undeveloped by datatype programmers. This addition to Final Writer allows you to import any image format for which you have datatype support.
• Grammar Correction System
  This major feature introduced in Release 4 has apparently been improved in a number of ways, including performance. Softwood doesn't go into great detail here, so neither will I.
• HTML
  Very, very good, Softwood! They have followed clearly the growing importance of the internet in recent years, particularly in reference to the WWW, and as a result, have incorporated support for the creation of HTML documents with Final Writer. This takes advantage of the Template feature mentioned earlier so that is specifies various styles of HTML code. Any unsupported features can be entered by the user in HTML itself. Exporting an HTML document is done the same way as exportation of any other format, e.g. ASCII or RTF. To sum up the feature support, it allows for just about every type style (normal, headline, blockquote, preformatted, etc....bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, etc.). It allows images to be included just as with normal Final Writer documents. There is a lot to be added. Basically, it's a truly excellent idea, but it needs development. If you happen to be reading the HTML version of this magazine, I wrote most of this document using Final Writer 5 and the HTML export driver. There are also some "quirks." I have created several HTML documents using Final Writer 5's HTML export driver, and once (and once only), some inexplicable style attributes and various other markups were inserted into the document, so that I had to make little edits myself after exporting it. It was a case of apparently pressing one or more of FW's Bold/Italic/Underline buttons one too many times. It was a minor problem, but it was a throwback to the old WordPerfect "Hidden Codes" days. Despite such first version-deficiencies, though, it does allow for easy layout of rudimentary HTML documents, and could probably be carried to greater extents in future versions. Ironically, the new "Table" feature introduced into the Final Writer side of the program is not yet supported by the HTML side. Maybe this will change. Of course, you can always embed native HTML code, if you're into those types of things.
• Modified ARexx Comands
  Final Writer 5 has some modified ARexx commands, and some new ones, generally in reference to the new features outlined above. The manual addendum provides a thorough description.

In conclusion, as a Final Writer user of several years, and as a writer for this magazine, I give Final Writer 5 a high rating. Softwood has made a number of significant improvements in their heavy-duty word processor, and it's more user-friendly than ever. The new Table feature, and HTML export driver, broaden the capabilities of an already wide-ranging program, and the RTF capability can only aid Softwood's rapport with the word processing community. We also mustn't forget how fortunate we are to still have Softwood around. The last few years have been trying times, and many companies have not survived them. But Softwood has stuck with us, and continued to update their products. Despite how good this program is, there are, however, several things that could be improved or added.

• Online Help!
  I can't emphasize this enough. The AmigaGuide hypertext online help system has been grossly underused by Amiga applications. Even the workbench itself is lacking this essential feature. It is unfortunate, because it is another one of the truly useful parts of the OS. In MicroSoft Windows, just about everything has an online help facility. Now, I'm not saying everything including ShowConfig should be given an online help system; but surely something as big as Final Writer should have one. The Amiga even has a help key, for goodness sakes! It's ironic that Windows, having to use F1, has gone so much farther in this direction. Programmers seem to have forgotten about AmigaGuide. I'm not sure why Final Writer doesn't include an online help system, but I can say it would be a very good addition to the program in the next version.
• Font previews
  Selection and usage of fonts could be made significantly easier if there was a way to show a sample of a font within the requester.
• Multiple alignments on one line
  Back, years ago, when I used WordPerfect for the Amiga, I remember frequently using left-aligned and right-aligned text on the same line in order to construct headings for school papers. Unless I have missed something obvious, I have not found any way to do this with Final Writer, or any other word processor, for that matter. I realize FW is a paragraph-oriented word processor, but it would be very convenient if it allowed multiple justifications of text on one line.
• Multitasking/multithreading/print spooling
  Now, there is no doubt that Final Writer is, in fact, multithreaded, and that it multitasks with the system. So why am I mentioning this? It all really comes down to printing. Once you begin to print a document, that document window locks up, and control isn't returned until printing finishes. Softwood, of course, had no choice but to write their own printing routines, since the system's built-in print spooling capability was not designed with outline fonts and Final Writer-style postscript-type printing in mind. But it seems to me, then, that Final Writer should be designed with its own centralized, modular printing system as long as the OS does not support that capability. That way, a particular instance of Final Writer could call that printing system, send it a document, and then get back to word processing. As it is now, once you start printing, if you want to open a new document, you must return to Workbench and run Final Writer again. Not a big deal, but it could be made easier and more efficient. And have you ever opened a print prefs requester from another FW doc whilst one is printing? Interesting things happen.
  If Softwood felt truly motivated, they could take their Final Writer printing technology, and adapt it slightly so as to become a full-featured, centralized print spooling system and postscript/graphic printing engine. Then they could market that as an independent product that you could actually purchase and install as an extension to the Amiga OS, where it would be available to all programs seeking to use it.
• Autoscroll Virtual Screen
  Final Writer should be able to open on an autoscroll virtual screen, just as the Workbench can. It would be very convenient, especially for those of us for whom resolutions higher than 640x480 are still a dream...
• Iconification
  The ability to iconify to an AppIcon on the Workbench is a powerful feature of the OS that is very much underused. It seems as though MUI Apps are the only ones that use it fairly consistently. Final Writer should incorporate this feature, so that its screen and other facilities could be shut down so as to conserve memory, if the user wished to set it aside without actually quitting the program.
• AutoSave
  It is good that Final Writer does have facilities to automatically save your work at certain preset intervals, but there's one flaw with them: again, I refer back to the old Amiga WordPerfect. WP's autosave didn't save the file to the name you had given it; it saved to a file in the T directory (the one on disk, not in RAM:), and deleted it upon proper exit of the program; but if WP ran and found that file in T, it would know something had gone wrong, and recover it for you. Final Writer, and most other current word processors, simply autosave right to the file from which they were loaded, or to which they were saved. This is not as good as the other method for several reasons: if the file doesn't yet exist, you'll be asked for a name, and if you are viewing files (and not typing) and you happen to inadvertently make a change in the file, it will be saved periodically. I would prefer to have it saving to some otherwise meaningless file in a scrap directory.
• Datatype
  Currently, the only program that can view a file created with Final Writer is Final Writer. Softwood should include a datatype with Final Writer so that programs such as MultiView could read FW Documents; or if not that, at least a file viewer for FW Docs, the way DPaint came with an animation viewer. There should be no need to run a 1-megabyte program just to read a file you wrote with it.
• Key Shortcuts
  Final Writer has done a decent job with key shortcuts, especially with default items (like "Print" and "Save" buttons) and user-configurable aspects of the program, but this could be carried further, with shorcuts for just about all functions and items in requesters. MUI and Windows have done nicely in this respect, and although the Amiga is, and always shall be (until the "next big input device revolution" if such an event occurs) a primarily mouse-driven machine, key shortcuts can be extremely convenient, and should be implemented more thoroughly into all programs, Final Writer included.
• Cancel Closing of Document
  When you click the close gadget on a document window, if it isn't saved, it will ask you if you wish to Save, and allows you to say "Yes," "No," or "Cancel." If you say "No," then there is no going back. If it's the last document, the program asks you if you want to exit..."Yes" and "No," but no "Cancel." It is possible to make a mistake at the first requester. If the user were allowed to "Cancel" the whole operation, then he or she would be given one more chance to preserve unsaved work.
• Set File Type
  For people who are frequently using Final Writer to edit documents other than those of the Final Writer variety (i.e. RTF, ASCII, or HTML), it would be convenient if one could set the default file export type to something other than the standard format in preferences. This is especially so for people who wish to repeatedly make minor edits to files and save them without having to go through all the requester options each time. In this respect, the "ASL Requester" option is actually convenient, since it asks you to set the file format before it opens the requester when saving. But if the default option could be set, it would make things that much easier.
• Importing Files
  Final Writer, at this time, cannot import HTML documents. They come up as ASCII text. This would be a good capability to add in the future, since at this time, creating an HTML document with Final Writer is a one-shot deal. It is understandable, however, why Softwood would add the export without import capabilty; there can be significant variation in HTML document structure. It's meant that way...plus there is the issue of incomplete or badly-coded HTML documents. So the HTML import driver would have to be extremely versatile. But without going quite that far, they could at least give the ability to import HTML documents created with the Final Writer HTML export driver. At least in that case they could be certain of a continuity in HTML coding. But then by adding a thorough HTML import driver, we could be looking at full-featured web-browsing capability. Hmm...imagine it..."Final Internet..." This whole idea certainly opens vast new gateways for Final Writer. Integrated web-browsing abilty? Built-in email? Perhaps an entirely new Softwood product package could emerge based upon this first step into internet affairs. Potentials abound!
• HTML
  The HTML driver built into Final Writer 5 is an excellent idea. The growing popularity of the internet (and the growing number of people with web pages), in conjunction with Final Writer's long-standing history of being an excellent page-layout program, practically mandated that, and Softwood made a good decision. But as I mentioned, the current HTML driver is highly limited, and a bit flaky. Don't think I'm denouncing it; it's a great idea, and for that reason, is something that should be developed. Were Softwood to iron out the bugs and quirks, and expand the capabilities to include all the little HTML tricks and entities (tables, forms, links, protocols, etc.), Final Writer could be transformed into a fully-graphical, full-featured, and extremely easy-to-use HTML editor. Some current features of the DTP side of the program could be "ported" to the HTML side, such as tables and horizontal rules. At that, Final Writer could serve a multifaceted purpose and attract a larger crowd.

One final interesting detail of note is that the date stamped on the program in the "About..." menu item was AFTER the date I ordered it...;-)

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• The Webb Site, Home of The Amiga Monitor