Re: GS II booted!

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

<Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:

>CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney) writes:
>
>> I would be cautious about recommending AppleWorksGS to
>> anyone because the only format that can be recovered if
>> something goes wrong is the Word Processing one.  No one
>> knows the file format for the Database, Spreadsheet, Graphics,
>> Page Layout or Communication files.  If something goes wrong
>> and you don't have a backup that didn't get corrupted by the same
>> problem as your original, you end up losing all the data in that file.
>
>Some things to know about using Appleworks GS safely:
>
>1.) Do not pre-load the modules.

Agreed.  With a hard drive, you'd hardly notice the
difference.  I started using AWGS when my IIGS had
a hard drive, so I never bothered preloading modules.
Maybe that's why I never discovered a problem with
preloading until I read it on csa2.

>2.) Always do a "Save as..." instead of "Save".
>     The reason for this is when file corruption
>     happens it is in memory and you will save
>     the trashed file, overwriting your good file.
>     When you do a "Save as..."  with a suffix
>     e.g. myfile1 the first save, myfile2 the second
>     save etc. you will only lose the most recent
>     changes.

This is true on any program.  I do it on the PC too.
It is only the wise thing to do.  Now personally,
AWGS crashes about as much as a typical program
does on my Windows 95 PC (which is not often).
Still, such precaution is recommended.  Save as
"MyFile1" then next save as "MyFile2" then save
as "MyFile1" etc.  I don't switch every time, but
maybe every three to five saves.

Note: I've never lost anything when a "Save" is
successful.  I've used AWGS for years and one
or two times it has crashed at the moment of a
"Save" at which time I got a saved empty file.
Now this is not unique to AWGS.  It has happened
on my PC programs before and it happened once
under AppleWorks Classic 3.0 when I used that
program.  It only makes sense that if you are
saving something and the computer freezes the
file is going to be trashed.  However, I have
NEVER had AWGS appear to save correctly and
ended up with a corrupt file.

>3.) For large AWGS files, shift-boot the GS.

Unless you have 8MB like me that is.  ;-)

AWGS is memory intensive and works better with
lots of RAM.  I think this factor might also affect the
other issues you mention.  Perhaps my 8MB adds
stability to my AWGS because the program finally
has memory to spare.

>4.) Don't do ruler operations on large blocks of selected
>     text in the word processor. ie. don't select 10 pages
>     of text and try to move the margins or even change
>     fonts. It is much safer to do large operations in
>     smaller chunks.

I wrote 14 to 20 page papers using AWGS before
and I often did just that without problems.  Again, I
think the fact that I have 8MB might be the reason
for the stability.  I did however use AWGS for some
time with 5MB (ROM 3 + 4MB RAM expansion
card).  Maybe it becomes more stable with at least
5MB of memory?

>Appleworks GS can be used reasonably safely with these few
>precautions. If something does go wrong, the text from
>the Data Base can easily be recovered with a block editor
>such as ProSel 16 or Deliverance. I have successfully
>recovered ~95-99% of trashed DB files because the text
>is fairly contiguous with delimiters on disk. IIRC,  I kept a template of my
>DB file saved and I would copy the text using Deliverance
>from the corrupted file, and paste it into a text file. Then,
>just import the text file back into the data base. IIRC the
>Spreadsheet is tab delimited (but I'm not sure about
>that) so a similar recovery method might work, if needed.
>Nobody should use the Comm module ;o) and the text
>for the PL module, IIRC is also fairly contiguous. I wouldn't
>say AWGS is dangerous but I wouldn't trust it for a
>dissertation (but then again I wouldn't even use an
>Apple II anymore for anything REALLY important anyway).
>IMO AWGS was always cooler to use than AW classic. YMMV. :o)