Re: Medley IIGS v2.0 - a 'FREEWARE' from Milliken Publishing Company

[gareth@vcn.bc.ca (Gareth Jones)]

Nathan Mates (nathan@visi.com) wrote:

(snipped question about Medley 2.0)

:    Nibble Magazine shredded this program in their reviews, if I
: remember correctly. It really lost the DTP war real fast-- nobody was
: selling it 6 months after it was announced. AWGS 1.1 may have a few
: more features than this program, if that's any indication of it.

I think you may be a little unfair to Medley here, Nathan. it came out in 
about 1988, according to mentions in my old magazines, and version 2.0 
was published about 1990. That is a two year run for version 1.x alone. I 
didn't read the Nibble review, but i can guess the grounds for criticism, 
relative to other dtp programs. inCider/A+ reviewed it fairly favourably, 
but took care to say that it was first and foremost a word processor (and 
"short of being WordPerfect" it was possibly the most powerful word 
processor available on the GS, they said). Secondly, it is a paint 
program. Lastly, it did those things well enough to have some features 
otherwise found only in dtp programs.

In the last few days, I've found that it has very flexible page 
numbering (better than anything else on a II that I know of), kerning, 
space between paragraph controls, the ability to wrap text within 
irregular shapes as well as around them, and a few more goodies. 
Unfortunately, the fact that the dictionary isn't being distributed with 
the program means that spell-checking, thesaurus and auto-hyphenation 
aren't available. However, it may still offer features that some people need.

 :    
GraphicWriter III 2.0 from Seven Hills is WAY better, is being
: published by a company that still cares about the Apple II, and has
: the advantage of being sold new, no sector edits. If you're halfway
: serious about using the GS for DTP, buy it, and support those who
: still support you.

As one booster of GWIII 2.0 to another, I welcome the chance to put in 
another unsolicited plug for the program and its publisher. I won't be 
using Medley to do any dtp, but i would suggest it to people with a GS 
and a thin wallet.

-Gareth