Re: AWGS 1.1 (was: Re: general ? on 2gs)

[Joe Kohn <joko@crl.com>]

I use AWGS to produce the 20 page Shareware Solutions II newsletter...
 
In my experience, the word processor seems to be the least buggy of any of
the modules. In fact, off the top of my head, I can't remember ever 
having a single problem with it.
 
I wish I could say the same about the Page Layout module, but I can't.
 
I did a presentation/tutorial at Kfest '98 about how to use AWGS' Page
Layout module to create such things as Print Shop-style greeting cards,
newsletters, brochures, and manuals, and joked that "AWGS has teeth, and if
you're not careful, it can bite you."
 
Has anyone here ever seen what I've dubbed "The Black Curtain of Death?"
 
Sometimes, and I can't predict when, during a cut and paste operation in the
PL module, a dark green (almost black) band appears across the top of the 
screen, and slowly descends until the system crashes. At least one other 
person has seen that.
 
How 'bout when the PL module decides that it doesn't like your formatting
commands (like for centering text) and left justifies everything? That
happens every once in a while. Why?...I have no idea.
 
What I have found is that when AWGS does decide to override your wishes that
it does so when it saves the file. So, quite often, when I'm printing out
the Master copy of the completed 20 page newsletter, I'll do my final 
edit, print it out and then save it to disk, because sometimes when you 
save a PL file and then load it back in, it's not the exact same file 
that was saved.
 
One thing that I've found that can cause havoc in the PL module occurs when
you have empty text boxes. Those usually happen by accident...you do a
single click with the text insertion tool to create a text box, and AWGS
creates 2 text boxes, one of which you don't really notice as it is hidden
behind the one you're using. For some unexplained reason, it seems to me
that when you save a PL file with empty text boxes, the file sometimes gets
corrupted.

No one should dispute that AWGS is buggy. It is. BUT...despite all its
faults, it's still a useable program. I even kind of like the PL module,
even though it's caused me more than a few problems.
 
BTW, I have a ROM01 with 4 megs.

One other BTW...it was during the development of Pointless that WestCode 
and I discovered the problem caused by pre-loading AWGS modules. Long before 
Pointless shipped, I kept having some real bizarre problems that WestCode 
just couldn't duplicate. We were determined to find out why; we had to 
if we were going to release Pointless. We finally figured it out...my 
AWGS was configured to pre-load modules, and WestCode's AWGS was 
configured not to pre-load any modules. As soon as I changed my 
configuration, all the odd little problems I'd been having simply disappeared. 

Joe Kohn
http://www.crl.com/~joko