*********************************** AM/FM ***********************************     OCTAMED PRO v5 IS HERE!     (Well, very soon!)    Teijo Kinnunen does the impossible and upgrades the ever popular OctaMED once again. (Ref screenshot which is attached to this article on the menu)  ****************** NOTE ******************* Note that OctaMED v5 is NOT YET AVAILABLE. The version we have seen is not 100% finished - we will get back with a real review, together with info on how to get this software once it is available to the public!  ******************************************* From the owner and distributor of OctaMED, RBF Software, we have received a disk with an early version of OctaMED Pro v5. Your favourite AM/FM Editor (me) eagerly loaded up the program to see what was improved this time, and what new functions were added to the zillions of options and functions that were in there already! Upon loading the program, the first thing we notice is that the presentation has changed radically to the better (Ref. screenshot). OctaMED has been given a real shine-up and now it looks like a real OS 2.0 / 3.0 program should. It looks clean, tidy, elegant and user-friendly. So far, we've only seen a few programs with this characteristic "professional" look, OctaMED v5 is indeed one of them! (Midi Performance Manager (MPM) which is reviewed in this very issue of AM/FM is another!) One major improvement as far as user-friendliness is that OctaMED now uses pull-down menues for almost everything, instead of the billions and billions of little gadgets and key-combinations. Finding one's way around the various parts of this program is much easier now that you can select from menues instead of locating the correct little button on the correct screen. Way to go Teijo! Another great improvement is the inclusion of the "Amigaguide" documentation system, which enable you to get on-line help in a really tidy, professional way, by just pressing the HELP button at any time while running the program. Once again, this is in fact one of the first few programs that I've seen using this wonderful documentation-system. (And once again, MPM which is reviewed elsewhere in this issue is another one to use this great system). It really pleases me to see programmers now utilizing professional routines and a clean and tidy layout, instead of trying to impress with rotating stars, cycling colours, fancy graphics. It seems to me that the programmers are now realising that us users are tired of all of this, and now we want programs that work safely and quickly, and which we can find our way around easily. Both OctaMED v5 (of which this is a PREVIEW) and MPM (which is REVIEWED in this issue) are programs which are taking care of the system- safety and the user-friendliness in a better way than most of us are used to. I think we're seeing a turning of the tide here. Way to go, guys! Bjørn A. Lynne [Ed] *********************************** AM/FM ***********************************