ftp.whtech.com/ftp.whtech.com.tar/ftp.whtech.com/articles/limanews/WRITEASE.TXT

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA
NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 1988


     A review of CorComp's word
processor WRITEREASE
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Lima Ohio User
Group

    When Texas Instruments placed the
TI-Writer editor and assembler code in
the public domain, TI-Writer instantly
became the word processor of choice for
those with disk systems.  Although
another full featured disk based word
processor called COMPANION received an
excellent review in Micropendium I
havn't seen COMPANION offered for sale
or mentioned in the newsletters for
some time.  After all, TI-Writer is
FREE, and is probably as good as
COMPANION.  And we now have the
fairware packages BA Writer and
FUNNELWEB which are improved versions
of TI-Writer.

    So, why has CorComp come out with
its own disk based word processing
package for the 99/4A, WRITEREASE v2,
priced at between $40 (Tex-Comp) and
$45 (Triton).  What does WRITEREASE
have that the free or almost free
TI-Writer doesn't have that would
justify spending this kind of money?
The answer is an easily accessible and
fast 30000 word spell checking
dictionary.  It is probably the best
spell checking package there is for
those of us with 99/4A disk systems.

    WRITEREASE can be used with a
minimum one SSSD drive system, but you
need double sided drives or equivalent
capacity on a ramdisk to take full
advantage of all features.  The
software comes on two disks.  One
contains the dictionary and is not
protected.  The dictionary can easily
be installed on Horizon or other
ramdisk, or used directly off of the
disk.  The program disk is heavily
protected and can only be booted from
DSK1.  Because of the disk protection,
which involves uninitialized tracks and
sectors with a length greater than 256
bytes, you can't put the WRITEREASE
program on a ramdisk.  I was unable to
back up my program disk with any of the
several track copiers at my disposal.
CorComp does not offer cheap backup
copies and only guarantees the original
for 120 days.  Do I have to spend
another $40+ to replace my one and only
program disk if it is damaged after 120
days?

     THE WRITEREASE PROGRAM:  It is
similar in its capabilities to the
TI-Writer editor.  In fact, files
created with TI-Writer can be loaded
into WRITEREASE for modification and
spell checking.  All the TIW editing
functions are present including CTRL/U
special character mode which can be
used to send ASCII codes 0-32 to the
printer.  Syntax of the WRITEREASE
commands differs from that of TIW, but
is very easy to remember.  Most
commands require simultaneously
pressing CTRL and some other key.
Pressing FCTN/H at any time brings up
help screens listing all commands, in
case you forget how to do something.

    Don't get the idea that WRITEREASE
is an exact clone of the TIW editor.
WRITEREASE has some interesting
additional capabilities.  There is no
left/right windowing.  Instead, the
screen display moves smoothly left and
right one column at a time when the
cursor reaches the left or right screen
edge.  More importantly, the right
margin can be set out as far as column
256.  You can, for example, set the
right margin at 132 and use condensed
print to fill 8.5 inch wide paper.  If
you have a 15 inch printer you can use
wide paper and all 256 columns with
condensed print.  Right margin settings
of column 80 or less are saved as D/V80
files and are thus compatible with
TI-Writer.  Right margins beyond column
80 save as files that are not TIW
compatible.  For example, 132 columns
saves as a D/V132 file.

    Another WRITEREASE feature, not
found in the TI-WRITER editor, is the
ability to boot on powerup your choice
of defaults.  Defaults include screen
colors, dictionary drive number, word
wrap on or off, as well as margins,
indentation after a carriage return,
and tab settings.  You can customize a
file of default settings which is
automatically read each time WRITEREASE
boots.  You can change these defaults
individually, and you can also load
into WRITEREASE any of four other
default setting files.  The powerup and
four alternate default setting files
reside on the WRITEREASE program disk
and can be altered by the user.  These
files are not protected.

    WRITEREASE also differs from the
TIW editor in not displaying line
numbers.  Instead you get a display in
the upper right corner of the screen of
the cursor's column and row position.
Rows correspond to TIW line numbers.
If you load in a file, the number of
lines in the file is shown,
continuously incrementing as the file
is loaded.  A tab line is continuously
displayed at the top of the screen
unless the tab line display is manually
turned off.  All of the features
described in this paragraph are, I
believe, an improvement over the TIW
editor.

    There is no formatter in the
WRITEREASE package.  This means that
such things as right justification,
transliteration, and include file are
not possible using WRITEREASE alone.
You can, however, use WRITEREASE create
a document complete with formatter dot
commands, save the file to disk, and
then print the file through the
TI-Writer formatter.  You can also use
PLUS! transliteration codes (CTRL/U
SHIFT/x CTRL/U) from within WRITEREASE
and then print the resulting file out
correctly with the TIW formatter.

    You can load a D/V80 WRITEREASE
file into the TIW editor and use the
command PF to print this file out
normally.  You can also load a file
created with the TIW editor into
WRITEREASE for modification and
printout.  Before printing this TIW
file from WRITEREASE you should delete
the last line with its funny looking
symbols.  Otherwise these funny symbols
will be printed by your printer.

     THE WRITEREASE SPELL CHECKER: This
is where WRITEREASE really stands out,
and the only reason, in my opinion, to
purchase WRITEREASE.  You can only
access the WRITEREASE spell checking
dictionary from within the WRITEREASE
word processor.  You can't use it
directly from TIW, which is a shame.
There are 30000 words on a 360 sector
90K disk.  In order to cram this many
words into 360 sectors special coding
was used.  Groups of letters are
represented by a single code so that a
6 letter word occupies less than six
bytes on the disk.  If you examine the
dictionary disk with a sector editor in
ASCII, you won't recognize any of the
words.  The Dragon Slayer dictionary,
the only other spell checker dictionary
available on disk to 99/4A users, has
only 20000 words and occupies about 460
sectors.

    To check the spelling of a single
word, position the cursor under any
letter of the word and press
CTRL/C(heck).  The screen displays a
list of similarly spelled words and if
your word is in the dictionary it is
shown in this list underlined.  If your
word is not in the dictionary you are
so informed and given the option to add
your word to the user dictionary or
return to the document.  The displayed
list of similarly spelled words can be
an aid in determining correct spelling.

    To check an entire document, or
portion of a document, place the cursor
under any letter of the first word to
be checked and press CTRL/A(ll).
Checking begins word by word ignoring
numbers, single letters, control codes,
all punctuation, and capitalization.
GOOD, Good, and good all look the same
to the dictionary.  The word currently
being checked is displayed on the
screen and checking continues word by
word until an unrecognized word is
found.  You are then given the option
of adding the unrecognized word to the
user dictionary or returning to the
document for correcting.  If you add
the word to the user dictionary spell
checking then automatically continues
beginning with the next word.  If you
return to the document you can
immediately correct the spelling, or
press CTRL/C to display a list of words
with a spelling similar to that of the
unrecognized word to aid you in its
correct spelling.

    Spell checking progresses very
rapidly, even if you are reading the
regular and user dictionaries right off
of a disk.  Things really zip along if
the dictionaries are on a ramdisk.
Both regular and user dictionaries are
scanned automatically.  No user
intervention is required to switch to
the user dictionary if the word is not
found in the regular dictionary.  Once
you have entered your commonly used
user words into the user dictionary,
spell checking of an entire document
occurs very rapidly and most
unrecognized words are in fact
misspelled.

    Two peculiarities of the WRITEREASE
dictionaries should be noted. You
cannot enter a two letter word into the
user dictionary. If a two letter word
is not recognized when checking a
document, when you reply "Y" to the
prompt to add the word to the user
dictionary spell checking will continue
normally. However, the next time the
two letter word is encountered it will
again not be recognized. Because the
WRITEREASE dictionaries don't recognize
punctuation, they have trouble with
contractions such as "havn't". The
screen will say that it doesn't
recognize the word "havn". The thing
to do is add "havn" to the user
dictionary. Then the next time that
"havn't" is found in the document the
dictionary will recognize "havn" and
ignore the apostrophe and the single
letter "t" that follows it.

    Compared to the Dragon Slayer spell
checker, WRITEREASE is much faster and
much easier to use.  With Dragon Slayer
the user has to manually load in Part 1
of the regular dictionary, then Part 2
of the regular dictionary, then each of
the user dictionaries when spell
checking a document.  Then you have to
load your document and reformat it.
All this manipulation takes alot of
time, and with Dragon Slayer you can't
check the spelling of single words
during the creation of a document.

    The ability to create a user
dictionary is a very important aspect
of the versatility of the WRITEREASE
spell checker.  This ability, found in
the currently marketed v2.0 of
WRITEREASE, requires that the user have
greater than SSSD disk capacity.  You
need double sided (DSSD)  or double
density or similar capacity on a
ramdisk.  Both the regular and user
dictionaries MUST be accessed from the
same drive number.  The regular
dictionary takes up 358 sectors,
leaving no room for any more files on a
SSSD disk.  Thus, users with only
SSSD drives can't make a user
dictionary.  When checking a document,
when a word is unrecognized you are
prompted with the message "User
dictionary not found.  Create Retry
Exit".  If you press C, spell checking
continues but no user dictionary is
created.  Pressing E returns you to the
document for spelling corrections.  It
sure would be nice for SSSD only users
if the user and regular dictionaries
could be placed on separate disks.

    User dictionary users beware!
Unlike the very compact main
dictionary, user dictionaries take up
lots and lots of disk space.  Each
different combination of the first two
letters of a user dictionary word will
add one sector to the length of
****UDICT, the user dictionary file.
As the dictionary is created, many
****UDICT sectors will contain only one
dictionary word.  If you exceed the
capacity of your media (ramdisk or
floppy) to store more ****UDICT words,
spell checking will halt with a
computer lockup.  Spell checking this
article created a ****UDICT file of 664
sectors that totally filled my Horizon
and then locked up the computer before
I got to the end of the article.

     GENERAL COMMENTS: Although the
WRITEREASE program has several nice
features not found in the TIW editor,
these features are not worth $40+.
Ti-Writer is free and, because of the
TIW formatter, much more versatile than
WRITEREASE.  Also, WRITEREASE can only
be booted from floppy in drive 1.  I
much prefer to create my documents with
FUNNELWEB's version of TIW which I boot
instantly from a ramdisk.  The reason I
purchased WRITEREASE was to use its
spell checker.  For disk based 99/4A
systems it is the best spell checker
available.  From now on I will type in
newsletter articles using the TIW
editor and a custom PLUS! template,
load these documents into WRITEREASE
for spell checking, resave the
corrected document from WRITEREASE, and
print the newsletter hardcopy via the
TIW formatter.  Readers will probably
notice far fewer typos and spelling
errors in the newsletter from now on.

    Nowhere in descriptions of
WRITEREASE found in the Tex Comp,
Triton and Tenex catalogs, and
nowhere in the WRITEREASE documentation
is it stated that you need more than
SSSD capacity to create a user
dictionary.  The Spring/Summer 88
Triton catalog, for example, states
"Improved! ....with expandable spell
checker."  Version 1.0 of WRITEREASE
did not have this capability.  I can
imagine some very disappointed SSSD
only v1.0 owners paying to upgrade to
version 2.0 to gain this ability.  It
seems to me that system requirements
should be made crystal clear to
potential software purchasers prior to
purchase.  CorComp, and the above
mentioned dealer catalogs fail to do
this.  This serious marketing error
should be corrected.

    Although CorComp holds the
copyright to WRITEREASE, the program's
author is Galen A. Read.  In the summer
of 1987 Mr. Read, doing business under
the name Innovative Programming, took
about $10000 from potential purchasers
of a hardware product called the Grand
Ram and disappeared with the money.
Potential purchasers have seen neither
their Grand Rams nor their money.  I
gave CorComp a phone call to ask about
Mr. Read's status with CorComp.  I was
told that he was contracted to write
WRITEREASE and is not an employee of
the company.  The CorComp accountant
declined to reveal if the company was
paying royalties to Mr Read from each
copy of WRITEREASE sold.  Potential
purchasers should be aware that part of
the money they pay for WRITEREASE may
go as a royalty payment to Galen Read,
and Mr. Read (not CorComp) is
considered a crook by many in the TI
community.
    .PL 1