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Text File
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1989-10-01
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4KB
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78 lines
SHAREWARE REVIEW
PROGRAM: Make Them Anything -- Version 8.20 -- Compression Converter
AUTHOR: Robert W. Van Hoevan
REGISTRATION: ShareWare -- Unsure of amount
WHERE FOUND: Executive Computer Network
RESTRICTIONS: None
RATING: 9.8
The biggest pain in the world is having to convert entire libraries of
diskettes to a certain compression format. Sure, you can use SHEZ, but are
you sure you have the CURRENT version? You can use ARCMASTER, but do you
really want to take time to LEARN it?
Sulking, you throw your arms up in the air and shout, "Who cares if I can
save a meg of disk space. I'll stick to ARC."
Wake up! You know ZIP is tighter, so snap out of it. {Enter Compression
Fairy}
"Why don't you use a program from Holland called MAKE THEM ANYTHING?" coyly
asks the fairy.
USE: MakeThemAnything (MTA) is a solidly written program that is flexible
enough to please anyone. It allows you to convert your programs
between ANY compression types.
One more time, SO WHAT! There are tons of programs that can do that.
None, though, offers the user more control and power than MTA. An
example:
Bif wants to convert his entire download directory, but wants to make
sure that the files are represented by their TRUE dates, and not
upload dates. (He is very picky about having old files that LOOK new)
He sets up his MTA in a text file supplied, being careful to enter the
correct specs for the new compression program ZAL. Since Bif wants
true dates, he sets the program's "touching" feature to on. (This
allows MTA to look at the lowest/highest date in the compressed
program file, and then set the entire compressed file to that date. Of
course, you can also leave the date unchanged.) He types in MTA *.ZIP
to start the conversion from ZIP to ZAL. OH NO! Bif forgot to set his
comments up. (Gotta advertise for that BBS.) He hits escape only to
see that MTA actually recognizes that he wants to abort, and then
cleanly aborts. He changes his text file configuration to ON for
comments and continues his conversion.
Now, Buffy has a different problem. She just spent a day downloading
about 100 files from different BBS', and must convert them to her
faithful PAK format. She sets the configuration text file up (is this
getting old with you also?) and types MTA *.*. The program goes
through the 100 files without any problems. OH NO! In her statistics
class she decided to do a paper on the number of people who use the
different compression techniques, but forgot to count how many use
what. No problem. MTA has a LOG analyzer for her to use. It details
the number of programs converted, types of programs converted, and
bytes converted. Very nice feature.
Patrick, the consummate reviewer, notices that this text file thing is
obnoxious. Why not give the user the ability to determine all of this
info on-line? He also notices that the user has no control over the
screen colors. This renders the program invisible on laptops.
SUMMARY: GOOD POINTS BAD POINTS
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
√ Fast ≈ Text File Configuration
√ Controllable
√ Flexible
1----------5---------10:
█████████████████████
9.8
MTA receives a .2 deduction due to its text file based configuration file.
Sure, it makes it easier for the programmer, but the user suffers with the
constant changing. MTA has excellent documentation, user control, user
awareness, and speed. For any type of conversion MTA is a fantastic choice.