Lowest-common-denominator interface design may be coming
Carolyn Bickford
TODAY'S WINDOWS-ONLY products will show up on your Mac next year, as developers start using platform-independent Java code to create applications. There's good and bad news about this inevitability: Applications that might otherwise never have come to the Mac may become available, but traditional Windows developers have little impetus to upgrade their products' interfaces for the Mac minority.
Corel Office for Java, a case in point, will finally bring Corel's business applications, including Corel Quattro Pro and Corel Chart, to the Mac platform in 1997. The applications will require a Java-enabled browser -- although possibly only until a Java-savvy version of the Mac OS appears. The good news is that you will be able to update and extend Corel Office for Java's features easily with downloadable Java applets. In fact, the suite may end up analogous to an OpenDoc container-and-parts combination, since Corel intends to make Corel WordPerfect a document container, within which you can access the suite's other applications.
But don't expect Mac-specific features such as Apple events or OpenDoc components. Corel is lauding the new suite's interface consistency with its Windows products, and it's likely -- although not yet definite -- that the Windows version of Corel WordPerfect, not the Mac version, will be the model for Corel Office for Java's core application. Corel: 800-772-6735 or 613-728-3733; http://www.corel.com/.
Because Java-based programs can run on any platform, they're freer to ignore nuances of the Mac interface.
