Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-10-14 | 18KB | 51 lines
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INFO
Title : Hyper v1.18.
Author : Bernd (Koessi) Koesling.
Country : Germany.#Source : See Shareware Column.$Conditions : Shareware - DM 10,00 -
$10.00 USA -
5.00 UK.
Category : Utility.
Released : 1993.
Opinion : ***
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1.
Memory :
meg.
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES.
A600 wb 2.05 : YES.
Multi-tasks : YES."Display : Workbench or other
screens.& In issue three of APDR I reviewed&version 1.15a of Hyper, an AmigaGuide&reader. This new version offers some&extra features but there's also some
stiff competition now.& With AmigaGuide itself made&available by Commodore any shareware&reader will have to offer something&extra to persuade the public to part&with that registration fee. Version&1.18 Hyper has some things that&AmigaGuide lacks while missing out in&other areas. If you look at the list&of comparisons on the next page you&will see that AmigaGuide seems to&offer the most features. Hyper however&is able to read PowerPacked files&which may be an important feature for
those short on disk space.& Both offer good and not so good&features when it comes to reading an&AmigaGuide document. The two clicks&needed by Hyper to activate a link are&a nuisance but then using the rightX
E Printout. YES YESE File Requester. NO YESD Able to read normal text files. YES NOE PowerPacker compatible. NO YESD Scroll Gadgets. YES NOE Auto-Index. Not Yet YESD Text Search. YES NOD Bookmarks. YES NOD Clicks needed to activate links. 1 2D Multiply windows. YES NOD Mark text - Copy to clipboard. YES NOM Retrace path method. Gadget On Window Right Mouse ButtonE Page headings. NO YESE Selectable font. NO YESD Word-wrap. NO NO&mouse button to retrace your steps is&much better than the screen gadget&used by AmigaGuide. AmigaGuide can&read any ascii text-file, something&Hyper can't do but then Hyper's the&one with the file requester. And so
on. Any matchmakers out there?& Hyper's Auto-Index is perhaps one&of it's best features. This shouldn't&be confused with AmigaGuide's Contents&button, which Hyper also has, or it's&Index button which is for indexes&manually added by the document's&writer. The Auto-Index is an&alphabetical list of all the pages&available, (or nodes as they're more&correctly called), so any part of any&document is easily accessible. This I&think will be more useful than the
Contents page in most cases.S
[3mHyper's Auto-Index. This menu's created from the AmigaGuide Help file.
[23m& Hyper looks better (it can use any&font and has nice page headings) but&then it doesn't have multiply windows&like AmigaGuide. Hyper also hasn't any&scroll gadgets. Personally I prefer&text scrolling such as FullView uses -&a click somewhere in the top half of&the window to scroll up and the bottom&half to scroll down. This way you&don't have to take your eyes of the&text you're reading just to make sure&you hit the correct scroll gadget.&Left and right scrolling could also be&implemented this way but I'd prefer&word-wrapping. Neither system has&word-wrap which is a major pain for&text reading any type of document. You&would think programmers would consider&it necessary right from the start but
it would seem not.& So overall in the ease of use&department it's hard to pick a winner&between Hyper and AmigaGuide. I do&prefer Hyper's look and feel though.& One failure with Hyper that&AmigaGuide doesn't have is with it's&Help option. AmigaGuide's Help opens&another window which of course doesn't&lose you the document you were&reading. Hyper's Help however loads&into the window you're using and then&you're unable to go simply back to&your previous document. You have to&use the requester to get at it again.&This isn't much help at all I'm afraid&and it's a surprising oversight on the&programmer's part as links to other&documents are catered for and you CAN&get back to the previous one from!them. In the next update perhaps.& AmigaGuide wins out completely with&searching, the marking and copying of&text and with it's bookmark. One&bookmark however doesn't seem enough&and it's searching is rather dismal so&only the marking of text and it's&ability to save or print what you've marked seems the real advantage.& Whether Hyper as it is at present&is worth getting as a replacement for&AmigaGuide is a moot point. It's major&advantages is it's PowerPacker&compatibility plus the Auto-Index.&That may be enough for some but as&always it will depend on what the
individual user needs.
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Postscript. & In my previous review of Hyper I&mentioned that there was no info on&how to write AmigaGuide documents.&Both this new version of Hyper and&AmigaGuide have full descriptions on&how to write them. You're going to be&seeing quite a lot of them from now on
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