Writeswell Jr. is a free product of Working Software, Inc.
This READ ME file contains operation instructions for the Writeswell Jr. program. We have divided this file into the following sections:
•How To Contact Working Software
•Attention Users!!
•What is Writeswell Jr.?
•IAC, Apple Events, and Word Services
•Using Writeswell Jr.
•Apple Events Word Services
•Adding a Service To Writeswell Jr.
•SHORTCUT-Adding Spellswell 7 or the Spellswell 7 Demo
•Removing a Service From Writeswell Jr.
•Attention Developers! Use for “Read Me” files
•Other Writeswell Jr. Information
•Writeswell Jr. Source Code Available
•Copying and Distributing
•Revision History
•Credit Where Credit Is Due
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How To Contact Working Software
Working Software, Inc.
740 Front Street, #318
Santa Cruz, CA 95060-4535
Mail to:
P.O. Box 1844
Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1844
Sales Dept., for orders: 800-229-9675
VOICE: (408) 423-5696
FAX: (408) 423-5699
Electronic Mail Addresses:
AppleLink: D0140
America Online: WORKINGSW
CompuServe: 76004,2072
Internet: 76004.2072@compuserve.com
Working Software has a customer service area on CompuServe. From any CompuServe prompt, type GO MACBVEN (Apple Vendor's Forum B). Leave messages in section 10 of MACBVEN, or send private messages to 76004,2072.
Working Software maintains a forum on America Online. Our forum keyword is WORKING.
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Attention Users!!
Writeswell Jr. is a free Apple Events mini word-processor/text-editor with font and style menus. It opens, saves, and prints text documents. It also lets you open and read TeachText documents.
Working Software will upgrade Writeswell Jr. frequently and add new features. To receive notification of upgrades register your copy of Writeswell Jr. by selecting Register Writeswell Jr. from the AboutMe menu. Fill out the form, print or save it, and send it to us by U.S. Mail or electronically. Working Software’s addresses appear in the “How to Contact Working Software” section of this file.
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What is Writeswell Jr.?
Writeswell Jr. is a “mini” word processor that does something very special (on Macs running System 7). It could blow all those big, klunky, memory-guzzling word-processing programs out of the water.
WRITESWELL JR. DEMONSTRATES THE “WORD SERVICES” APPLE EVENT SUITE!!!!
We call Writeswell Jr. a “mini” word processor, and we mean MINI. No ruler, no tabs. Definitely no spreadsheets (hey... it's free!). (PSST... Writeswell Jr. supports pictures now!)
Writeswell Jr.’s Services menu allows you to add any and all “services” that use Apple Events Word Services. These services are programs that work with the text in your document, such as spelling and grammar checkers, hyphenators, envelope addressers, and anything else that software developers can think up. If these programs work with Apple Events Word Services, they can be added to Writeswell Jr.’s Services menu.
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IAC, Apple Events, and Word Services
System 7 includes something called Inter-Application Communication (IAC) which allows separate programs to communicate with each other while running. Because of this communication ability, software publishers can break large programs into smaller parts (or modules) that operate as separate programs. The separate programs can appear to operate as a single program.
Certain IAC messages that applications send to each other are called Apple Events. One program might send an Apple Event telling a receiving program to perform a certain task. After performing the task, the receiving program can return an Apple Event to the first program. One kind of Apple Event might be an instruction to send text from a word processor to a spelling checker.
Working Software, Inc. developed a specific set of Apple Events for programs that process text, named the “Word Services” Apple Event Suite. Apple Computer, Inc. has endorsed the Word Services Suite as the industry standard.
The Word Services Apple Event Suite defines a standard language that Macintosh text processing applications use to communicate with one another. Any Macintosh application that includes the Word Services Suite can use any external spelling or grammar checker, hyphenator, or other text-editing utility that uses the Word Services Suite as if the utility is built into the application itself.
Writeswell Jr. is a “Word Services” application. Working Software, Inc.’s Spellswell 7 spelling checker is a “Word Service”.
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Using Writeswell Jr.
1. Copy Writeswell Jr. onto your Hard Disk.
Drag the Writeswell Jr. icon over your Hard Disk icon until the Hard Disk icon highlights and release the mouse button.
2. Double-click the Writeswell Jr. icon to open the Writeswell Jr. program.
A window, named “New Window” opens. You can type anything you want. You can change fonts and styles. You can even Save your documents and Print them.
If you do not have System 7, please do not fret. You can use Writeswell Jr. as a “mini” word-processor for simple documents, for taking notes, for examining text files (or TeachText files), or even for practicing your Macintosh skills.
If you have System 7, please continue. You can add Spellswell 7 (or any other “Word Service”) as a built-in menu item to check your documents.
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Apple Events Word Services
Mighty Disclaimer!!! In order to take advantage of Writeswell Jr.’s “Word Services” feature, you must have System 7 installed on your Macintosh. Writeswell Jr. contains the Word Services technology. Any service program (that you wish to install in the Services menu of Writeswell Jr.) must ALSO have this capability. (By “service” we mean spelling or grammar checker, hyphenator, or other text processing utility.)
Unsure if your favorite program supports Word Services yet?
Please contact the publisher of that program and ask them.
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Adding a Service To Writeswell Jr.
This section provides specific instructions for adding a Check Spelling menu item (Spellswell 7) to Writeswell Jr. If you want to add a different “Word Service” to Writeswell Jr., just insert the name of the other program everywhere you see “Spellswell 7”. For more information about Spellswell 7 or if you want to purchase Spellswell 7, please contact Working Software at the address listed above.
1. To add “Check Spelling” (or other word service command) to the Services menu of Writeswell Jr., first double-click the Spellswell 7 icon.
2. Double-click Writeswell Jr.’s icon to open Writeswell Jr.
3. A blank window named “New Window” opens.
4. Type the sentence, “This is a teset.”
5. Choose Get New Service from the Services menu.
6. When the Program-to-Program Communication (PPC) Browser appears, highlight the name Spellswell 7 and click OK.
System 7’s Program-to-Program-Communication Browser (shown below) tells you what Macintosh computers are in your local network, which AppleTalk Zones you can access, and how many Apple Event Aware Programs are open. Read the “Chooser” and “Network” sections of your Macintosh Manuals for information about networks and zones.
Now, Writeswell Jr. should have a Check Spelling menu item. Once you have added this menu item, Writeswell Jr. remembers to open Spellswell 7 when you choose the Check Spelling menu item (as long as you keep Spellswell 7 on your Macintosh).
7. Check the spelling of your Writeswell Jr. test document by choosing the Check Spelling menu item.
Writeswell Jr. sends an “Apple Event” to Spellswell 7. This Apple Event instructs Spellswell 7 to get the text out of the Writeswell Jr. document and spell-check it. Writeswell Jr. and Spellswell 7 operate (seamlessly and modularly) as if they are the same program. You cannot tell that two separate programs are processing your text. That is the beauty of the Apple Events “Word Services” Suite.
Note - If your “Word Service” utility’s dialog hides the Writeswell Jr. window, then drag the “Word Service” utility’s dialog or Writeswell Jr.’s window around the screen until you can view them both. (Click the title bars to drag the windows around the screen.)
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SHORTCUT-Adding Spellswell 7 or the Spellswell 7 Demo
The first time Writeswell Jr. runs on your computer it checks its current folder for Spellswell 7 (or the Spellswell 7 demo). If Writeswell Jr. locates either program, it automatically adds a Check Spelling (Spellswell) item to the Services menu.
1. Drag Writeswell Jr. and Spellswell 7, or the Spellswell 7 Demo, into the same folder on your Macintosh.
2. This method will not work with a previously existing Writeswell Jr. Preferences file. If you have used Writeswell Jr. before, throw away the Writeswell Jr. Preferences, found in the Preferences folder which is in the System Folder.
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Removing a Service From Writeswell Jr.
These instructions demonstrate removal of the service called “Acme Hyphenator”.
1. Choose Remove Service from the Services menu.
2. Highlight the name of the service you wish to remove.
3. Click Remove.
4. Click Done.
Now, the removed service no longer appears in the Services menu.
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Attention Developers! Use Writeswell Jr. for “Read Me” files
You may use Writeswell Jr. as a replacement for TeachText to open “Read Me” files on your product disks or billboard postings. There is no license fee required - just go ahead and use it. The advantage is that you can change the font and style of words in your Read Me file if you use Writeswell Jr. instead of TeachText.
To make TeachText style read-only documents with pictures (like this one), read the Technical Note “The Compleat Guide to TeachText”, available from the APDA Tools Catalog, the developer CD, and many online services. You must use the resource editing program called ResEdit (free from User Groups or bulletin board services) to add pictures.
Remember, Writeswell Jr. lets you use different fonts and styles for your “Read Me” files!
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Other Writeswell Jr. Information
If you choose Options… from the Edit menu, you see the Programmer Options dialog. The choices refer to the different ways “Word Services” programs can transfer text back and forth.
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Writeswell Jr. Source Code Available
The source code for Writeswell Jr. is available through many electronic services and directly from Working Software, Inc. This source code not only demonstrates the use of Apple Events, but also can teach programmers who are new to Macintosh development about menus, windows, file saving, printing, creation of Preferences files, dialogs, custom menus, scroll bars, and much more.
You may use this source code to add Apple Events support to your applications - for free.
From America Online:
Enter the Macintosh Development Forum (use keyword “mdv” or “macdevelopment”).
Click the Software Library Search button.
Open the Developers Library
Search for “Writeswell”
From CompuServe:
Look in the tools library of the Mac Developers Forum (GO MACDEV). Use the browse command to search for keyword "WRITESWELL".
From the Internet:
Download the sources via anonymous ftp from sumex-aim.stanford.edu. The Writeswell Jr. sources are in the file /info-mac/sources/c/writeswell-jr-102.hqx
The Spellswell 7 Demo is on sumex-aim in the /info-mac/demo directory.
European users should get the source code from nic.switch.ch, in the directory ~ftp/software/mac/src.
From AppleLink:
Download the file “Apple Events Word Services SDK”. The path is:
Developer Support
Developer Services
Tools & Apps
OS/Toolbox
Apple Events
From the Apple Developer CD:
The Writeswell Jr. sources can be found by opening the following sequence of folders:
Tools & Apps
OS/Toolbox
Apple Events
Word Services
Be sure your Apple Developer CD has version 1.0 or later of the Writeswell Jr. sources. A preliminary version, 1.0d6, appeared on the CD starting in July 1992.
Directly from Working Software
To receive a Writeswell Jr. Source Code disk by U.S. Mail, please send a $6 shipping & handling fee to cover the cost of the disk and shipping to Working Software at the address listed at the beginning of this file.
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Copying and Distributing
Please feel free to copy the Writeswell Jr. program. Be sure to register Writeswell Jr. with Working Software, Inc. We support registered owners with notices of upgrades and the Working Software newsletter Hard Working Times.
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Revision History
Version 1.1.1
Fixed some memory leaks
Closed old documents when doing a Save As…
Copied pictures from old document into new during Save As…
Version 1.1
Added support for TeachText-style pictures, and read-only “Read Me” files.
Version 1.0.2
Added a new feature - if Spellswell 7 or Spellswell 7 Demo is in the same folder the -first- time Writeswell Jr. runs it is installed in the Services menu automatically. To cause this to happen, throw away the Writeswell Jr. Preferences file, found in the Preferences folder which is in the System Folder.
Fixed scroll bar bug.
Fixed bug with Cancel from Print dialog.
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Credit Where Credit Is Due
Writeswell Jr. was designed and programmed by Michael J. Crawford.
The Apple Events Word Services Suite was programmed by Michael J. Crawford.
