Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-07-22 | 35KB | 92 lines
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INFO
Title : EasyCalc v1.0a
Author : Andrew Woods
Country : United Kingdom Conditions : Shareware -
15 UK
Category : Application
Released : March 1993
Opinion : 74%
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1
Memory :
meg.
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES
A600 wb 2.05 : YES
Multi-tasks : YES
Display : PAL& This shareware spreadsheet is a&potentially excellent program and is&already very fast. The above&percentage is not a good indication as&it would be much higher if there&weren't so many bugs in this first&release of the program. See the "Give&These Coders A Break" panel on page&three of this review for a bug list
and related comments.& As I said, this is a fast&spreadsheet. To test just how fast I&filled every second column with&numbers and all the other columns with&a formula that just multiplied two&cells. The maximum size of a sheet in&EasyCalc is 126 rows by 126 columns,&(15876 cells), and this took about 25&seconds on both the A500 and A600.&Under general use I would think you&could leave the auto-calc turned on&without any noticeable pauses. I know&that only using a multiplication is¬ a good test for a spreadsheet but&just filling the sheet once was quite&a hassle - once again, see the panel.&I thought the calculations should have&been faster on the A500 as unlike my&A600 it has some fast memory but this&didn't prove to be the case. Is it my&understanding of fast memory that's at&fault here or should maths go quicker&when using fast memory instead of chip
memory? Comments please.& The speed produced here is gained&through a few compromises of which the&main one is the use of single&precision numbers. The programmer&claims in the docs that using double&precision numbers increases&calculation times by 100. Is this&true? Double precision numbers use&twice as many bits to hold each value,&hence the name. It's been a long time&since I did binary arithmetic but I(
[3mGive These Coders A Break
& Andrew Woods is also the programmer&of Disk Manager 2, another shareware&program which I haven't seen so I&can't comment on it. In the docs to&EasyCalc he states that EasyCalc's&shareware prompt has been encrypted as&"I saw what you hackers did to&Diskmanager 2." This I suspect will be&like a red rag to a bull in some quarters.& It's about time those hackers&realised that shareware is being&produced by people wishing to provide&good software at an affordable price&and that the hackers by screwing up&their programs are just going to drive&them away from the Amiga to a machine&where the users will perhaps&appreciate there efforts more. To have&a talent for programming and then to&use it just for cracking other&programs instead of producing your own&has to be one of the lamest things one&can do with a life. I can only assume#they've had an imagination by-pass.& I mention this as I can't believe&the programmer could have missed all&the bugs I've found here and has&instead left them in as an extra to&the encryption. If this is so and it&catches on then it must be to the&detriment of shareware in the long&run. Those testing software won't know&if the above is the reason or if it's
just a case of bad programming.& Then again EasyCalc may have just&been rushed out. There is only one not&very useful example sheet so this may&can't remember having those kinds of&problems. Perhaps it's due to using
the mathieeedoubas.library.& I would have preferred the choice&of precision to be given to the user&or, in an ideal world, a more&intelligent program that stores the&numbers in whichever format will hold&the values entered and the&calculations to use single or double&precision depending on which is&needed. Try single first and if an&overflow occurs then use double&perhaps? I guess it's not that simple.& One thing I've always hated with&computer maths is the use of&abbreviated numbers. (I know they have&another name but I can't think of it&at the moment.) Ten million is&displayed in EasyCalc as 1E+07. If you&are intending to use numbers greater&than 9,999,999 then you are going to&see a lot of the above. But those who&have no trouble knowing what&4.204204E+07 means won't have any
problems I guess.& The other compromises made are a&fixed (126*126) number of cells, no&colours and no scroll bars. A lack of&colours shouldn't be a problem as&there's bold, italics and underlined&text available for highlighting cells.&Whether the limited number of cells&will cause hassles will depend on what&uses you intend to put the spreadsheet
to.& As EasyCalc can only have one sheet&loaded at once I tried having two&running at once but I couldn't get the&second one to start. I had hoped Cut,&Copy and Paste could then be used to&transfer data between the two as a way&around the sheet-size limitations.&Perhaps this will work with the®istered versions. The author claims&in the docs that he is producing&something called DreamLink which&appears to be an ARexx type thing for&allowing data to be passed between&programs but without the need for it's&users to learn a programming language.&You will still need to be able to get&the second program running though so I&hope he's considered this in relation&be the case. Either way, it makes%testing the program that much harder.& And here are the bugs I have found&in EasyCalc without needing to do much
searching.& When pasting formulas into a block&of cells with relative mode on it only&alters the cell references correctly&for the first cell copied to. The
others are all incorrect.& When I was trying to fill the whole&sheet by using a lot of pasting it&crashed with a Runtime Error 9 ever
four or so pastes.& It crashes with the above error as&well if you enter two equal signs into
a cell.& If you click on the "push window to&the back" button on a requester it&goes behind the spreadsheet where you&can't get at it and the spreadsheet
itself is now unusable.& If you use a bookmark to jump from&the bottom to the top of the sheet the"row numbers 1 to 9 are duplicated.& I also got the number nine error quite a few other times as well.& I just can't believe that the&relative copy bug was not known to the&programmer. If it wasn't then the&testing of the user interface at least#must have been almost non-existent.& Despite all the above problems I&still like this program a lot. It's&fast and the design's good. It's just&worrying that all those bugs are
there.
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to EasyCalc.& Including the scroll-bars would&have made moving about a bit easier.&As it is there are five book-marks you&can set up for moving quickly to&individual cells but not present here&is any way to just type in the cell&you want to jump to. Scrolling under&mouse control is quite fast so it's&only big movements that need the&book-marks. Not available is a way to&prevent selected columns and rows from&scrolling so the titles you have given&things could always been in view.&Spreadsheets need this feature so cell#locations can be easily identified.& The look of the program is very&clean and has many buttons on the&screen for speedy access to some of&it's features. It also uses the&reqtools library which gives Workbench&2 style requesters even on 1.3&machines. The only complaint I have&here is that the screen is locked so&it can't scroll up and down and&there's no switch-screen button in the&top-right corner. You have to use the&right-Amiga key, M key combination to&get to the Workbench or other screens.& Text entry needs improving. When&you move to a cell it's contents&appear at the top of the screen. To&enter stuff into an empty cell you&just type it in and press return. For&formulas you place an equals sign at&the start. Incredibly even I can type&faster than the key-press reader can&keep up with. This is very bad as I'm&just a slow two finger typist. Even&worse is the fact that typing too fast&for it causes it to miss out&characters. They don't just appear&later than you expect. To edit a cell&which already contains something the&same method is used with the contents&being lost at the first keystroke.&This is not so bad for text or numbers&as they are still displayed in their&cell but for changing or fixing a&formula it's unforgivable. And as the&entry routine is not using the&standard Amiga one Workbench 2 users&loose out on the "delete all from the&cursor" feature. Bad on all counts. I&thought I'd seen the last of text&entry like this on the ZX81 but it
would seem not.& Cut, Copy and Paste work very well&except for a bug - once again, see the&panel. You just drag out the rectangle&of cells you want to cut out, copy&from or paste into and then select&which option you want from the menu.&With copying into cells you have the&option of using a relative or absolute&mode for the cell references. Instead&of using the mode, (it's a ticked menu&item), I would have preferred Copy&Relative and Copy Absolute menu&options as modes are just too easy to
forget which one you're in.& Other features included are the&usual insert and delete of columns and&rows, global and individual column&widths, the number of decimal places&shown and the locking of cells so they&can't be accidentally altered. All&these work well. There's also&extensive help built into the program&so there's no need to always be&checking the docs to see how to use
things.& Most of the functions available can&be seen in the screen-shot on page two&of this article. The three not shown&there are SQR, TAN and VAT. If you&have to ask what they all do then you&probably don't need them and can rest&assured that any calculations you can&dream up will be able to be performed&in EasyCalc. Also available along with&the usual addition, division,&greater-than and less-than operators&and the others is an If/Else option.&Enough for most things I would think.&(VAT by the way calculates Value Added&Tax so is not of much use to those not&afflicted with it. Is it really 17.5%&or is he just being nasty to&non-registered users?) I haven't&tested it's maths extensively but what&I did try came out correctly. This is&the guts of a spreadsheet and EasyCalc
covers the ground well.& Assuming the author fixes up the&bugs for his registered users and&improves the text entry routine then&EasyCalc as presented here in it's&first release would be a very usable&program. He's produced it because he&tried the commercial and PD Amiga ones&available and found them all too slow.&He's certainly got it up to speed&anyway. Many improvements are planned&with a graph module due next using the
above mentioned DreamLink.& Praise must also be given for the&following, taken from the docs. "No&stupid assigns are needed. I get&everything from the current directory.&Why can't other programmers?" Indeed.
I hope they're listening.& In conclusion this is a very&promising looking spreadsheet. If&you're in the market for one then&check it out. Just find out first if&all those bugs (and perhaps others)&have been fixed up in the registered
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