Folks,

Thought I'd interrupt all of the arguing over download numbers or a non-Amiga ARM device and talk a bit about some software I use on my SAM regularly: AmigaWriter. With more folks joining our Amiga NG community with their new SAM460s or X1000s, I though another little post like my web browser overview for newbies might be useful.

One of the biggest issues with using an Amiga NG system for me when I discovered the Amiga in 2010 was the lack of productivity applications -- or rather, the lack of productivity applications written in the modern era. Maybe folks these days aren't in great need of the old-fashioned word processor, but I still prefer writing in such an environment. On my little SAM I do occasionally fire up AbiWord in AmiCygnix when I need to edit a massive Word document, but the sluggish speed and non-native GUI means it isn't something I want to use on a regular basis. So late last year I spent some time with three word processors from the classic Amiga era to find what works for me: AmigaWriter, FinalWriter, and Wordworth. All have their plus points; most Amiga NG users prefer the latter two, but for me, AmigaWriter was the best fit.

For starters it's actually still available for sale and is still supported, something not be taken lightly by an Amiga newbie such as myself. Sold by Alinea Computing, this title -- which actually saw an update this century -- was previously developed by Haage and Partner in the 1990s and certainly is the 'newest' of the classic Amiga word processors out there. For only e15 including a printed manual you can hardly go wrong.

And unlike FinalWriter, with its rather complex user interface, or Wordworth, with its rather dated user interface, AmigaWriter looks and feels like a word processor you'd find on any other platform even today. The rulers are easy to use, the toolbar makes sense, the menu structure is well thought-out, and the dialog boxes are not unfathomable. There's excellent help facilities, such as floating 'bubbles' that appear over every GUI element or dialog field telling what it does.

I quite like the text handling features as well: I like that I can easily create, save, and edit styles for characters, paragraphs, individual pages, chapters, etc. I like that I can export them and import them into other documents. I like the support for TrueType fonts and that I don't have to futz with the settings for it to pick up the fonts already installed by the OS. I especially like the easy font substitution features when I try and open something created with fonts I don't have installed. And the chapter management abilities are quite nice. Generating a table of contents automatically rather than by hand is a terrific feature. Lastly I like how easy it is to set up margins and page options for later printing, which by the way is rather speedy and delivers superb output with the native printing system.

Some things, though, I don't like. Editing footnotes may be simple and straightforward, but if I remove the text I'm annotating I need to manually 'update elements' for the accompanying footnote to disappear. That should be automatic. The search and replace features are a touch rudimentary and if you're planning on doing much page layout, you can forget it: you can insert graphics and textboxes, but PageStream this isn't. Yes you can create free layouts in AmigaWriter, but you wouldn't want to if you have another option, despite the 'box-based interface' being an advertised feature. FinalWriter especially is much more capable in this respect. I'd also like the ability to automate things, such as bulk conversion or re-layout or parsing fields from an XML file and inserting the results in a pre-defined template. The absence of support for AREXX is a real shame.

Then again neither Finalwriter nor Wordworth advertise the ability to import documents created by Microsoft Word on mainstream platforms whereas AmigaWriter does and can. You can't import modern formats -- such as the DOCX format from recent versions of Word -- but you can from Word 95/97/2000, and that's good enough for me. The font substitution features come in handy here as well. Exporting is only ASCII and RTF, I'm afraid, but you won't find much better among the competitors.

But if Wordworth is free, has better search/replace and layout facilities, and an extensive AREXX interface, why would you want to spend money on AmigaWriter? Well AmigaWriter is frankly just easier to use and has a much more pleasant GUI. It integrates better with the OS, too -- no futzing about with fonts, everything is automatic -- when it comes to text handling, it has support for nativedatatypes, and has excellent (and fast) print output using the native printing system and can do even better if you have TurboPrint installed.

If you need more extensive page layout facilities, FinalWriter is your best bet, but good luck trying to find a copy; Wordworth is terrific and has greating scripting capabilities; and it also has been released into the public domain but again locating a copy isn't terribly easy unless you already have it. Besides for real page layout work, Pagestream 5.0 is much, much, much better. And neither FinalWriter nor Wordworth have Word import capabilities, neither are supported by any developer, and neither are especially easy to use. I know AmigaWriter has taken a bit of a bashing from folks in the fora over stability and speed, but on my SAM, I've never had it crash and I find it more responsive than its two competitors. Lastly it just feels more 'modern,' and that's something I appreciate. Give it a shot: there is a free demo version available from Alinea.

And hey, if you don't like it, FinalWriter and Wordworth are excellent choices as well. And admittedly more powerful ones.

-- eliyahu

_________________
"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@eliyahu

Short comment... Amigawriter is the only classic word processor that is available now. All others have vanished and the copyright owners are not making it freeware or reproduce it (I have asked)

@eliyahu

Thanks for the review. Interesting read.

But to be honest: I don't see the reason to write anything on the amiga.

Using a PC or a MAC is much better for me.


It's ok, that the possibility is give to write something on the Amiga. But I don't understand why someone should do this. It's not fun, it's not fast, it's nothing...

So again: If I can do better results on my Android phone, why should I use something outdated like the Amiga to write something...

Where I want to go with my comment: Nobody has a strategy where the "Amiga" should go. It's nice to have a system running some software. And perhaps in the future we will have a decent browser.

But hey: Its 2012....

_________________
Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.

@eliyahu

Are you sure that Wordworth is freely available. Last I heard relating to WW was that Digita were prepared to part with it and the source code for £50,000. That was probably 10 years ago now.

@Rob

no it is not (i have already asked)

@Birbo

Quote:

Birbo wrote: But to be honest: I don't see the reason to write anything on the amiga. Using a PC or a MAC is much better for me.

The same could be said about anything on the Amiga - it's easier to develop software, easier to print photos (hell, it's easier to print a plain text file!), to scan a document, to browse the web, and so on...

I don't think that was really the point. Since using it is a hobby, it's nice to be able to do some things, even if it is more work. For example, I like cycling. It's slower and more hard work to get to my destination, but sometimes it's more fun than driving there...

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RobTheNerd.com | InstallerGen | SMBMounter | Atoms-X

@OlafS25

perhaps i'm mistaken, then. i read this post from danwood as it being available, at least the author seems to be happy to make it so. if that is not the case then i need to delete it from my hard drive.

-- eliyahu

_________________
"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@eliyahu

that is a little surprising for me. I directly asked them to make it freeware and they answered no (I could look again in my emails)

@Birbo

Quote:

But to be honest: I don't see the reason to write anything on the amiga. Using a PC or a MAC is much better for me.

understood. but the point of this exercise was to talk about a word processor on the amiga. it presumed the user has an interest in doing so.

Quote:

It's ok, that the possibility is give to write something on the Amiga. But I don't understand why someone should do this. It's not fun, it's not fast, it's nothing...

really? that surprises me a little. amigawriter on my SAM is just as fast as word on my i7 machine. it doesn't take much horsepower to drive a word processor.

Quote:

Where I want to go with my comment: Nobody has a strategy where the "Amiga" should go. It's nice to have a system running some software. And perhaps in the future we will have a decent browser. But hey: Its 2012....

well i can use my SAM for just about everything i want to do for home computing. for work i use fairly big machines, so when i get home, i'm interested in watching videos, browsing the web, talking via IRC, writing up a few things, crunching my monthly budget, editing audio samples, playing music, playing games, etc. and for those things my SAM fits the bill nicely, silently, and i can use OS4, which i enjoy tremendously.

i just enjoy using it more than my linux and solaris machines. so the more things i can do with it, the better.

-- eliyahu

_________________
"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@Birbo

I find non AOS platforms to be on my way on what ever I do.
That's why I personally would love to do everything on the platform that I like to use most.

I doubt documents materialize slower via Amiga keyboard than via M$/Apple ....

And at least OOffice/libreoffice seems strangely slow on AMD64x2 & latest ubuntu... for example after save the SW does not respond for a few tens of seconds....


(in general, Ubuntu application stability seems to be going down, FAST!
Youtube playing crash frequently, Firefox locks up, still things like printer and scanner drivers cause extra work to set up... Userlogout crash the whole GUI etc..)

Last edited by KimmoK on 01-Mar-2012 at 04:10 PM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 01-Mar-2012 at 04:06 PM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 01-Mar-2012 at 04:03 PM.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@OlafS25

Quote:

OlafS25 wrote: @eliyahu Short comment... Amigawriter is the only classic word processor that is available now. All others have vanished and the copyright owners are not making it freeware or reproduce it (I have asked)

In the "i have asked" are you comprising Softwood too? 'cause IIRC they completely vanished from the face of the earth, how did you manage to contact them? (this is just out of curiosity)
(and their products were my favorites )

_________________
Proud Amigan since 1987
Owner of various Commodore and a SAM440ep\OS4.1FE
See them on http://retro.furinkan.org/

@Nibunnoichi

Quote:

In the "i have asked" are you comprising Softwood too? 'cause IIRC they completely vanished from the face of the earth, how did you manage to contact them? (this is just out of curiosity) (and their products were my favorites )

i'd love it if someone could figure this out. i purchased a copy of finalwriter on ebay, but otherwise i don't know how you could find a copy. maybe softhut?

-- eliyahu

_________________
"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@eliyahu

Ok. I understand your point. I am not here to make bad comments about performance on amiga systems.

However, my oppinion is, that there is absolutely no strategy where the developement is going to.

No direction, no goals, no innovation.

Implementing existing technologies like python or firefox is ok, but nothing new.

The more standard technology will be available on the amiga, the more it will be like a normal pc...

The development has to turn into a new direction. Thats what i will fight for in the next few years.

_________________
Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.

@Birbo

Thanks for not trolling his review.

@eliyahu

Is the PowerPC version included in the package ?

_________________
PowerMac G5 2,7Ghz - 2GB - Radeon 9650 - MorphOS 3.14
AmigaONE X1000, 2GB, Sapphire Radeon HD 7700
FPGA Replay + DB 68060 at 85Mhz

@K-L

i can't remember if it was on the CD or i had to download an update, but yes, there is a native powerpc version. it's the one i use, actually, which may explain why i've always found it faster than the alternatives when folks on ann.lu (back in the day) and elsewhere seemed to have the opposite experience.

@thread

i think i might try for a table at amiwest this year just to demo the mass of quality software i've found for my SAM that make it a terrific home/hobbyist computer. one of the reasons i occasionally pen posts like this is to introduce some of the other noobs out there to what is available, since it seems folks new to OS4 sometimes don't know what is out there or just how well some classic titles run on NG machines.

-- eliyahu

Last edited by eliyahu on 01-Mar-2012 at 08:14 PM.

_________________
"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@eliyahu

How is the software you described compared to google docs?

_________________
Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.

@eliyahu

thanks for the review. I use Abiword under AmiCygnix as it imports my .doc files quite nicely and has a great modern look & feel much like open office

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! My Master Miggies- Amiga 1000 & AmigaOne X1000 !
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X1000 I BELIEVE

@Birbo

Quote:

How is the software you described compared to google docs?

it depends. if you're talking about compatibility with word documents, google docs is much better since it can import more modern word formats. but with respect to styles, text handling, printing flexibility, speed, and the GUI, i would say that any of the main classic amiga word processors beat it hands-down.

of course i'd rather use abiword to import large, complex word documents rather than google docs.

-- eliyahu

_________________
"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@Birbo

"The more standard technology will be available on the amiga, the more it will be like a normal pc.."

Weird view.
I rather get that standard technology anyway.
My computer needs to do the standard stuff + more, and all that in a nice way.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@eliyahu

Good to hear PPC version works on os4. I used to run it on Morphos.. i'll see if it launches on os4. I had the CD version with both 68k and ppc versions. Thanks for the writeup.

Last edited by realize on 01-Mar-2012 at 08:55 PM.