@terminills

I use Final Writer 97 a lot. It's hard to believe that it's been 18 years (or more) since I first purchased it! Yes I'd buy a new version of Final Writer for AOS4.x. As others have said, the ability for FW to read filetypes of other platforms to give more compatibility would be good.

@terminills,

68K first please, then OS4.

@terminills

Yeah, an AmigaOS version would be a system seller if it included DocX functionality.

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@pjs

Quote:

I'd imagine the people that contributed to it would have appreciated that information beforehand

Other than the power supply you offered me. Who exactly contributed what to my gutenprint project?

And for the second question no this is not.

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@terminills

Well, I think a new improved 68k version first is best. Instead of spending a lot of time cross compiling for PPC or x86 etc. and bug hunting to stablelize it. Spend the time neutralizing OS specific dependencies like 3.1 rom, hardware, adding some of the features people want like handling a few new file formats and a good install package. All of the current Amiga types should be able to run a neutral 68k version. That will give you an Idea when that is done, how many people will be interested in a platform specific version with even more features as it grows. Just my 20 cents

And yes, I would like one for 68k, and an OS specific version for MorphOS. . . .

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So AROS users are always accused of being cheap. So let's prove that non-Aros users are not cheap.

Me as the cheap AROS user I am would expect a ported final Writer to cost between 50-100 euros. The more added fetures the closer to 100 euros/dollars.

So make it 69.99 €/$ + paid updates

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@terminills

I'd love to see an AmigaOS4 version, and would be willing to part $55 for a clean port, more if more recent load/save formats like docx and openoffice was supported as well.
Me looking forward to native FW

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I still use 68k Final Writer as my main and preferred wordprocessor on MorphOS. If updated/native version would add some value compared to that, I'd be interested.

24bit support would be nice for starters. I know modern MS format support can be difficult to do properly, so I'll be OK without it too.

I guess 10-20e would be a fair price if it's not getting major feature updates. Little more if there will be real remarkable feature updates.

If native ports are considered, they should be properly made with an extensive testing. Otherwise you should stick with 68k version and update its RTG functionality and compatibility instead. There have been couple of examples lately where extending to several platforms just end up to half-assed versions with no real usage value.

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@terminills

I don't know how much I'd pay for a native OS4 version of FW, the 68k version does what I need even though I have to use a script to print to PostScript and then convert to PDF, so it depends on whether it's a straight port (no new features) or offers useful improvements, but if the price is reasonable I'd most likely buy it.

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@terminills

Final Writer has been my favorite word processor on Amigas, so also I would be interested in native version for next gen systems. I would be interested in AOS3+AOS4+MorphOS+AROSx86 combo -edition.
I could pay a perhaps 30eur for a port. With modern open office compatibility & PDF export 50+eur.

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@terminills

I paid about £40 for wordworth 7 CD so I might be willing to pay a similar amount for Final Writer, if it's at least as, preferable more, feature full,

But I don't consider import and export of foreign formats to be a feature, (though ofcourse that would be a bonus) I'm talking real features like postscript printing to file with 100% image quality, and the various document elements you might expect, inline images, text flow around objects, watermarks etc

Two features WW7 does not have, that would be of use to me, are support for alpha transparency in images, (actually direct support for ilbm32 would be good even without transparency) and the ability to rotate normal text (as opposed to special texteffect elements).

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@terminills

I would surely buy it. I would like it to use antialised ttf with Greek encoding as well, and the ability to open & save unicode encoded files.

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@terminills

As is, there are no programs that will convert a FW 97 document to anything else (Yes, I am aware of several FW to RTF/PDF/etc conversion programs, but they do not save all of the chapter tabs in a FW97 document, just the main chapter tab).

Thus, I would be willing to purchase a PPC FW if it allowed me to save an entire FW97 document (all chapters together) in another format.

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@Rob

Quote:

I'd recommend AISS for the icons since it already has pretty much every icon you'd ever need and it gives a consistent feel with other applications using it.

Isn't AISS OS4 only though? Would be a shame to limit it just one OS imho.

@danwood

AISS is part of AmigaOS4, that is true

But it can be downloaded freely and used by everyone (as long as you have the needed datatypes installed - png, i guess?)

@broadblues
Quote:

But I don't consider import and export of foreign formats to be a feature, (though ofcourse that would be a bonus)

I can't agree. I would even say that exchanging default FW format for OpenDocument (ODF) format would be best feature we could get.

Rock solid app with possibility to exchange documents with the world, thats what I want.
And no, don't even try to start with RTF

Edit: To be clear I suggested here to use the ODF as default file format, but it doesn't mean it would be possible to edit complex documents from latest LB/OOo.

Last edited by ExiE on 16-Mar-2015 at 05:00 PM.
Last edited by ExiE on 16-Mar-2015 at 02:39 PM.

Importing docx doesn't make much sense - even if FW could open docx or odt documents, it wouldn't know how to handle most of the elements inside these files. FW has a very basic set of features - even compared to Wordworth. Does it even do text boxes? Not sure, I haven't looked at it in decades.

Supporting docx is crazy anyway, much bigger projects are struggling to get that done right. If you want to support a modern format, offer an option to export to ODT and forget about importing.

Sensible features that come to mind (using a very broad definition of 'sensible'):

- easy PDF export using Ghostscript
- update RTF support to include all of FW's features (modern RTF standards are quite good)
- improved toolbar (customisable, better icons)
- support for 24 bit (if neccessary?) and 32 bit bitmap graphics
- integrate a modern (open source) spell checking solution

The code is too old and outdated for anything more ambitious, IMHO.

The really sensible thing to do would be to donate the entire codebase to the Document Liberation Project. These guys are developing open source libraries which can be used to open documents from old word processors - LibreOffice, AbiWord and Scribus (amongst others) support these libraries, which is why they can open old Wordperfect documents, or pretty much anything ever created on an old Mac - without loosing any of the formatting.

That would actually be really useful for Amiga users - because they could convert their old FW documents to modern formats.

Unfortunately, this is the Amiga scene, so 'sensible' is pretty much a no-go. So let's make this a prepayment affair, drag it along for years, then release some commercial crap nobody's ever going to use for actual work because it's still a two decade old program with a crappy GUI and because nobody's doing word processing on Amigas anymore. Then forget about it and buy the rights to Graphicraft. Unless A-EON has bought the rights to Graphicraft in the meantime, that is.

And I'm shocked that nobody's mentioned LibreOffice yet. It's right around the corner, I'm told.

(Edit: typo)

Last edited by cgutjahr on 16-Mar-2015 at 03:34 PM.

@cgutjahr

prepayment? Who said anything about prepayment?

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@terminills

Quote:

prepayment? Who said anything about prepayment?

I was making suggestions. Just trying to be helpful Tim

@cgutjahr

Quote:

Unfortunately, this is the Amiga scene, so 'sensible' is pretty much a no-go. So let's make this a prepayment affair, drag it along for years, then release some commercial crap nobody's ever going to use for actual work because it's still a two decade old program with a crappy GUI and because nobody's doing word processing on Amigas anymore. Then forget about it and buy the rights to Graphicraft. Unless A-EON has bought the rights to Graphicraft in the meantime, that is. And I'm shocked that nobody's mentioned LibreOffice yet. It's right around the corner, I'm told.

sounding a little snarky there, buddy. at no point did term say he wanted pre-payment and as far as 'dragging along for years' there's no way to know that in advance. i seriously doubt he'd bring the subject up if he didn't already have a plan in place. and, yes, i'd use it for actual work. in fact i do use my amiga for actual work. if i didn't, i wouldn't bother having one.

being insulting really doesn't help anyone, at least in my view.

oh, and i don't recall anyone saying libreoffice was 'right around the corner.' if anyone connected with the project did say that, i'd love to hear when and where.

-- eliyahu

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