[macintologist]

It's carbon, it doesn't support scroll wheel, doesn't have underlined spell check, lacks a lot of handy word processor features.

Is this the worst Apple currently has to offer? Or at least from a software perspective?

[gorickey]

I wouldn't beg to differ...it's in need of a massive overhaul indeed!

[eevyl]

Being Carbon is not bad... how many times is need to explain that?

I agree AppleWorks needs an overhaul, no doubt.

[cpac]

agreed.

worst program out there.

an embarrassment.

[mchladek]

I would love to see a new, good version of AppleWorks, but I doubt we'll ever see it. Look at what happened when Apple released Safari: Microsoft dropped IE development. If Apple came out with a decent office app M$ would probably drop Office:Mac development which would put a very negative image on the Mac platform.

Here's to hoping Apple (or anyone) will release a competitive Office app to M$'s. I've been using OpenOffice for a while but I'll probably break down and buy Office 2003:Mac when it's released unless something else appears.

[Twilly Spree]

AppleWorks is bad. It is very very bad. Just catasrophically awful.

[macintologist]

By Carbon I mean it doesn't support any services.

Oh another bad thing. No backwards compatibility. It's eaten my ass really bad in dire situations.

[crazyjohnson]

I am sure that Apple knows this -- I would be they have something in the works .

Originally posted by macintologist:
It's carbon, it doesn't support scroll wheel, doesn't have underlined spell check, lacks a lot of handy word processor features.

Is this the worst Apple currently has to offer? Or at least from a software perspective?

[KidRed]

AppleWorst?

It's only bad because it's been hung out to dry. I do have a sneaky suspicion that Apple is secretly working on an office killer app.

[ryaxnb]

double post

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by macintologist:
By Carbon I mean it doesn't support any services.

Oh another bad thing. No backwards compatibility. It's eaten my ass really bad in dire situations.

What do you mean by no backwards compatibility? Version 6.2 saves and opens into AW 5, ClarisW 4, ClarisW 4 for Kids, and MS Word. And being carbon is NOT BAD! Look at Tex-Edit Plus. Checklist of OS X stuff:
Sheets: check
Palettes: check
Review changes when multiple docs open when quitting: check
Services: check (no really, Carbon apps can support services - the Finder does too in 10.2+)
Font Panel instead of proprietary solution: check.
Good, X-like icon: It's kink of subjective, but check.
Note the checklist is for Tex-Edit, not Appleworks.

[clarkgoble]

I'd have to check the APIs, but I'm nearly 99% certain that Carbon supports services. It is just that in Carbon you have to do many things yourself. Often authors leave out services and many other cool features. In Cocoa the framework typically adds these things for you.

But if you want to see a great Carbon app check out BBEdit. (Actually I think iTunes is a pretty good Carbon app as well)

This Carbon vs. Cocoa business is getting silly. I could see perhaps complaining about PowerPoint vs. Cocoa since that is a fairer comparison. But Carbon is now, more or less, just low level routines while Cocoa is more of a full framework.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
I'd have to check the APIs, but I'm nearly 99% certain that Carbon supports services. It is just that in Carbon you have to do many things yourself. Often authors leave out services and many other cool features. In Cocoa the framework typically adds these things for you.

But if you want to see a great Carbon app check out BBEdit. (Actually I think iTunes is a pretty good Carbon app as well)

This Carbon vs. Cocoa business is getting silly. I could see perhaps complaining about PowerPoint vs. Cocoa since that is a fairer comparison. But Carbon is now, more or less, just low level routines while Cocoa is more of a full framework.

Exactly. Like I just said: Carbon tex-edit supports services (pretty sure it's carbon,) Finder supports service, and I blieve BBedit does too.

[Kenneth]

I use AppleWorks since version 3 (remember CalrisWorks)

The current shipping version 6.2.7 is just boring. How many people are working in the AW department? Looks like not much.

[macintologist]

Originally posted by ryaxnb:
What do you mean by no backwards compatibility? Version 6.2 saves and opens into AW 5, ClarisW 4, ClarisW 4 for Kids, and MS Word. And being carbon is NOT BAD! Look at Tex-Edit Plus. Checklist of OS X stuff:
Sheets: check
Palettes: check
Review changes when multiple docs open when quitting: check
Services: check (no really, Carbon apps can support services - the Finder does too in 10.2+)
Font Panel instead of proprietary solution: check.
Good, X-like icon: It's kink of subjective, but check.
Note the checklist is for Tex-Edit, not Appleworks.

Sorry what I meant was forward compatibility. MS Word 98 can open MS Word X, XP files (as long as they dont incorpate special data or something else weird). Applework 5 cannot open an Appleworks 6 document even if it just has simple text in it.

Truly pathetic. Apple better be working. If they made Appleworks a beefed up TextEdit I would be satisfied.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by macintologist:
Sorry what I meant was forward compatibility. MS Word 98 can open MS Word X, XP files (as long as they dont incorpate special data or something else weird). Applework 5 cannot open an Appleworks 6 document even if it just has simple text in it.

Truly pathetic. Apple better be working. If they made Appleworks a beefed up TextEdit I would be satisfied.

Well, Appleworks 6 adds things like tables that go in the file format, whereas Word 2001 and Word v.X don't add any new formatting AFAIK.
That's like expecting your V6 car to let you pop in a newer V8 engine.
Also, does Word 6 open Word 98 docs (back when they were still improving the file format)? No, afaik.

[Jim Paradise]

I think iPhoto is their worst, but that's just mho.

[Cadaver]

I haven't used AppleWorks since Office 2001 for the Mac. AppleWorst is in dire need of a complete overhaul.

[macintologist]

Originally posted by ryaxnb:
Well, Appleworks 6 adds things like tables that go in the file format, whereas Word 2001 and Word v.X don't add any new formatting AFAIK.
That's like expecting your V6 car to let you pop in a newer V8 engine.
Also, does Word 6 open Word 98 docs (back when they were still improving the file format)? No, afaik.

That's just ridiculous. I can type out a biology lab report with graphs and tables on Office XP on a PC, and it will open perfectly in Word 98 for Mac. Appleworks, like Finale (also pathetic in this area) will refuse to open any files created with an earlier version, even if its only text.

[pliny]

I wouldn't update from 6.2.4 to 6.2.7, there's a printing bug introduced, stick with 6.2.4, it's quick and easy to use.

[KidRed]

Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
I think iPhoto is their worst, but that's just mho.

Completely and wholeheartedly disagree. It may not be lightning fast, but it's by far the best thing to categorize your images that are imported automatically from your digital camera. Not only that, but the print options alone (2 to page, print multiple photos on 1 page, thumbnail contact sheet, etc) are worth a shareware fee. Then, the auto uploading to .mac, emailing multiple photos to mail.app and chosing the file size, etc.

There's no way this isn't ONE of the best consumer apps Apple has made.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by KidRed:
Completely and wholeheartedly disagree. It may not be lightning fast, but it's by far the best thing to categorize your images that are imported automatically from your digital camera. Not only that, but the print options alone (2 to page, print multiple photos on 1 page, thumbnail contact sheet, etc) are worth a shareware fee. Then, the auto uploading to .mac, emailing multiple photos to mail.app and chosing the file size, etc.

There's no way this isn't ONE of the best consumer apps Apple has made.

I agree. It's just too bad its so sloooow. I've got 2500 pictures, and add probably 25 per week. All new pictures are 6 megapixel images, which isn't going to help iPhoto's speed any, either.

[lookmark]

Yep. It's been on life support (and not much else) since being Carbonized.

I'd be really surprised if Apple doesn't introduce either an Apple WP program (Document?), and/or a consumer office suite (iWorks?) at MWSF.

[voyageur]

Originally posted by pliny:
I wouldn't update from 6.2.4 to 6.2.7, there's a printing bug introduced, stick with 6.2.4, it's quick and easy to use.

..and now there's this bug.

We got bitten by it bad. Lost a whole folder of documents. Of course the back up too was corrupt.

Why doesn't Apple just revive MacDraw Pro? People love that program and sorely need any easy-to-use vector graphics program that can draw basic shapes and text. A lot of scientists depended on it; now it's gone, and they don't have time to learn Illustrator.

[mark2]

I used to enjoy using ClarisWorks 5. Then, in OS X I started using AppleWorks 6.x and I can barely stand it. It's a complete pig, IMO.

I finally bought Mellel, which is now one of my favorite word processors, Then I bought Word X which I now use most of the time. I also have a few other small word processing apps, and I like ALL of them better than AW 6.

I now avoid AW as much as possible. Never thought I'd want to throw an Apple application in the trash, but that's how I feel abour AppleWorks 6.

[CharlesS]

You know, when you think about it, TextEdit is pretty close to becoming a decent word processor, with all the enhancements it's gotten in Panther.

Think about it:

• spell-check
• user-definable styles
• rulers
• single-spacing, double-spacing, or custom line spacing, inter-line spacing, paragraph spacing
• page layout view
• right-to-left text support
• lots of text styles like strike-through, double underline, outline, shadow, etc.
• all the kerning and ligature options
• raise/lower baseline, superscript/subscript, etc.
• text-to-speech
• zoom in/out to make text larger or smaller
• floating font panel
• contextual menus
• Word .doc format support

Granted, some of these features are automatically inherited from Cocoa, but really, how much more than this do you need? TextEdit is about ready to become my word processor - the only problems I have with it is that its undo buffer gets cleared when you save a document and it doesn't use FSRefs to keep track of files. Both of these issues will be resolved if TextEdit ever gets updated to use the NSDocument object. From the looks of the comments in the source code, it appears that they want eventually to do this.

[cpac]

Originally posted by CharlesS:


Think about it:

• spell-check
• user-definable styles
• rulers
• single-spacing, double-spacing, or custom line spacing, inter-line spacing, paragraph spacing
• page layout view
• right-to-left text support
• lots of text styles like strike-through, double underline, outline, shadow, etc.
• all the kerning and ligature options
• raise/lower baseline, superscript/subscript, etc.
• text-to-speech
• zoom in/out to make text larger or smaller
• floating font panel
• contextual menus
• Word .doc format support

Granted, some of these features are automatically inherited from Cocoa, but really, how much more than this do you need?

To make it truly useable as a word processor I still need:

� headers/footers
� margin control (less than 1")
� footnotes
� tables (though if it had the others I might suffer without these for a while)

[zigzag]

I'm convinced that AW has been neglected in order to protect the market for MSOffice. I can think of no other reason why Apple would upgrade everything else and introduce so many great new apps while letting AW suck for so long. It wouldn't surprise me if it was part of the deal when MS gave Apple $100 million, although it could be that Jobs just wants to keep MS active in the Mac market.

[Millennium]

AppleWorks gives Carbon a bad name.

No, really. It was one of the first two major Carbon apps for OSX, the other one being the 10.0 Finder. Both of them sucked long, hard, and mightily, giving Carbon its undeservedly poor reputation for years afterward.

I still wish that Apple hadn't ditched its Cocoa-based Finder from DR2. This has nothing to do with whether or not it was Cocoa, but simply from the fact that they had a perfectly good codebase which they threw out, thus wasting enormous amounts of effort in order to reimplement it. The need for a "dogfood app" to show off Carbon's power was certainly legitimate, but AppleWorks should have been the dogfood app. The end result would have been far less wasted effort, and hopefully two much better apps as a result.

[Mastrap]

Originally posted by zigzag:
I'm convinced that AW has been neglected in order to protect the market for MSOffice. I can think of no other reason why Apple would upgrade everything else and introduce so many great new apps while letting AW suck for so long. It wouldn't surprise me if it was part of the deal when MS gave Apple $100 million, although it could be that Jobs just wants to keep MS active in the Mac market.

[Gankdawg]

Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
I think iPhoto is their worst, but that's just mho.

I also disagree, but to be honest, I refuse to use it because it's so dog slow. Am excited to get my new G5 so that I can finally use iPhoto.

[calle73]

I have recently started using Ragtime Solo instead of AppleWorks, which is free to use for individuals.

http://www.ragtime-online.com/

And in Ragtime the scrollwheel works!!!

[Gamoe]

Originally posted by Jim Paradise:
"I think iPhoto is their worst, but that's just mho"

I don't like iPhoto either, in its current form. Not that it doesn't have it's good features, but it doesn't let you organize photos the way you like, and it's slow. But, perhaps that's because all I want is a good slideshow app. JPEGView was great in its time.

[trash80]

i think Appleworks is fine personally, i only tend to use the spreadsheet module though.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by Millennium:

I still wish that Apple hadn't ditched its Cocoa-based Finder from DR2. This has nothing to do with whether or not it was Cocoa, but simply from the fact that they had a perfectly good codebase which they threw out, thus wasting enormous amounts of effort in order to reimplement it. The need for a "dogfood app" to show off Carbon's power was certainly legitimate, but AppleWorks should have been the dogfood app. The end result would have been far less wasted effort, and hopefully two much better apps as a result.

I agree but wouldn't you say that the 10.3 Finder is pretty much ok? It's been over 2 years of work on it (and it is basically the old 10.2 Finder with a new look). It is Carbon but it doesn't suck incredibly much like finder 10.0 did. My only gripe with Carbon apps is that the developers of those apps rarely bother to implement the things that are easier implemented in Cocoa apps making a big inconsistancy in Macintosh apps on OS X.

[JB72]

I'd love to see AW move forward, integrating some work done on Open Office, as well as making the appearance tighter and more modern. Better integration with iLife would be a plus too. Sadly, however, I'm not sure if Apple really wants to make an Office-like product one of it's shining stars.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by JB72:
Better integration with iLife would be a plus too.

... And also with the OS, of course!

[clarkgoble]

and it is basically the old 10.2 Finder with a new look

I think the sidebar and speed improvements are fairly significant. Yes it isn't as big a change as say from the Sys9 Finder to the OSX Finder. But I do think it a big change. I think it's my favorite feature of Panther - even more than Expose.

Of course there are things I want fixed. But compared to the things I want fixed in Appleworks there is no comparison.

[typoon]

Hopefully they will announce a new version at MacWorld in Jan. They better anyway. Appleworks is such a dsigrace to the Apple name at this point. Definitely the WORST Apple App out there.

[Truepop]

I would like to see some great formating come of xml. instead of like word having its own formating scheme, an xml formating app that web email could use like yahoo or something.

that way I could edit a nice looking doc in a great editor maybe appleworks successor but view it online or have other apps view it easily.

I thought apple was all about standards. here one that would make office think twice.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by voodoo:
I agree but wouldn't you say that the 10.3 Finder is pretty much ok?

Oh, certainly it is. Frankly, I considered it "pretty much ok" at the 10.1 mark.

What bothers me about it is that between DP3 and 10.1, they spent about two years working on it, when most of the work had already been done with their Workspace Manager (the Carbon Finder's predecessor). Had they simply continued from that codebase it would have taken them far less effort to get the Finder to the level it is today, not because the Finder was in Cocoa, but because most of it had already been implemented. The same would have been true if the Workspace Manager had been written in Carbon, Win32, BrainF***, or any other language.

What bothers me is not that the Finder is written in Carbon. What bothers me is that they threw out a perfectly good codebase, wasting almost two years' worth of effort that would have been better spent elsewhere. Cocoa vs. Carbon has nothing to do with that.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Millennium:
The same would have been true if the Workspace Manager had been written in Carbon, Win32, BrainF***, or any other language.

Cocoa, Carbon, and Win32 aren't languages. They're API's.

[mikemako]

I think Apple should just discontinue development of AppleWorks and put their efforts elsewhere. AppleWorks is not a pleasure to use for me, unlike every other OS X app I work with. The interface is terrible. The actual functionality might not be as bad, but why waste time on it when there are so many other apps Apple could be improving? MS Office v.x is fine and it's making Microsoft money so they're not going to stop its development.. at least at this time.

I don't think MS dropped IE because of Safari, or at least it wasn't the main reason. As they said, they just realized that it does not bring in money, and since they aren't using it in the new version of Windows, they decided to let it go.

[waffffffle]

I used ClarisWorks from version 1 (when I was 12) to version 4, then AppleWorks 5. I liked all of these versions and I used it through everything through the end of high school. I started using Word when I got to college. AppleWorks really sucks for writing papers. IT looks ugly and Word's auto-correcting and grammar checking are necessary for me. I really wish Apple would add grammar checking and auto-correcting services to the OS. Then TextEdit would be great, although it needs a better toolbar that has things like fonts controls (I hate the palette).

I wish some big third party would attempt this (not Apple). Omni seems like a great company for this. Their applications are definitely top notch but I feel as if they would be afraid to go up against Microsoft as well and may fear that Apple will come in and take over the space at any point.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by waffffffle:
I used ClarisWorks from version 1 (when I was 12) to version 4, then AppleWorks 5. I liked all of these versions and I used it through everything through the end of high school. I started using Word when I got to college. AppleWorks really sucks for writing papers. IT looks ugly and Word's auto-correcting and grammar checking are necessary for me. I really wish Apple would add grammar checking and auto-correcting services to the OS. Then TextEdit would be great, although it needs a better toolbar that has things like fonts controls (I hate the palette).

I wish some big third party would attempt this (not Apple). Omni seems like a great company for this. Their applications are definitely top notch but I feel as if they would be afraid to go up against Microsoft as well and may fear that Apple will come in and take over the space at any point.

Argh, if Apple added an auto-correcting service to the OS, causing it to occur in all Cocoa apps, I would be forced to use Carbon apps exclusively.

[theolein]

Originally posted by calle73:
I have recently started using Ragtime Solo instead of AppleWorks, which is free to use for individuals.

http://www.ragtime-online.com/

And in Ragtime the scrollwheel works!!!

Yup, use it on both the Mac and on Windows. For all the basic stuff it is damn good, and free too. Just wish it would get more air time. Well, air time and support for Office files.

[theolein]

FWIW, I don't think Apple neglects AW to protect Microsoft, but to protect Apple. Knowing Microsoft's business practices, I wouldn't put it past them to have quietly informed Apple that if an improved AW is released that then that would be it for MS Office on the Mac.

Apple needs Office on the Mac badly, even though what MS is doing is simply blackmail and is similar to what MS did to Apple back in the 80's with Apple Basic. Even Linux has it easier than Apple as Linux never had Office, and OpenOffice works damn well there.

My best guess is that Appple is NOT going to release an updated AW. I think that long term wise Apple is hoping that OpenOffice gets enough market share so that Apple can make a decent implementation on OSX.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Cocoa, Carbon, and Win32 aren't languages. They're API's.

The same is true of Cocoa, but one of the biggest pseudo-features Cocoa-zealots (as opposed to people who like Cocoa and actually know what they're talking about) is the Objective-C language, as though ObjC were the only language you could use for Cocoa. Carbon and Win32 are typically not written for using Objective-C, so a language change would be necessary, be that language C++, Perl (yes, I know Perl is a scripting language; that doesn't stop people from trying to write full applications in it), COBOL, or whatever.

And yes, I realize that there are no Carbon, Cocoa, or Win32 bindings for BrainF***. I simply threw that in as a more extreme example to show that in the end, language doesn't really matter all that much. As long as the language is Turing-complete and has appropriate bindings to the API, any app could theoretically be written in it.

[powerbook867]

wow, I found Appleworks for 19 dollars off of dealmac.com, but now I'm convinced that it would be money poorly spent. Guess I'll wait until the next Macworld and hope for a new application...

[P]

Originally posted by cpac:
To make it truly useable as a word processor I still need:

� headers/footers
� margin control (less than 1")
� footnotes
� tables (though if it had the others I might suffer without these for a while)

You know what? Fire up Word 5.1 in Classic. _That's_ what I need.

Seriously, a lot of what I like could be fixed by implementing Styles. With Styles come things like Table of Contents "for free", and it shouldn't really be very hard to implement. Headers and footers, of course, and maybe tables, but that's it. All of this should be fairly easy, right? I'd still prefer a better Appleworks though, but that might be harder.

The problem is that if we get all this in Textedit, we need a new dedicated editor...