Subject: REVIEW: Final Calc V1.0
From: [email-masked] (Ron Grant)
Date: 25 Oct 1995 01:24:44 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Final Calc V1.0

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	A new, powerful spreadsheet for the Amiga.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Author:		Khalid Aldoseri
	Publisher:	Softwood, Inc.
	Address:	PO Box 50178
			Phoenix, AZ  85076
			USA

	Phone:		(602) 431-0949
	Orders:		(800) 247-8330	(USA. & Canada)

LIST PRICE

	$249.00 (US)

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Any Amiga with 2 Megabytes of memory, though 3 Megabytes is
		strongly recommended.

		About 5 megabytes of Hard Disk space.

	SOFTWARE:

		AmigaDOS 2.0 or higher for full functionality.
		Will run on AmigaDOS 1.2 and 1.3.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 2000 with G-Force 030-40MHz CPU
	1MB Chip, 12 MB Fast RAM
	Kickstart 40.63 (3.1) Workbench 40.42 (3.1)

INSTALLATION

	Final Calc is supplied on four floppy disks.  Installation is simple
and uses the Commodore 'Install' program.  Several versions of the program
are supplied.  The installer selects the likely candidate for the system --
in my case the 68030 FPU version.

REVIEW (Preliminary)

	I have been waiting for a long time for a new spreadsheet to replace
MaxiPlan.  I NEED a spreadsheet program, and was very happy to have one from
Softwood, with their long history of unfailing Amiga support.

	This is a complex program with many features that I have not had a
chance to become familiar with.  This review is not complete since there are
many discoveries remaining to be made.

	The manual is a serious piece of work supplied in a mini 3-ring
binder.  There are 9 Chapters, 10 Appendices, and an index.  There are a few
areas in the manual that are too brief and without examples, such as
accessing database functions with formulas.  Otherwise, though, it is good
reading for many hours.  There are some sample sheets and some sample macros
which help with becoming familiar with the program.  

	Up to now, I had always used Maxiplan.  I was resigned to entering
some of the sheets again manually.  Final Calc will import and export Lotus
1-2-3 ".WKS" and ".WK1", but Maxiplan will not export in any other format
except its own.  I discovered "accidentally" that Final Calc WILL import
Maxiplan files.  The loading is automatic -- Final Calc can tell which
format the file is in.  

	The brochure from Softwood mentions the Lotus 1-2-3 file support,
but the support for Maxiplan came as a complete and welcome surprise.  It
would be nice to see more spreadsheet types supported, though in my case, I
was satisfied.  In my view, it is a vital key that Amiga programs support as
many other popular formats as possible.  This is more important even than
programs running on the pee-cee.  Hopefully, Excel and some of the other
Amiga spreadsheet formats will be included in the future.

	Help is available through AmigaGuide at any time.  As you work on a
sheet, the number of changes made is displayed at the lower right of the
screen.  A multi-level "UNDO / REDO" looked after any mistakes I made.
There are facilities for backup to a path chosen by the user, as well as
Auto Save and Revision control.  File encryption with a password is also
provided which is a nice touch.

	The user can work with single sheets, or with projects consisting of
many sheets.  Formulas, macros and ranges can address any area of any sheet
in multi-dimensional fashion for all sheets in a project.  It was quite
simple to collect several years of "Income" sheets into one project.
Movement through the project is quite easy and done in a logical fashion.

	I didn't like the way the cursor keys worked at first, at least they
didn't yield expected results in true Amiga fashion.  As I used it more,
though, I realized that the system is set up to recognize a number of modes,
such as edit, input and ranges.  For example, during edit, the edit area
works like any Amiga string gadget.  During entry, shift-cursor goes a page
at a time while alt-cursor goes to the limits of the sheet.  Pressing the
TAB key places the program into the 'range' mode so that ranges can be
defined using the cursor keys.  It is apparent that the Author gave a lot of
thought into the many different ways of moving about the sheet.  There is
even the '/' right slash implemented to bring the menus up at the bottom of
the screen in the old VisiCalc style!  As you can see, there are many ways
of getting the job done.

	I didn't personally like the way screen colours are handled.  If you
try to colour a cell while only 2 bitplanes (4 colours) are used in the
current screen, the colour type IS stored in the cell, but the cells
appearance is unchanged.  Going to 3 bitplanes (8 colours) enables 8 colour
selection which works as you'd expect.  But if you go the screen palette,
there are only four colours available to set.  Even on a 4 bitplane screen
(16 colours), you only have access to palette customizing of 4 colours!
What are the rest of the colours for, you ask?  Well, they are used in the
system of graphs, which is the best graphs I have ever seen.  They are
breath-taking.  Still, I would like to have control and access to those
colours from the screen interface, so that the colours used in the cells
could be adjusted as in Turbo Calc.

BUGS / DISLIKES

There are a few bugs, as might expect in a V1.0 release:

o	Printing may not always be formatted as expected.

o	This includes graphs, though only on some graph types

o	Loading a Maxiplan sheet with a database defined can result in an 
	immediate system crash.

o	Defining a criteria range which overlaps into other formulas can 
	result in a lock-up.  A criteria range should never overlap other 
	formulas, but then the program shouldn't crash either!  Re-boot 
	required.

These are some bugs which while potentially serious, I had to really look 
for at least in terms of the crashes.  The biggest downfall of this 
program is not a bug at all, just a design limitation in the database 
provisions.

DISLIKES

o	Final Calc's implementation of Database functions utilize the usual
	Input Range, Offset and Criteria Range.  However only ONE criteria
	can be chosen.  IE:  DSUM(input_range, offset, criteria) will NOT
	work.  The offset parameter is the only one supported, IE:  DSUM
	(offset).  As a result, most database operations are not available.
	For example, if we have a list of 10 companies which send payments
	from time to time, we can use the database functions to:

	o	List all payments in excess of say, $100.00.

	o	List all payments received from say, XYZ Corp.

	But we cannot:

	o	Total all payments received by EACH of the ten 
		companies.

	o	Count the total number of payments received by each 
		company.

	This would require that ten criteria ranges be defined and that
	DSUM() and DCOUNT() could accept the criteria parameter which it
	cannot do.  This is a serious limitation which will have to be
	addressed immediately for this program to be of use.

o	Cursor speed preference should be saved Globally, rather than stored 
	with each individual sheet.

o	Scrolling with the mouse is difficult.  The scroll occurs as
	desired, but just try to stop or back up!  You'll end up using the
	cursor keys, which work fine.

o	Selecting a range by hitting the TAB key then using the cursor keys
	works as expected except that if you overshoot your desired ending
	cell, backing up doesn't deselect the undesired cells.  The cursor
	behaves properly, but the undesired cells don't become
	un-highlighted.

o	When setting column width using CTRL NumPad 4 , 6  I would like 
	to see column width displayed.  In fact, I'd like to see it displayed 
	whenever a column is selected.

o	I'd like to see Text style icons in the toolbar reflect the style
	setting in use as in done in Final Writer.

o	When titles are frozen for the first time, the action should also set 
	Toggle Titles to on.  As it stands, if you mistakenly select toggle titles 
	on a sheet where no titles have been frozen, then when you freeze 
	titles, it appears NOT to work.  In fact, if you choose Toggle Titles 
	they will be frozen as expected.  I thought the Title freeze wasn't 
	working until I discovered that they had been toggled off.

LIKES

	Aside from the list of items above, this really is a fine
spreadsheet program -- surprisingly complete.  This program can actually
serve as a word processor with great font and style support.  Many little
features crop up each time I play with it, or read the manual.  One
favourite is 'Amiga /' which performs the last menu selection.  Excellent
Format support and Date/Time support with full macro functions internal, and
ARexx make this a gold mine for script writers.  Pull down menus change with
the mode and present the user with endless possible actions.  There are many
nice touches such as:

o	Requesters may be built right from scripts with user responses going 
	into cells.

o	Will compare sheets

o	Full print spooling system under user control

o	Undo/Redo storage - can bring up undo list and pick event

o	Multivariate regression analysis

o	Animation - Charts may be animated over time and increments of 
	any values

o	Full colour and pattern support (including palette) for all colours for 
	the charting system.

o	Column (A, B ,C etc.) and Row (1,2,3 etc.) can be named anything you 
	like.  Great for calendars where instead of A, B, C you can have 
	Sunday, Monday, Tuesday etc.

CONCLUSIONS

	This is a serious release long overdue to the Amiga marketplace.  It
is a stable program as it stands except as noted above.  With the vendor
support which should be forthcoming from Softwood from past experience, it
seems likely that this program will evolve into the premiere spreadsheet
program for the Amiga.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1995 Ron G. Grant.  All rights reserved.  This review
is freely distributable.  You can contact me at:  [email-masked]
--------------------------------------------------------------
Ron G. Grant VE5RG  [email-masked]  FAX: +1.306.781.4098
==============================================================

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