| . | Regarding reports of some incompatibilities between MacLinkPlus (all versions) and ClarisWorks 5, DataViz's Scott Thomas sent me a detailed reply. First off, he wanted to stress that Word 6 translation is supported in ClarisWorks 5. Here is the full text of his reply:
"ClarisWorks 5 is shipping with a set of specialized MacLinkPlus translators implemented through Mac OS Easy Open. We do not yet have a direct translator for ClarisWorks 5, so the initial implementation of our converters sends ClarisWorks a CW4 document which they then internally convert to CW5. We are working with Claris to provide a direct ClarisWorks 5 translator that would not require the secondary conversion and which would add support for some of the newer features included in CW5.
There have been some questions about how it was implemented and about whether MacLinkPlus retail products can coexist with this technology, so I've included information about the basics and some specifics we've discovered so far:
- Contrary to some of the customer reports we have received, the Claris Installer does not move Retail MLP components to the disabled extensions folder. However, they do install only 68K components. They chose to implement the 68K versions of the technology we provided due to a memory problem that they discovered in certain cases when implementing the Power Mac translators through their Application. It appears as though it is a problem with low level Easy Open or Component Manager memory issues when used in an application framework and does not affect MacLinkPlus in its normal operation via Easy Open through the Finder. Again, if you have MLP 9.7 or later, ClarisWorks will use the newer versions of the translators installed and available to your system.
- A MacLinkPlus Setup CW control panel is installed in the Control Panels folder. This is simply a preference setting application.
- A MacLinkPlus for ClarisWorks 68K extension is installed in the Extensions folder.
- DataViz folder is installed in the Claris folder in the System folder with the following 17 items: ClarisWorks DB 4.0 68K ClarisWorks SS 4.0 68K ClarisWorks WP 4.0 68K DataViz Required Rsrcs DataViz Translation Mgr. 68K Excel 4.0 68K Excel 5.0 68K MS Works DB 3.0 Mac 68K MS Works DB 4.0 Mac 68K MS Works SS 2.0,3.0 Mac 68K MS Works SS 4.0 Mac 68K MS Works WP 3.0 Mac 68K MS Works WP 4.0 Mac 68K PICT to WMF 68K WMF to PICT 68K Word 6.0 Mac-Win 68K WordPfct Mac 3.0,3.1,3.5 68K
- I installed over 9.7 and as expected, everything works just fine. That is, ClarisWorks is using the newer translators that were part of 9.7 as opposed to the translators that came with the product. There are not any duplicate listings in Document Converter Setup as happened in previous versions.
- The familiar Save As... items in ClarisWorks that used to trigger XTND translations (MacWrite Pro [MacLink] for example) now call Easy Open translations and show our traditional EO translation status dialog.
- Notice that they do not have Office 97 translators from us. I have them available to me because I have MLP 9.7 installed on my system.
- They chose to implement File Open translations by having the user 'filter' the Open dialog to show only the file type indicated. This is different than a normal Easy Open implementation where Easy Open would determine if translations would need to take place. So for example, if a user wants to initiate a Word translation to ClarisWorks, he would have to first select to show Word files in his File Type pop-up in the ClarisWorks Open dialog.
Furthermore, it appears as if they are not showing Word 6 as an option in the pop up list. We have heard that this is a problem if Word is installed on the boot volume. I have been able to get it to work if I use the generic "MS Word [MacLink]" selection on my 6500.
A better and more reliable solution is to let Easy Open do the work. Drag a document over the ClarisWorks icon or alias and if we can convert it, the Easy Open dialog will show up with 'ClarisWorks with MacLinkPlus Translation' as a translation choice. I found that this works much better with PC files. For example, my copy of MLP 9.7 has support for Word & Excel 97. If I drag on top of the CW icon, it translates perfectly into a CW word processing doc. If instead I do a File Open and try to open the file (without selecting a Word 97 filter, because in many cases I won't know what it is anyway), Claris tried to convert it into a ClarisWorks spreadsheet and it comes up with a few funny characters and that's all." |
