Dear Amiga Format Editor,

 first of all, let me mention, that due to a low likelihood of
 getting this published in your magazine, I've decided to reply
 in form of an open letter.

 I'd like to express, that it's a bit strange to see one of
 the few remaining good Amiga magazines become destructive - I hope
 this isn't a sign of an upcoming demise of the rest of the magazine
 market as well.

 So, you've had a lot of critic points against the SView Productivity
 Suite II. Although that's basically completely within the responsibility
 of the writer and/or editor, I'd have been glad, to at least be
 contacted and asked for comments, before printing. That's standard.

 Claiming "a lack of support" isn't actually true, at least when
 it comes to asking - at lot of users do so, as also did the
 writer of a competing magazine. Sometimes it may be the fault
 of the tester, so a short question perhaps shouldn't be too hard.

 There's even a support email address and hotline at Schatztruhe
 in Germany - in case it's a general problem.

 A second point of critics was, I would not have addressed your
 comments from Suite I as mentioned in your February issue's test
 - well, other than any other magazine you don't seem to send
 free copies of your magazine to the authors of the reviewed
 products. At least I did not get one, and this time it just
 was more or less accidentally as well (thanks to Schatztruhe).

 Well, leaving the general fairness aspects beside, there still
 are a lot of quite unfair remarks left:

   - OS 3.5 support wasn't included, because the developer CD
     wasn't available before the CD deadline - although you
     may have received your CD at the start of December, it
     already was released ready to the HEW fair mid of November.
     When the CD was completed (CD production takes at least
     a few weeks) it even wasn't clear when and how the
     OS 3.5 developer docs would be released.

     Besides that, even if last minute OS 3.5 support would
     have been added, I wouldn't have decided to release
     it untested.

   - in the meantime there's already OS 3.5 support (free upgrade
     available via Aminet or download from my WWW site), but
     unfortunately - due to the few graphics-related improvements
     in OS 3.5 over OS 3.1 - it isn't as big as people may have
     expected. One can only support stuff that is present - but
     there's still a lot absent, due to the avoidance of ROM
     changes.

     Ergo: scheduling a later release of the CD just because of
     minor OS 3.5 glittering would not have been justified,
     especially because of free upgrades (other companies offer
     constant upgrade programs as well).

   - you're missing help ? Well, pressing the HELP key on my
     system actually does work. It activates the style guide
     conformeous online help, that allows to jump to the
     right section of the Amiga guide file when pressing
     a button. This is the only real online help option under
     AmigaOS unless you're going to make use of certain
     Bubble Help emulations of MUI or other GUI systems.

     Moving the mouse over a button and then pressing HELP
     while expecting to get it, isn't really style-guide
     conformeous - at least not with a font-sensitive, resizeable
     GUI that makes use of OO BOOBSI classes.

     The GUI system (wizard.library by Haage & Partner) may allow
     for its own help system, but this would have to be merged with
     the locale catalogs of the .wizard files and thus complicate
     the upgrade and translation process (well, there actually
     ARE people that don't speak english and ARE pleased to see
     programs running under one of maybe "5763 languages", as
     you described it condescedingly).

     Whether the GUI system may be good or bad, IMHO is a
     different issue that should be addressed separately - again
     OS 3.5's Reaction documentation wasn't available at that time,
     and besides that, I'd still like to support OS 2.04 (it's
     not my job to force people to upgrade os OS 3.5).

     What you didn't explicetely mention was, that RAmiga-P
     just is a menu shortcut for calling the Amiga guide
     system fromout the GUI. Most applications don't even
     allow this - you have to start it with double-click
     from the Workbench. Maybe this would have been easier ?

   - you're complaining, that the "sheer number of options will
     make this a lengthy process in anything other than Novice
     mode" - well, this is just because Novice Mode is for
     novices and Expert mode is for experts. It's the privilege
     of experts to make detailed decisions, and so it is
     here. In case someone wants to make full use of a powerful
     tool, this means that certain knowledge is required
     (this doesn't only apply to worker's tools like chainsaws
     or maybe driving a 20 ton truck). For the rest, there's
     the Novice mode and sense-making default settings.

   - so you're grinning about a special DRACO compatiblity
     option ? Well, it wasn't me, who had problems saving
     ILBMs on a DRACO years back, but nice that I am, I simply
     did what the user asked me for - instead of questioning
     a certain OS structure that the DRACO doesn't seem
     to have properly initialized, there was an optional
     workaround done. But then again, nitpicking on special
     options that the casual user never gets presented and
     easily may ignore, just can be kind of fun, can't it ?

   - well, merging the process of keyfile generation into the
     installer script - as you asked for - wouldn't have
     saved you from typing the "huge random collection
     of numbers" [the serial number] into it, either
     (you know, CDs are read-only and so we have to
     adhere to this). Calling the external Keyfile
     generator from the installer script may have been
     a nice step - but then again, it creates keyfiles
     for all the programs from the CD, not only SuperView,
     and thus it would have to be called from all the
     (six or more) installer scripts on the CD and
     the serial number would have to be typed several
     (six or more) times, and maybe there even would
     have been the need for several (six or more)
     separate keyfile generators. Not really an improvement,
     what do you think ?


 Well, since there's not actually a "review" of the program
 and its capabilities done in your text, I can't really comment
 on your point of view on the weaks and strengths of it. I also
 don't know the contents of your previous article.

 I would have done a comment in length, otherwise.

 Since there's been so much positive feedback by users,
 I'm a bit surprised, that especially an editor of
 a large magazine tries to take a well-known and
 well-liked product down.

 But then again: strange things happen.

 In case your magazine will still exist next year,
 in case there will be another Amiga fair that year,
 in case there will be a Suite III next year

 - well, then I'll be happy to address the rational
 part of your critics. If I get a review copy, that is.


 (People who are reading this and would like to comment,
 shouldn't reply to Amiga Format magazine or me directly
 - we don't want to flood anyone's postbox with
 positive or negative mega-comments - but post this
 in comp.sys.amiga.misc. Please create or add to
 a thread called "SView Review in AF". I'll be reading
 it, maybe Mr. Vost will do so as well. Thanks!)

--
Andreas_Kleinert@gmx.de --- SuperView development & distribution
PerSuaSiVe SoftWorX - Software Engineering Amiga/Wintel and more
http://www.ar-kleinert.de --- information, free downloads, registration