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Atlantis "Review"
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Posted by 22111
Jan 19, 2014 at 04:43 PM
The “Atlantis” word processor will be on sale on bits, these next days, again, and here’s what I wrote there on that very fine product of sw with so much of potential:
Posted by 22111
Jan 19, 2014 at 04:47 PM
http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/atlantis-word-processor#comments76609
Taras, hello.
I have some suggestions and would be very pleased if you gave me an answer to them.
First of all, I would like to cite Manfred Kühn in full - this is not entirely “legal” from a purely formal-legal pov, but I’m absolutely sure that this (Kant) philosophy university professor I hold in deep respect would not be opposed to be cited here in this form, since he’s fond of your word processor and hence would certainly like it to be “marketed” in the very best way it could.
From his blog (which is very insteresting in all possible respect for everybody who’s interested in word processing and text creation (be it academic, literary or “just” “creating manuals, text books, whatever”):
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.be/2011/03/atlantis.html
“Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Atlantis
Since someone asked, Atlantis is a word processor which offers most of the standard features, but it is not bloated. If you need Tables or revision control, it is not for you. On the other hand, it offers “Save as eBook” which converts converts any document to the eBook format. Atlantis also saves to doc and docx. And it does outlining, styles, footnotes and endnotes. It also handles different languages well. In other words, Atlantis does everything I want out of a word processor.
Atlantis can be installed on a USB drive as a portable application.
Another plus: no ribbon to take usable space!
The standard registration fee is $35, i.e. a fraction of what you have to pay for the behemoth [he’s speaking of MS Word here]. You can try before you buy.
I recommend it highly!”
Now:
- I am very pleased I can “purify” the layout, meaning, I can hide all those ugly (= ugly everywhere, in any program) toolbars, rulers and such.
- So many people have asked for tables, even years ago; let’s face it, it’s probably right what the professor says, if you really need tables, Atlantis probably isn’t for you: Accepted; the same would go for pics and formulas (for the time being)
- Buyers should know that Atlantis, bought here or full-price, for the time being at least is always “life license”; in the past, I’ve bought other programs even after this very generous licensing detail was withheld; don’t replicate my error there, but buy Atlantis here and now while you’ll get your “lifetime” thing
- I literally hate MS Word (which I own) for being bloatware, but let’s not fool ourselves: It’s in such bloatware that “everybbdy” then finds his special wishes fulfilled if he’s chancy, whilst in “simple, neat” offerings, this is not usually the case. This being said:
- Some people say Atlantis is able to smoothly handle documents with a large 3-digit page number, and even with more than 1,000 pages
- There seems to be one of the very best (and perhaps the very best, outright) outlining features of all text processors available today
- Now combine these two features, and you’ll see that a very important, third, feature is missing from Atlantis: Ace outlining, AND ace ability to process very large documents - where’s the cross- linking function that would be able to link (text or header) paragraphs to other paragraphs, elsewhere in that same document? For me, it seems to be perfectly logical to add such functionality, since it’s exactly that function (non-literary) writers will crave for when writing, and the more extended their writings become (in “page count”), the more such cross-linking within such texts become absolutely necessary
- Here, don’t fall into the trap some 2-pane outliner developers fell into: It’s not sufficient that those cross-links are functional within the electronic text body: They will have to survive into the publishing stage. I.e. in Atlantis, there should be made available special links that will jump to other paragraphs (and there should be a function to jump back), AND those links should be in a form that then, afterwards, allows for replacing the link encoding with any necessary mark-up codes the dtp application in question (InDesign, but others, too) would need to process those cross-links on their turn
- Also, there should be some functionality that does this, with “live” numbering of paragraphs (as you know, many legal (and other) textbooks refer from “margin number 786” to “margin number 284”, and such cross-links should survive any writing / editing (i.e. additions of paragraphs / “margins”, deletions of such, and moves of such, and of course, by any number, i.e. if the author moves paragraphs 178 to 297 after paragraph 34 or paragraph 945, all those cross-links should remain perfectly functional
- I know I’m asking for something really elaborate here, but in view of the above, you’re safe to expect to see your sales roare tenfold: Any scholar, worldwide (and not needing formulas, hence the utility to work about that, too), will happily switch to Atlantis then
- Ok, so much for mid-term wishes
- For the time being, in my trial, I missed a very useful feature that would be very easy to implement: Do I have your word you’ll implement it rather soon? There is no keyboard shortcut for “apply the style heading 1/2/3/4” (and I think that will do, or do even “heading 5/6/7” - I’d be perfectly happy with 1/2/3) to the selected piece of text; I know I can assign styles by double-clicking within the styles list, but that’s very cumbersome, as well as clicking on the dedicated symbol on the bottom of that list (to be displayed within the F6 “control board” - but that symbol is a little bit “illogical” if I dare say since whenever you click on it, it will NOT assign, to your selection, the style you will previously have selected within the styles list above, but that very styles list selection will have been reverted to the CURRENT style of the text selection in question, which renders that special symbol totally inefficient:
- There should be a symbol - and a kb shortkey to it!!! - that will apply, to any selection, THAT selected style within the styles list that you’d previously selected there… and without that style selection reverting to CURRENT style of your text selection, i.e. you would have to differenciate these: For one, ok, within the style list, always show the CURRENT style, BUT have an additional function/command/symbol/AND SHORTCUT applying the “previously assigned style”
- I also publish this comment on Atlantis in the outlinersoftware.com forum where I regularly publish my thinkings on text sw and on file management, before consolidating it all within my own, taxonomied web page:
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5268/0/atlantis-review
- You can reach me by email, and I’d be happy to “give a conceptional hand” in your implementing the above, or any other elaborate, “smart” functionality
- I appreciate this site doesn’t censor me if I’m critical of sw (in spite of the fact that my remarks then will certainly not push sales of the respective offering then), so I’m happy to encourage fellow “bitsters” to buy Atlantis, even in its current shape: At 16 bucks for a “lifetime”, it’s an absolute steal, and if Taras listens to my advice, this will soon become the very best text processor out there there is, even including those that are sold in the high 3-digit bucks range (and you will’ve got it for 16 dollars…)
Posted by 22111
Jan 21, 2014 at 01:05 AM
To my first post there, the author responded (if I interpreted him correctly) that he wasn’t sure he could do it. I very much hope he’ll see that all that is between (him and Atlantis) and (his first dollar million) is very precisely that very last mile he will have to go, too - except for this feature, Atlantis is very powerful, much better than I had imagined, from its price and from its market “relevance” which both don’t reflect the importance of that fine program.
http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/atlantis-word-processor#comments76674
I’ve done real-life trial with Atlantis in the meanwhile.
- Of course, shortkeys can be assigned to styles, it’s done in “Format-Styles” - then select the style - then “Modify” - then “Hotkey”. Sorry, my fault.
- Another potentially very helpful feature is “Multiple Selection” (Help file: “Editing Documents - Multiple Selection”); years ago, I encountered a Mac text processor which did that, but since I don’t own a Mac, I had thought I had to live without that feature forever, and here it is: Splendid!
- Not only there is the above-mentioned outlining function, but also there is an INCREDIBLE POWERFUL paragraph NUMBERING function. It’s rather complicated since it offers almost everything you never even thought of, and it’s a little bit hidden; help file: “Formatting Documents - Bulleted & Numbered Lists” (! Here, you could assume it’s the usual little lists functionality, oh no!) - then “Fundamentals”, etc., and especially, “Style-Controlled Lists” - as said, it’s incredible powerful, and it’s worthwile to extensively play around some 2 hours with it.
And there is a “trick” to it which is not obvious but something worthwile mentioning. As above, “Format - Style” - choose the style and “Modify”. Then, go to the “List” button of the “Edit Style” dialog which will appear, and there, default is “Level 1” - so you don’t see this splendid feature. But change the selection to “Level 2” or below, and then an additional checkbox is displayed: “Restart after higher level”.
Now this is set “on” by default, but the trick is to define another not-headings paragraph style as numbered here, let’s say in the way (1), (2), etc., let’s say on “level 6” or so, as “special numbered”, or the other round, if you do legal papers, “format” your “Normal” = regular paragraph style this way, and have another one, “NN” for “not numbered”, for regular text which is NOT to be numbered by paragraphs (add additional blocks of text to existing paragraphs (and which should not be numbered on their own, by separating them by shift-enter instead of enter) - again, the “Restart after higher level”, here, exceptionally (this will be your only style where you do this), must be UN-checked.
The result, if you also “format” 3 or 4 levels of headings correctly (and every which way you choose), will be texts that go as follows (and you can indent, etc. as you like):
I - Header 1
A - Header level 2
1 - Another one, level 3
(1) a text paragraph
(a) Header level 4
(...)
(24) text paragraph (and choose “level 5 (or further down for them! because this way, their text begin will appear within the outline!!!)
(25) another text paragraph
II - Another header level 1
A - Level 2, again
1 - And level 3 again
(26) another text paragraph
and so on
University students are not allowed to do this, they must cite “(as seen in I - A - (1) - (a) (3))”, but everybody else will simply refer as “(see (24))”, and I don’t have to tell (European) people in the legal professions (in the U.S., very strict other rules apply) how useful this “flow numbering” is - in Germany, they do whole books this style, with 1,600 such paragraphs, and then, even, an index referring to these, notwithstanding the proper “outline” of headers overlayed to this paragraph-instead-of-pages setup.
- So you see here that the foundations are very well there, this program has tremendous potential. And now for cross-referencing. I’ve found both the “Viewing Documents - Bookmark” and “Editing Documents - Hyperlinks” help file entries, but I don’t see how we could do a live cross-reference with them, either in the style of “(See I - A - (1) - (a) (3))” or in the style of “(see (24))”, let alone these references being then updated when we move paragraphs or whole sections, and updating is even necessary whenever we then add a new paragraph between the link target and the link pointer.
As I see it, Atlantis has everything that’s needed for legal documents, in a much smoother application than that monstruous MS Word, but almost any lawyer today uses MS Word, since there (s)he gets the necessary cross-referencing. I personally think Atlantis, spiced-up with that function, would make an entry in law offices (and many, many offices in large corporations) like thunder.
It’s the core functionality that will make explode Atlantis’ sales.
(I know that live tables (You can always insert tables as images, and yes, I’m very aware that’s not the same thing.) are quite important, but from a marketing pov, an application should build up on its real strengths, especially when such additional work there will open up a tremendously big market.)
Posted by Steve
Jan 21, 2014 at 03:41 PM
Atlantis is my “go to” word processor. It just works.
Your extended review did point out something I did not know - the multiple selection.
Steve
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 21, 2014 at 05:59 PM
Steve wrote:
>Your extended review did point out something I did not know - the
>multiple selection.
There’s a similar feature in Word (up to v.2010) called the Spike http://helpdeskgeek.com/office-tips/use-the-spike-to-copy-and-paste-text-in-word/
It’s not as flexible as Atlantis’. You can only use it to collect (cut) material from various locations and paste it altogether at one point.