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