A BYTE SHORT TAKE: Twindows
 
A Lotus-Compatible Spreadsheet for Windows
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Imagine Lotus 1-2-3 with pull-down menus, dialog boxes and
overlapping windows; what you're seeing is Twindows, a
Lotus-compatible spreadsheet for Microsoft Windows from Mosaic
Marketing.
 
After working with a beta version, I found that Twindows is as
true a Lotus clone as Mosaic's DOS spreadsheet, Twin. It
successfully mimics all the functionality of 1-2-3 release
2.01. What makes Twindows special is not so much its Lotus
compatibility, but rather its innovative cross between the
familiar Lotus feel and the Windows graphical interface.
 
The goal, according to a Twindows developer, was to make Lotus
users feel right at home. The screen looks so much like Lotus
that it's hard to tell Twindows isn't just a text application
running in a window.  Once I started working working with it,
however, all the advantages afforded by the Windows interface
became apparent.
 
The interface is clean: The menu bar, scroll bars, and Windows
border icons are the only active graphical interface elements
on the opening display. Nearly all of the functions use dialog
boxes to verify an operation or prompt for more data.
Inveterate Lotus users might be a little rattled by the extra
keystrokes (or mouse-button presses) and time spent waiting for
a redraw after some pop-up or pull-down. Those who prefer
graphical interfaces, however, will find that the benefits far
outweigh these minor inconveniences.
 
In building in support for the graphics, Mosaic didn't neglect
keyboard users. A dedicated line on the display shows the
current function-key mappings, and the menu bar is mapped to
the "/" key, the same character used to activate the function
menu in Lotus. The F1 key brings up a window of context-sensitive
help, and you can select topics by clicking on menu items with
the mouse.
 
An added feature in Twindows is the page-preview mode, which
lets you expand the default 80-column by 25-row view to 132
columns by 43 rows (with an EGA or better). The font is tiny
and the entire page takes several seconds to repaint, but it's
still useful. The transport of data to and from other
applications is covered through both the clipboard and an
@DDE function call. The program also lets you assign colors to
cells, based on their content.
 
At 600K, Twindows is not a small program. Without expanded
memory, the largest spreadsheet I could load was about 170K.
Mosaic promises that the final release will include support for
expanded memory but Mosaic warns that it will work with only
hardware-level EMS.
 
It seems logical that a Windows spreadsheet be capable of
producing knockout graphs. Unfortunately, this is the one area
where Twindows really misses the mark. You can create up to
eight graph types with selectable type styles and fonts. The
interface for creating the graphs is simple and versatile, but
the graphs themselves are unimpressive. Users requiring
presentation-quality graphs will have to resort to other means.
 
Twindows is what Mosaic promises it to be: A Lotus clone for
Windows. New users will find that the point-and-click interface
and thorough manual will help them come up to speed quickly,
while Lotus users will have to choose between a fast interface
and an attractive one. Twindows isn't Excel, but those who
require tight Lotus compatibility will happily trade away the
bells and whistles.
 
 
The Facts:
Twindows, $349
 
Requirements: IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2 or compatible with 640K
bytes of RAM, DOS 3.0 or higher, Microsoft Windows 2.03 or
higher, hard disk with 1.5 megabytes of free RAM (not including
the space for Windows).
 
MOSAIC Marketing, Inc.
1972 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02140
(617) 491-2434
 
 
                              --- Tom Yager
 
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