Let's not forget Draw!
At the moment, I float pretty freely between MS Office and AW (on both the Mac and PC sitting right next to each other at work), so I'd like to think of myself as being fairly objective (if you ignore the Apple sticker on my bumper).
AW is generally the first tool that I grab. It's been an "app"endage to my body since CW2. It's simple to use. It's super reliable (well, except for some strange Windows issues in v4 and v5.) It just works. And it allows me to focus on the task at hand - not the application.
That said, I grab Word or Excel when the document I'm creating needs a feature not yet available in AW. For example - the ability to fill shapes with pictures by tiling or stretching (can someone tell me how on earth this feature has eluded Apple for so long?).
To not repeat things already said, I hope any new versions of AW keep in mind the following:
a) The "DRAW" component is the most natural environment for taking advantage of AW's "frames" genetic makeup (which needs to be kept, btw). MSWord will never replace AW to me. Despite its more advanced graphics, it's still a word processor that lets you clumsily dump things on top of it. Give AW's "Draw" opacity control, picture fills, and the ability to recognize non-rectangular pictures, and formatting rulers for text boxes, and noone will ever try to make a sign or a brochure in Word again.
b) Bring back Macros. When I bought AW 5 (since CW4 and Win98 weren't getting along), macros were gone. I called Apple to find out where they were (they were listed as a feature on Apple's web site), and I was told AW for Windows didn't have macros because macros were now Applescript based (and Windows didn't have Applescript). That's not a way to make a multi-platform application. I don't care if it's Applescript behind the scenes, but a Macro should be the same up front for everyone.
So, I guess what I want is:
1. Word processor that maintains AW's stability and reliability. If I delete the last letter of a word, I don't want that word's font and style changing on me (I can't believe MS can't fix that).
2. Draw - Start with what's there, as far as ease of frames and merging data, but add:
a) All the good stuff from Keynote - opacity, recognition of non-rectangular pics, snappy alignment, etc.
b) For multi-page draw documents, have an option for each page to have its own origin (rather than starting at ten and a fraction inches).
3. FileMaker Lite - a two-dim database as easy to use as the current that can merge data into all the other components.
4. Spreadsheet - just copy Excel.
5. Keynote - just add timer controls.
Make it fully cross-platform. And, for crying out loud, bring back the old tool bar. I don't need a huge colorful tool bar that prevents me from moving my window around. Put it back where it belongs and keep it simple and out of the way.
All this - and I will be one happy camper.
