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MacList: a Sleek Greyhound of a DA



Author: Stephen J. Kayner
Date: March, 1993
Keywords: software program utility review
Text: MacList 1.5.4 from JAM Software MacList is a simple desk accessory that uses a row and column format to make lists readily available from the Apple menu. If you use one of the behemoth spreadsheet programs to keep lists of information that you'd like to be able to access quickly, you know what a pain it can be to wait for the spreadsheet application to open. There have been times that I decided not to use one of my lists, just because it takes so long to open. Then there are memory considerations. Suppose you want to call up a small spreadsheet with a list of names and phone numbers. You are actively using three applications, and don't want to close any of them down, but there is only 384K of memory left. Your spreadsheet needs 2MB. What will you do? Consider MacList. It runs in 20K, and pops up like those skinny little applications of days gone by, a sleek greyhound of a desk accessory. MacList can format columns as text or numbers, and can total numeric values by columns, and blocks of rows or columns. It can import or export data as tab separated text. It can search in specific or global fashion. It can sort up to three levels deep, in ascending or descending order. It can display various type styles, and data alignments. Heck, if you've got an external modem (it couldn't find my internal modem), MacList can even dial your phone for you! The MacList package consists of a small three ring binder with a 50 page manual, and one 800K diskette. Included on the diskette are several demos of other JAM Software products, and the Simon Control Panel device. Simon is used to set time, date, and unit (Imperial or metric) formats for use by other programs. MacList consumes only about 80K of disk space, and can easily be hidden behind a box of dental floss in your medicine cabinet. I imported a 12K spreadsheet that had been saved as tab-separated text. It had a good mix of data, including text and numeric columns, and fields with up to 50 characters. It was in a matrix of 225 rows by 8 columns, and took about ten seconds to bring into MacList. In the MacList format, was 14K in size, and MacList was still using only 20K of system memory. Certainly, there is a limit on how much data you can access using a desk accessory of this size. At some point, you defeat the purpose of a greyhound, by asking it to chase elephants. And when you get to that point, perhaps its time to get out the elephant guns, and fire up that old '59 Buick station wagon of a spreadsheet. I know there are a lot of list keepers out there, because I have lists of you. I'm only telling you about MacList so you can speed up your listing activities. You know who you are... MacList is available for $30.00 from: JAM Software P.O. Box 4036 Meriden, CT 06450 (203)630-0055

Copyright © march, 1993 by Stephen J. Kayner


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