** PD/Shareware review / 747 words **

Luna v1.2

Is it a shooting star, heavenly body or terrestrial text editor? Joe Connor, our man who fell to earth, tracks its orbit...

** On RD/CD logo here **

** LUNA12.GIF here **
** LUNALOGO.GIF hereabouts **

Luna, programmed by Richard Gordon Faika, is an ASCII editor and before you start yawning at the back Luna offers features not offered by Everest, qed or any other Atari text editor. Impressive when you consider Luna has only been under development for a few months!

When I started this review I wasn't convinced the Atari platform needed another text editor, especially not one programmed using GFA BASIC. However I have had to change my mind to make room for Luna which is an excellent example of what can be achieved using modern Atari BASIC languages and development tools.

Luna does everything you'd expect an ASCII text editor to do, it's ideal for editing configuration files, writing source files or for use as an email client. Aside from its great looks it's the clever stuff only Luna can do which makes it stand out against the competition.

Clever stuff

Luna's block handling features are unsurpassed offering three different block selection modes which can even be mixed and matched as desired:
** UL **
* Column blocks: Ideal for working with tables and lists. Columns can be cut and pasted as columns - even over existing text.
* Group blocks: Global cut, copy and paste operations can be performed on multiple selected blocks of text - including Column blocks. Each individual block can also be separately processed as an Object block if the Object blocks option is ticked in the Options menu.
* Object blocks: Individual blocks can be processed. In addition to the commonplace cut, copy, paste operations object blocks can also be filtered using a selection of Modules.
Luna includes modules to convert blocks to all capitals or all lower case letters or capitalise the first letter of every word. Programmers can add their own external modules using the plug-in interface provided.
Furthermore mathematical operations can be performed on object blocks. This means columns of numbers can be added up, the average calculated and much more.
** /UL **

** LUNA_OBJ.GIF here **
** Caption **
A right mouse click inside an object block displays the object popup which includes options to filter and perform mathematical functions
** /caption **

A marked block can be Drag and Dropped onto other Drag and Drop aware applications and vice versa. For example, mark a block in a Luna window and drag it onto the jinnee desktop background and it transforms into a desktop notelet.

Proportional and monospaced fonts are supported and text scrolling and block marking operations, although not as fast as Everest, are smooth and perfectly usable.

Although we've all got used to working with black text on a white background it's a combination known to be tiring on the eyes. On colour systems the text and background colours can be selected from the sixteen standard system colours which is great but it would be even nicer to be able to select any colour from the available system palette.

Luna supports qed/Everest/Edith style Kurzel files and includes its own script function which can be used to automate tasks. It makes sense to offer compatible Kurzel files but it seems to me GEMScript support would have been more useful than another proprietary script format.

A German ST-Guide format hypertext is included but currently there's no English documentation. However, RSC files for various languages are available, including English, so it's easy enough to get up and running.

Luna does occupy more memory than either Everest and qed but if you're making use of features only available in Luna that won't be a concern. I did experience a few minor problems which is hardly surprising given the rapid pace of Luna development - no doubt these bugs will have been squashed by the time you're reading this.

There's currently no word wrap feature (which as an Everest user I find indispensable) but Richard intends to implement this in a future release depending on registration levels.

The unregistered version is fully functional but restricted to displaying a single document so if you find Luna useful and you'd like Luna development to continue, do register your copy.

** Info boxout **
Luna v1.2

Author:
Richard Gordon Faika

Status:
Shareware, registration costs DM20 (around œ7.50)

Requires:
Any Atari system

Contact
Email: rgfaika@atari-computer.de
http://www.atari-computer.de/rgfaika/
RGF software, Richard Sorge Str. 24, 10249 Berlin, Germany

Rating:
90%
** /info boxout **

** Images **
** LUNAMENU.GIF please use this! **
** LUNA_POP.GIF **