** PD/Shareware review / 400 words **
A-to-Z
75%
Freeware, all Ataris
Utility
** On Reader Disk logo here **

** ATOZSORT.GIF here **

In the AC#6 Suggestive Remarks column I asked if someone could come up with an A to Z sorter for text files and the like, so I'm delighted to report the Matthias Jaap, the Home Page Penguin author has produced something eminently suitable!

A-to-Z is a neat looking utility that allows you to alphabetically sort any file on a line-by-line basis either from A to Z or back the other way. Using the program is simplicity itself, just select a suitable file, and then press the ACTION button! The sort is extremely fast, so no hanging around even on long lists.

The program works best if you give it text suitable for sorting on such a line-by-line basis. If you want it to sort a list of names, then when preparing the text, put the surname as the first word on each line if this is what you want. The program will automatically sort alphabetically word-by-word along a line of text, so that means people with the same surname but with different forenames will be sorted properly down the list.

Obviously you can give A-to-Z any file to sort, but the results could be next to useless unless a bit of thought is given to what you want the end result to be!

There's an option to make backup files, so that you don't have to make potential nonsense of something valuable you have written!

A-to-Z comes with BubbleGEM help, a ST-Guide Help system is in place and the Olga protocol is supported if running in a multi-tasking environment.

One nice little touch that Matthias has built-in is sound support. If GEMJing, the sample player, is running either as a multi-tasking application, or as an accessory, then certain button clicks will result in some amusing sound effects - try it!

One minor irritation I have found with the program (and all other the other applications Matthias has programmed) is there's a bug somewhere which clashes with MagiC causing the program to fail to run intermittently. Running the program on its own is reliable though.

This little utility is one of those programs just begging to be used and it has already rented a slot on my desktop.

** Italics on **
Mike Kerslake
** Italics off **