DataViz’s MacLinkPlus Deluxe 15: Beyond pathetic

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Macintosh
November 3rd, 2004 • 12:14 am

Last year, I wrote a review of MacLinkPlus Deluxe 14 for Applelust.com. In this review, I lamented the fact that the application still didn’t support long file names (i.e. file names longer than 31 characters) properly, and that the new, revamped interface was both rather non-intuitive and esthetically challenged.

I also know for a fact that the DataViz staff saw my review and is aware of the problems. In fact, at the time the developer even claimed that the esthetic problem with character anti-aliasing was something that had unfortunately “slipped through” and was an oversight on his part.

Well, it’s been over a year since then, and DataViz has since released a new version of the application, numbered 15.0.

It is therefore hugely disappointing to find that DataViz didn’t do anything about these issues. MacLinkPlus Deluxe 15 still names translated files with truncated file names, and the ugly white smears around the anti-aliased characters in the file name list when a file name is highlighted are still there!

As far as I can tell, the only change in the application is the addition of the “Send to iPod” feature, whose usefulness is highly debatable.

This is not just disappointing, it’s unacceptable.

I know that DataViz probably doesn’t make a lot of money with MacLinkPlus Deluxe sales and that the bulk of their income probably comes from the file translators that they license to various third-parties. But still! This attitude demonstrates a total lack of respect for Mac OS X users.


2 Responses to “DataViz’s MacLinkPlus Deluxe 15: Beyond pathetic”

  1. Pierre Igot says:

    The problem is that we don’t exactly have a choice. What else can we use to convert WordPerfect for WIndows files into RTF or MS Word files?

  2. Nate Friedman says:

    i’ve given up on DataViz… they seem to be in the upgrade game for the sake of having a bigger number each year, rather than new features. i present a 2nd application that is following the pattern outlined above: Documents ToGo. i have version 3 and i fell for the upgrade to version 4 (and got a 2nd copy of 4 with my Clié) with very little difference… and i still get spam urging me to get documents to go version 5! 6! 7! and when i look at whats new.. i see more of the same… again. pathetic.

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