WordSmith Parts I-IV

As you can probably already tell, WordSmith is a large, complex program with a lot of functionality. I decided it made sense to split this review into sections. Next week I will talk about the Memo functionality in detail. Then I'll look at WordSmith as a Doc reader and then finally I will look at the Microsoft Word integration.

Part II: Memos

When you launch WordSmith it is in memo mode by default. Wordsmith launched noticeably slower than MemoPad with my 1.1MB MemoDB. The first time, I almost thought my Palm had crashed.

The memo mode looks very much like MemoPad in that it consists mostly of a list of the memos in the database. There is a standard category selection box in the upper right and a New button on the lower left. There are two tabs at the top left - Memo and Doc. These tabs let you toggle between the two modes. There is also a filter box at the bottom that lets you jump to a specific memo by typing the first letter or two of its title. The amount of free space on the device is listed next to the filter box.

The filtering is very slow (again with my very large MemoDB). I found myself thinking that WordSmith didn't respond to my grafitti strokes. I found the filtering almost useless because of this lag time. I would also have liked to have been able to remove all of the filter at once. When I tried to remove a filter, I had to wait for WordSmith to re-sort after removing each letter. It truly was painful.

Rather than this filtering, I would have greatly preferred a search, even one only of titles. It would have eliminated the lag, and left one (probably) longer wait. It also has the additional benefit of finding a memo even if I only know a word somewhere in the middle.

To move to a specific memo, select it from the list. Alternately you can tap on the number and select Edit (you can also beam, delete, duplicate, or change the category from this menu - very nice). You can also start a new memo by tapping the New button. Here the resemblance to MemoPad goes completely out the window.

The Edit Memo screen is essentially a large box (for the text) with a toolbar at the bottom. There are no lines and (as far as I can tell) no

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