The Grolier Electronic Encylopedia Review: ------------------------------------------ For Amiga-CD/CDTV/CD32 Machines By Guy Nathan Most of you would have probably heard of Microsoft's (tm) Encarta by now. For those of you who have seen it, you might have been stunned by the programs use of topic links, speech, graphics, and ofcourse video captions. For quite some time now there has been nothing which has come near on the Amiga, but a solution which will supply you with an encylopedia with extensive topic/word links, speech, and graphics is finally here. For those of you who remember the efforts of Commodore's (tm) encylopedia which was released around the time the CDTV was, it was innovative for it's time, but in all honestly was nothing really impressive what-so-ever by todays standards. The encylopedia was called the 'Hutchingsons Encylopedia' (tm). Since that release the competition has caught up and overtaken and the amiga has seen no new encylopedias for years. Well I do have a partial solution for you, which as I mentioned above will provide you with extensive topic/word links, speech (both speech and sound samples), and graphics in an Amiga program. The following will provide you with an analysis of this program which I have now been using for some months. Requirements: Amiga CD-ROM Drive, Amiga CD-32, or A570. Software Use: Installation is not needed. You can either boot off it (on ANY Amiga which also includes CD32), or double click on it's icon via workbench. Once it has loaded, you will be presented with a screen with several options. From this screen you can do many different things, this is the main control panel for the program. The control panel is made up of the following when started: -------------- --------------- ------------------- | TOPIC TREE | | FACT FINDER | | PICTURE BROWSER | -------------- --------------- ------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- | ? | OPTIONS | DEMO | ||| | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- (A rough idea. I'm no artist ;-)). * Clicking on '?' on any screen will provide you with a demonstration of what all the options on that page do. This is usually also accompanied by speech samples speaking to you what each option which is highlighted does. This applies for ANY screen (except picture screens). * Clicking on 'OPTIONS' will take you to a new screen. Here you can choose between large and small text for the encylopedia to be displayed in (ie. just like changing typeface point sizes), and also setup the programs Printer Setup options. The printer setup options screen allows you to choose printer pitch, print spacing, print quality, paper type, paper length, margins, whether you have a serial or parallel port printer, and the ability to choose your own printers, print driver (it uses Commodore's printer drivers if they are installed on the CD booted from). * Clicking on 'DEMO' will give you a guided tour of the three main options TOPIC TREE, FACT FINDER, and PICTURE BROWSER and what they do. This runs for about 5 minutes, with highlightings and constant top quality speech. Now, for a breakup of each of the programs main functions. TOPIC TREE: When clicking on this option a new screen is presented, with the ability to choose one of the following topics: * Geography * History * Science * Society * Technology * The Arts Two new options also appear in the bottum icon bar. They are: 'GO BACK' and 'TOP MENU' (each of these will appear in all screens you see throughout the program - for CD32 owners they also have appropriate buttons to use the CD32 Joypad). 'GO BACK', goes back to the last option, while 'TOP MENU' takes you back to the main menu. Clicking on other options will open up a new screen of the related subjects to the button clicked on. Clicking on one of these related topics will bring up a list of the articles under that subject, to view these documents simply click on the name of it. On the right side of the screen is a scroll bar to scroll through the list of related topics, and next to that are a series of buttons which will take you to specified points within the list. eg. {- } - Takes to first part of list/document {-- } {--- } - Takes to further part of list/document {---- } {----- } {------ } ....etc.... {-----------} - Takes to end page of list/document A list of the number of related articles is also displayed at the top of the screen. Clicking on a topic within this list will bring up you the related article (and also possibly a picture). Hopefully, if your still reading it at this point, and haven't found it all very daunting, you'll be happy to know yet more options exist on a new screen. If this doesn't comfort you, then don't worry as I assure you this @{b}really@{ub} is simple to use, no matter how complex the explanation may seem. Once you have clicked on the article you wish to see you have many new options: * Article search Backwards / Forwards icons - this goes to the next or previous article on the related topic * 'PRINT OR SAVE' icon - prints the file to your setup printer or saves the file to a text file * 'OUTLINE' icon (not always) - brings up a screen allowing you to get to certain headings in a document * Camera icon (only present if a picture exists) - brings up a list of related pictures - choose one to view a picture on a new screen, with some additional pop-up text (and sometimes sound samples) (other related items to the picture can also be cross-referenced from this picture) * And most importantly the ability to click on any word in the document which will bring up a list of related topics to that word FACT FINDER: Choosing this option will bring up a new screen in which you can enter with either a keyboard or via the pointer, using an on-screen keyboard the word in which you wish to search for throughout any document in the COMPLETE encylopedia. You have a choice of either a 'WORD SEARCH' which searches for the word throughout any document, or 'TITLE SEARCH' which only compares the search name with article title names. The 'CLEAR' button clears the current search word(s). The search facility also allows the use of '*' '&' filters when searching. This now operates like the previous topic function except now while browsing through the document: a. The keywords are highlighted at the points in the document, and b. The Hotword Forward/Backward icon can be used to find the next hotword/keyword in that document or another document! PICTURE BROWSER: This option, unlike the topic one doesn't provide you with a list of available texts but related topics which contain graphic or sound data, or both. This works very much like the topic tree when searching for a specific item, or something on a general topic. Once you have choosen your topic from the extensive list, you will be provided with a new list of available pictures to view, and pictures which also have audio will have '(with audio)' listed next to it. All pictures have related documents to which they can be cross-referenced. Manual: A manual is included with the CD inside it's sturdy casing. It explains what all the keys on the Amiga keyboard will do when using the program, what buttons do on the Amiga CD32 joypad, and the CDTV pad. Extensive use of these pads have been well utilized. Opinion: Well, I found the program to be great for general purpose messing around with Encylopedias, and has given me a chance to explore what PC owners have had for quite some time now. All three sections were great to use, and very simple. The word searching and word linking abilities make it as powerful (maybe more) than it's PC counterparts, this is definately a good move on the authors side. While there is an extensive number of pictures on the disk, I would certainly like to see quite a lot more. And on the same point, the program is let down by the lack of sound samples included, but the ones which have been included are generally of the best possible quality (this was also true for the pictures), which is a great aspect. One aspect which I thought it missed was a total lack of ANY animation. The Amiga has GREAT animation capabilities, and this was left out, this is one aspect Encarta has which helps sell, common guys, where is it? The font used should have been a clearer one, but is fine for most reading purposes, but becomes a straign for extended periods. The facts I found, which is a rather big flaw, for a person whos after the latest facts, wont be able to find them, and the likes of looking up the word Amiga is non-existant, with facts dating mostly upto 1983! The word Commodore does exist once in this whole encylopedia, what is this! (This may be due to the date of the facts in the actual encylopedia it is taken from ;-)). The manual included is perfectly sufficient for the job it needs to do. Well set out, easy to read, nothing more needs to be said! :-) Suggestions are as follows: add more pictures, more sounds, add animation, and update the information! Conclusion: All gripes aside, this product is definately a worthy purchase. If nothing else, its a tool to show off to PC users that you have something like Encarta on your Amiga! Graphics and sound included are great, the actual program itself is great, and the text searching/linking is powerful. I couldn't ask for much more! As I generally don't use it for 'newer' stuff it forfills my needs almost one hundred percent. Judge it as you may, but to date this is the best offering we have on the Amiga, and hopefully with ESCOM's purchase of the Amiga a newer, better, and more up to date version of this CD will come out. But to quote some famous words 'cease the day' and buy it while theyre still willing to produce it. Produced By: Xiphas Price: US-$45 (I think, but cant remember) On Sale: Any good Amiga dealer will probably have it All copyrights go to all the appropriate people. Encarta is copyright of Microsoft The Encylopedia's name is copyright of Grolier Electronic Publishing,Inc. Amiga is copyright of Amiga /// Technologies. ;-)