AppleWorks 6 spins wheel

[goodear]

This is a follow-up to a problem with a very sluggish AppleWorks 6 on my Mac, G4, system 9.2.  The application (AppleWorks 6) is 23 megabites. When I open the application it takes about 20 seconds for the time wheel to stop spinning, during which time I can do nothing. When the app is running it slows down anything else I am doing on the computer. I trashed the prefs as well as increased the preferred memory from 13K to about 20K. Are there any other suggestions?

[dboh]

Do you really mean "20 K"? That's tiny. What are the preferred and minimum settings in "Get Info"? (All zeros included.)

[Gregg]

Sure. Since the above failed, you could trash the whole thing and start over. But first, make sure you have the installation disc(s) for AppleWorks. Your files will survive just fine, but you have to get the program back on your hard drive.

To be safe, collect all the AppleWorks stuff in one folder and save it to a removeable disc. That would include the AppleWorks folder in your Applications folder, the preferences, and possibly an extension or two. Just search for everything with "AppleWorks" in the name.

Give it some thought. Others may weigh in with advice you like better....

[Gary S]

Reinstall Appleworks from your disk.

Any documents you have should be put into separate folder before you install.

I had the smae problem once and that cleared it up.

[goodear]

Suggested and preferred: 13,562 K; minimum: 10,562

[goodear]

Before my system was upgraded to 9.2, it had ClarisWorks instead of AppleWorks. Now I do not have the installation disc(s) for AppleWorks. When I did a search on my hard drive, I found the following odd string:
AppleWorks 6 app (a diamond-shaped icon)  is found in Apps/Appleworks 6 folder/AppleWorks 6.app (a square-shaped icon)/contents/MacOS Classic/AppleWorks 6. When I looked inside the actual Applications folder, I found everything up to "AppleWorks 6.app (a square-shaped icon)." The remaining 2 items (MacOS Classic/AppleWorks 6) are simply not there. I wonder if this is part of the problem. And, how would I obtain the AppleWorks6 Installer on disc?

QUOTE(Gregg @ Jun 26 2007, 07:29 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure. Since the above failed, you could trash the whole thing and start over. But first, make sure you have the installation disc(s) for AppleWorks. Your files will survive just fine, but you have to get the program back on your hard drive.

To be safe, collect all the AppleWorks stuff in one folder and save it to a removeable disc. That would include the AppleWorks folder in your Applications folder, the preferences, and possibly an extension or two. Just search for everything with "AppleWorks" in the name.

Give it some thought. Others may weigh in with advice you like better....

[sandbox]

No doubt AW is a HEAVY program and starts slow even on OS10, but there are things you can do to speed it up.
Give it twice the memory that is recommended.
select NOTHING at startup in preferences
do not choose "Actual Font" in the general preference window.

Much of the time spent starting AW is loading the font menu, decrease the menu.

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE(post#1)

I trashed the prefs as well as increased the preferred memory from 13K to about 20K.

QUOTE(post#5)

Suggested and preferred: 13,562 K; minimum: 10,562

I suspect that in the original post you actually meant numbers closer to what you listed in the second quote. I don't think you can actually set a program's memory to only 20K, anyway. Or, you meant to say "13Mb to about 20Mb."

[goodear]

Sorry. By 13K I meant 13,000 K. I guess that means 13MB.

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jun 26 2007, 04:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE(post#1)

I trashed the prefs as well as increased the preferred memory from 13K to about 20K.

QUOTE(post#5)

Suggested and preferred: 13,562 K; minimum: 10,562

I suspect that in the original post you actually meant numbers closer to what you listed in the second quote. I don't think you can actually set a program's memory to only 20K, anyway. Or, you meant to say "13Mb to about 20Mb."

[Gregg]

Ok, getting back to your problem....

Do you know a student or an educator? Perhaps he/she can get AW6 for you at a good price.

Failing that, how do you feel about shopping on eBay? Personally, I don't eBay.

Perhaps you could even find it "cheap" on Amazon.com

Or, kelly will be along to give you a link.... maybe?

[goodear]

If I do not choose Actual Font in the general preference window, what will that look like, font-wise?

QUOTE(sandbox @ Jun 26 2007, 02:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No doubt AW is a HEAVY program and starts slow even on OS10, but there are things you can do to speed it up.
Give it twice the memory that is recommended.
select NOTHING at startup in preferences
do not choose "Actual Font" in the general preference window.

Much of the time spent starting AW is loading the font menu, decrease the menu.

[Xairbusdriver]

"Actual Font" simply means the menu items ( the font names ) will be seen in whatever font it is. Disabling "Actual Fonts" will still show the font names but in the normal, faster, System font ( Chicago, I think ). Showing the actual fonts requires a lot of cpu power every time you open the Fonts menu, or certainly the first time. It probably also uses a lot more memory to cache those few words in their respective font.

[sandbox]

QUOTE

If I do not choose Actual Font in the general preference window, what will that look like, font-wise?

actual font displays the font selection in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get presentation. BOLD is BOLD only when your LOOKING in the font menu, otherwise it has no use. 99% of the time you use your default font. If someday you want to look at a new font, just go into the preference, turn on Actual, look at all the fonts presented choose one, and turn it off. Next

This automated actualization of fonts takes time, memory and processor activity whenever you start up AW. Just turm it on when you need it, which may be once a month.

[krissel]

One thing that has plagued Appleworks is its inability to delete Recent items on its own. When it starts up it may have a very long list of aliases in that folder and it tries to find all the original files before the application loads completely. This can seriously slow down the opening of AW.

Go to the following folder and delete all it's contents. You will note that they are all aliases so you aren't deleting the actual files.

Users/you/Documents/Appleworks User Data/Starting Points/Recent Items

See if this helps.

I would also suggest going to Apple's site to download any updater you may not have for AW. Running the updater while booted in 9 will update the 9 version. Then boot to X and run it again and it will update the X version. There are actually two versions of AW and each will launch depending on what OS you are running. Note that while you are in 9 you may not see all the X parts as they aren't applicable to the 9 setup.

Sorry I can't get the link for you for the updater because my online service is giving me trouble and I can't get to the Apple site.

[Gregg]

Good point, krissel! I forgot about that.

While you are in ...User Data/Starting Points
make an alias of the Recent Items folder and move that alias to your Desktop.

Periodically, open that folder and delete its contents, or as much as you want to keep it down to a managable size.
If you've never deleted anything from this folder, I bet it's gonna be HUGE.

This may solve your problems with AW all by itself!

Let us know...

P.S. As I recall, there is no Updater which solves this "bug". We just have to live with it.