** PD/Shareware review / 291 words **

BubbleGEM Release 07e * ON READER DISK * 96%

** BC **
Utility
Freeware, all Ataris
Author: Thomas Much
Email: Thomas.Much@stud.uni-karlsruhe.de
http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/~Thomas.Much/nbp.html
http://hoffart.home.pages.de/
** /BC **

** BUBBLES.GIF here **
** BUBGEM.GIF here **

BubbleGEM adds cute speech bubbles to supporting applications which make their user interface easier for newcomers to find their way around. BubbleGEM offers Atarians functionality similar to utilities provided with Windows 95 and the Mac OS.

In order to display bubbles BubbleGEM must run in parallel (be memory resident) to the application calling the bubbles. Under a multitasking OS most people run BubbleGEM from their auto-starting apps folder which means it is always available. Single-TOS users can rename BUBBLE.APP to BUBBLE.ACC and run it as a desktop accessory.

We included BubbleGEM Release 02e on the AC#5 Reader Disk but since then there have been five German releases. This is the first updated English release and BubbleGEM has come a long way, here's a rundown of the major changes:

** UL **
* Release 03: Supported for other fonts and ability to copy the bubble contents to the Clipboard.
* Release 04: Support for proportional fonts.
* Release 05: CPX first introduced. Auto time-delayed bubble display using an external Help Daemon utility added. Windows style rectangular bubble option introduced.
* Release 06: Support for non-MagiC systems added. External Help Daemon integrated into BubbleGEM.
** /UL **

The ST-Guide format hypertext includes full programming documentation which makes it relatively straightforward for programmers to add BubbleGEM support.
Now BubbleGEM supports all Atari systems and only occupies 20Kb of memory it's bound to attract wider support.
If you use any application which includes BubbleGEM help you might as well make BubbleGEM part of your default set-up - you can take that as a recommendation if you like!

** italics **
Joe Connor
** /italics **