Aldus ChartMaker may not print, but that doesn't make it an applet. Jason Stephenson <jjstep00@ukcc.uky.edu> wrote in response to the TidBITS-230 mention of ChartMaker: "How can anyone call a program that requires 8 MB of hard disk space and wants 4 MB of RAM an 'applet?' Everyone complains about Word's disk requirements but it is less bloated than this thing from Aldus. ChartMaker may provide plenty of functionality in making charts but is not what I consider an applet."

I had assumed that the full 8 MB disk requirement included a small application and various extras (online help, templates, fonts, clip art, and so on). Word requires more hard disk space to install than it actually takes up, and I had assumed that ChartMaker installs similarly. I called Aldus to find out if ChartMaker consumes 8 MB of disk space for the typical user, and found that if you tweak it a bit you can knock it down to 5 MB. I also found that unless you have an installation problem, you must pay $2 per minute for ChartMaker support. Ouch. Overall, I'm not impressed. If we are going to have small, integrated applications, they'd better start out smaller than ChartMaker, and such a goal isn't unrealistic. [TJE]