Re: Win95, Orbis

[Dorothy Day DAY@xxxxxxxx]

Nathan Sivin asks:

>Can you be more specific about the tagging problem in AskSam, and
>which versions have it? I have been using the program for about seven
>years, and have never had a corruption problem. I use tagging only
>for a single document in each file that summarizes its form, keywords,
>etc. You mention field structure, but people who want a free-form
>textbase may not want one. I use some databases with structure and
>some without. In general, I use AS for information that I consult
>onscreen, and PC-FILE for data that is highly structured and that I
>will want to print out in flexibily formatted reports. AS can
>actually be used for both.

I think my experience was with version 3.0, which seemed very
vulnerable to violations of field length or data type if you set
up a structured database. It was enough to make me extremely
cautious when I worked on a very loosely structured textbase. I
was able to convert back & forth between NB Ibid+ and AS, and
usually found a glitch or two in my tagging in AS, but it never
really wrecked the project. I did have to restart from a backup
copy once or twice, though.

I suppose Ibid+ spoiled me, as it gives plenty of rein for
free-form text and the advantages of well-behaved tagged data in
fields, and still easily editable Ascii data files. And when
Orbis incorporated Ibid's dynamic updating and improved display
of searched terms within retrieved hits, I went back to using it
for all sorts of thing, whenever it seemed a useful tool to try
for a task. I had previously used NB's TextBase only for
projects that used files I was unlikely to change (necessitating
a full reindexing), but Orbis removed that hobble. I do hope TTG
and NB get that stable for XY!

I know many AS users rave about it, so I'm not about to knock it.
But given a working Ibid and Orbis, I would use AS only on
collaborative projects already begun on it, not by my own choice.

Dorothy Day, Indiana University SLIS day@xxxxxxxx