CONTEST

[Tim Baehr/Inso Tim_Baehr@xxxxxxxx]

Here is a little contest for you. Send (to this list or to me
privately at tbaehr@xxxxxxxx):

1. a description of how you use XyWrite

-or-

2. a description of your favorite macro or XPL program

You do not need to send the actual macro.

Be as specific as possible. Your macro description, especially,
should paint a vivid picture: What does it do? How does it trap
errors? What is its user interface?

Rules, etc.:
1. All entries remain *your* property.
2. Your macro must be written by you, not by a hired hand or
consultant. You may be asked to provide a copy of the actual macro.
3. One entry per person in each category (i.e., you can submit a
total of 2 entries).
4. Deadline is October 31, at midnight. I'll accept whatever
time is in the time-stamp of your message.
5. Winner(s) will be announced November 30 (more or less -- I do
have a day job and a family).
6. Prizes will be awarded for the most intriguing and/or original
(1) use of XyWrite and (2) macro. Elaborateness and sheer
length are not necessarily advantages. Don't bother to send
info about macros that require the user to set up certain
conditions or take certain precautions, like making sure a
window is available.
7. I am the one, only, and final judge. However, after the
contest is over, members of the list may conduct their own vote.
 If there is anything even vaguely close to a consensus, I'll
award a second round of prizes. That decision, based on your
vote, will be final, and the contest will be officially closed.
8. You can ask questions about the contest, or the rules, but I
may not necesarily answer them. You should consider yourselves
to be on your own.  This is supposed to be fun -- I'm not
offering a Lexus or anything like that as a prize!

The prize:
A customized menu, dialog, and command file system for XY4DOS,
including:
- Dedicated dialog box to re-open previously opened files during the current session
- Enhancements to Log/Restore
- Expanded clipboard capabilities (peek at contents, create file from contents, etc.)
- Enhancements to Open dialog, including creating an untitled copy, quick-view of the contents,
etc.
- Extension of auto-uppercase to do titles without capping certain "noise" words like 'a'
and 'the'
- Go-to-line capability (lines = paragraphs; useful in programming, etc.)
- Formatting of special effects, including inter-letter spacing
(pseudo-kerning), conversion of typwriter quotes to curly quotes,
auto drop and stickup caps (any size, any typeface), and other
goodies
- Autonumber and autobullet of paragraphs, picking up point size of preceding type
- Character count, copy-fitting, string count
- Device for building fractions
- Enhanced outline formatting (taking spacing from existing type size, inserting by numbered level,
etc.)
- Stop codes lister and manager
- More entry fields for mail merge
- Data-gathering module with ability to search and extract text
from a file and put it in a stand-alone file. Elaborate
capability but menu-driven and easy to use.
- Command-line improvements: copy, delete, rename using
wildcards; ZIP and UNZIP from the commmand line, set system
clock, change from read-only to read-write, and lots more.

The main point of this exercise is to share with each other and
have fun.  XyWrite is unique, I think, in having provided the
flexibility for users to take it beyond its original design.
Thanks to the macro language Dave Erickson devised, we can fool
XyWrite into doing all sorts of wonderful (and perhaps sometimes
silly) things. (I remember bringing Dave a macro or menu
enhancement on a couple of occasions and having him say "Why
would you want to do that?")