Yes, that is the kind of compatibility we should be aiming for. I am a second-generation Xywriter; I inherited the program from my father. He was a technical writer for hp, intel, and a host of others in Silicon Valley. I remember him mentioning Ventura and that Xy would export directly to Ventura. We should investigate the current apps and what formats they import, and then see whether Xy can be persuaded to export such formats, keeping the underlying engine tightly coded and, of course, the UI as is. I don’t see much point in investing anything in a Xy upgrade if it remains an island. I supported Ventura Publisher for my publishing clients. Ventura was originally written for the short-lived GEM OS. When the first DOS/Windows versions of VenturA came out, it still ran in a GEM environment which was brought up as a DOS application which, in turn, ran Ventura. I discovered that Ventura’s internal tagged formatting script could be easily generated from XyWrite or Word Perfect. The result could simply be ‘poured’ into Ventura and the final ‘PUB’ was nearly ready to go with very few additional tweaks necessary. I think that XyWrite’s current potential would be to do the same for new apps that use scripted input.
|