Re: We should [NOT] move en masse to Nota Bene (sorry Anne!)

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Bill,

Thanks for this. I take it that XP mode requires using Virtual PC and is
doing the same thing that I am doing in Parallels Workstation, except that
Workstation perhaps has more overhead and confusion (I decided to use it
because I know the interface already from using Parallels Desktop on the
Mac, and have an XP virtual machine on that with Xy-Tame already working fine.)


I now wonder if VPC is better. I guess I'll just have to try it. Someone
else recommend a third way, using VM Player (I seem to recall). Do you, or
anyone know if all this means there are at least 4 solutions:


1. XP Mode, using VPC
2. Parallels Workstation
3. VM Player
4. DOSBox

Trying to bring order into the chaos.

--Harry

It seems to me, since Win 8 (-64) is already here, and since it seems to
have been designed with virtualization in mind, that we ought to be trying
out strategies for getting XyWrite to work on that. It is beginning to
look like DOS support will never go away. I haven't tried Win8 yet but I
am will have to in the next couple of months. For what it's worth, though
I seem to have found XyWrite in XP Mode the merest trifle sluggish on a
2009 i-5, it seems acceptable on a 2011 i-7. One thing I like is that XP
mode doesn't seem to take up much memory, as programs nowadays go.
Obviously, I would prefer a much simpler environment, but this is so easy
to deal with, it doesn't bother me. Regarding something someone said about
two different C: drives, on my default XP Mode setup, the XP "c" drive is
a network drive, so I just assign it another letter, such as G. End of
confusion. I must admit that I have spent almost no time at all getting
this to work. The benefits of the stable Xy4 code base seem to me to
outweigh any possible disadvantages. And it's still faster to do common
operations than with Word. That said, I have found Word 2010 to be
surprisingly good, and hope that Word 2013 doesn't lose any of the
improved code. That's what's so great about Xy4. You know exactly where
you are. Nothing can get better, but far more important, nothing can get
worse. In this dreadfully unstable world, that must count for something.


At 21/12/2012 22:10, you wrote:
I am sticking with Xy IV in DosBox or Boxer on a Mac. I only need to
bring things into Word when I'm ready to e-mail the final document. Word
on the Mac imports Xy files easily as long as I specify that a conversion
from MS-DOS text though I do have to do a search and replace in Word for
certain foreign characters. Two windows in Xy are all I need. If NB came
out in Mac compatible version and I could figure out how to use my Xy
keyboard file and extensive, homemade macros (on which I rely heavily),
I'd certainly try it. I am done with window machines, though I'm still
loving my old Thinkpad running XP.


Lisa Kleinholz


From: Paul Breeze 
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2012 12:53 PM
Subject: Re: We should move en masse to Nota Bene

Jon

I suppose as Carl suggested recently, we all have to make our own pact
with the devil. XY4 is wonderful if you can live and work within it
completely but if you have to deal with an outside world that wants work
delivered in MS Word format and loves the internet, then life becomes
much more complicated.


I agree that XY4 is extremely elegant and economical but I believe NB10
has the potential to become a simple, elegant solution too. I have
already shifted to NB9 for virtually all my work and will probably adopt
NB10 from now on.


It is going to be a struggle to maintain XY4 if one is going to move to
new platforms. Personally I still use XP and see no urgent need to
change but others obviously have good reasons for upgrading (at least I
hope they do).


There is, of course, a certain satisfaction in the perversity of
maintaining XY4, against all odds; I've tried various virtual solutions
such as MS Virtual PC2007 and VWWare player to see what they have to
offer. The former is certainly workable though I found things (though I
cannot offhand remember exactly what) that turned me against it. VMWare
player 5 provide a beautiful solution for running say Windows 98 or
Windows 2000, both of which can be used to run XY very nicely but file
sharing has to be managed via network tools which is cumbersome. DOS on
either of them is much less satisfactory, too.


It is a lot of work, but maybe it can be done. On the other hand NB will
also be a lot of work, but maybe at the end it too will provide a
solution. It costs money, I think it is $99 for NB10 if you buy it at
this beta stage, but all those $99 go towards paying the couple of
programmers who are valiantly trying to bring XY4 into the twenty-first
century.


Ah well.

Paul

On 21/12/2012 07:35, Jon P wrote:
> Let's cut to the chase.
>
> I want to use XY4. I don't want to spend $$ for Notabene, particularly
if it still needs to be tweaked.

>
> My XY4 works in DOSBox, but limited to two windows and import from www
to XY without export from XY to www.

>
>
> I suspect that with some help XY4 would work in Microsoft Virtual PC
2007. XY is an incredibly elegant and economical program and the U2
additions make it phenomenal, eternal thanks to Carl and Robert, and
TAMEDos has been helpful in the past.

>
> The "upgrade" to Win 7 is via DOSbox and it works if you can handle
only two windows and WWW-->XY import but not the reverse. There is
probably ali also a solution via Virtual PC 2007k, which M$ has kept
available.

>
>
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/support/virtual-pc-2007.aspx


>
> Windows 8...who knows?
>
>
> JP
>
>
>
>