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

[Bill Troop billtroop@xxxxxxxx]

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


>

> Windows 8...who knows?

>

>

> JP

>

>

>

>