Development Activities

[kfrank@xxxxxxxx]

A number of you have asked me recently about the current status of our products
and new releases. This is probably as good a time as any to respond.

First, we are nearing completion of the first beta installment of our new
product. We should be starting internal testing in a couple of weeks, and
begin more earnest beta testing within several weeks after that. Didn't quite
make 1st quarter, but we're close.

I referred to the "first installment" of the beta because the full set of
functionality for this product will not be complete until some time this
summer, and we are building and testing it in stages, partially to accomodate
some applications for the product we are building with third parties, and
partially because the breadth of the functionality is such that it will take
that long to full implement everything. You should also be aware that it is
highly likely that this new release will have a new name.

While I don't want to go into too much detail here, a broad outline of the
product as fully implemented includes the following:

1. A tight integration with several categories of databases.

	a. The product will be able to incorporate data from traditional
relational databases as either merge data or in boolean expressions used to
control conditional text. An optional Data Dictionary module allows design and
creation of databases, dialog boxes, menus, etc. Data dialog boxes as well as
interactive Q&A sequences of dialog boxes are accessible from within a
document; data incorporated in text is highlighted and can be changed
simultaneously in the document and in the database.
	b. Text objects may be stored in libraries and organized for re-use
using graphical outlining tools. Objects in these libraries may be organized
into multiple topical outlines. Text may be physically stored in a document or
incorporated by reference to the library. Multi-user access to libraries is
supported.
	c.  Full text search and retrieval for user-definable textbases.

2. Full collapsible outline capabilities

3. Vastly improved user interface incorporating vertical and horizontal
rulers, dockable button bars, tabbed dialog boxes to manage settings, "post-it"
style notes, preview boxes, retention of the command line, of course, and much
more. Developer toolkits for the entire interface will be available in Visual
Basic.

4. Font selection in draft mode will probably be supported.

5. User definable command delimiters, e.g. "<" and ">".

6. Expansion of style capabilities including nested styles, end style (e.g.
"/STYLE") functions and elimination of "US" as a required prefix to use of a
style.
	
7. Optional internal "journal" stores a record of every change; provides
permanent "undo" and "redo" as well as version control and comparison
capabilities.

8. Through a combination of 5 & 6 used with external style definition files,
as well as some possible native processing, tagging, display or printing of a
variety of tagged materials will be possible, including HTML, SGML etc.

9. Hypertext-like "Jumps" to labels within files, as well as tagging portions
of text and calling external sources, like help files, passing associated
key-words, by clicking on the tagged text.

10. Embedded visual basic and XPL as internal programming languages.

There are a number of other features I have not mentioned, but this should give
you an idea of what is coming. So far the major tradeoff for all of this
functionality seems to be load time, but as we get closer to release I am sure
we can make some improvements there. Internal performance is still as good as
ever.

The first testable version of the product will focus on the items discussed at
the beginning of the list. Those functions enable development of integrated
applications combining data and variable text in a number of interesting ways.
 Current projects underway for third-parties utilizing these capabilities
include "shrink-wrapped" expert systems for the legal market producing a
variety of types of documents from information about particular transactions,
intelligent query interpreters for database products, and automatic production
of NIH Grant Applications for research institutions to name a few. This
version will be able to process both standard and "smart" documents.

The next phase, probably 1-2 months after the initial version, will be expanded
to include the style and tagging capabilities, and the embedded VB programming
language.


This is a very exciting product. All who have seen it have been impressed,
including a number of long-term XyWrite users. I am always interested in your
feedback, and have no doubt you will give it to me!

K.