Re: NB Win

[Michael Norman michael.norman@xxxxxxxx]

At 12/26/2003 09:42 AM -0500, Prof. Peter Knupfer wrote:
> I recently bought NBWin for the first time so that I could convert and use
> my mass of old XyIII, Xy4DOS, and XW files. I had re-fired my versions of
> XyWrite in XP, but the labor and learning curve involved in mastering XPL
> and making the program talk properly to various printers wasn't cost- or
> time- efficient for me.
All here sooner or later, sooner usually, face the _upgrade_ issue, but it
is not as labor intensive as you suggest. The printer issue appears
frequently, but, taken together, past posts have really simplified it. If
my memory is right (and a XySearch can confirm this) we have a patch/hack
for so-called Win/dumb, or USB, printers, and the HP PCL language printers
seem to work fine with the HP4.prn files (I still can't get a macron to
print over a character in italics, but I'm working on it). At all events,
the labor for printers is minimal, given the experience one can draw on
here. And I have never found the need to master XPL, especially with FULL
XY installed, which is to say U2. All you have to know is the rudiments of
XPL to install the tweaks recommended here. I too do not have the time to
spend under the hood, as it were, but learning the basics so you can at
least parse the solutions offered here has really made my work more
efficient. And most of the _dumb_ questions here are met with patience. At
all events, there are enough folks here who have, indeed, mastered the
program, and I have yet to be left hanging with a serious problem --
getting a printer to work, getting the program to boot, converting old
files to new formats and so on.
NBWin is another issue. Robert was right about their list, exceeding civil.
I'd qualify his assessment slightly with this: with perhaps one exception,
that list does not have members who have the knowledge and experience to
reshape NB the way several here have helped to reshape XY, and sustain it.
And the program could use such help because dealing with their tech support
can be...well...difficult. The latest release, 7, purports to be a major
upgrade. If it eliminates the maddening screen flicker that infected the
program, then IMO it is worth the yard for the upgrade. (I keep it on disk
as a WIN WP alternative to MSWord, but the flicker to date has made it too
annoying to use regularly. In any case, it is not the tool I use for daily
composition; XyDos is.
Finally, the WIN OS issues, which appear here weekly, now seem to turn
mainly on screen appearance and the behavior of the cursor. XySearch is the
best place to get caught up on these. Bottom line, for fussy eyes -- I'm in
this group of complainants -- there are still problems of varying degrees
with XyDos in W2K and XP, though, as I imply, this _problem_ really depends
on one's tolerance for anomalies. Some of us have tested virtual machines,
DOS game handlers, third-party DOS utilities and so on. At some point we
will find the Grail. Till then some of the jerry-rigging at least allows us
to keep working.

Michael Norman