Misc. Queries

["Carl L. Distefano" 70154.3452@xxxxxxxx]

Nathan Sivin:

1. The problem, in XyWin, is not choosing a display font for
WYSIWYG, but rather for draft and eXPanded (i.e., non-WYSISYG)
views. XyWin picks up whatever the Windows default is, and it's
difficult to change the Windows default. I've found that you can
enlarge the font by switching to a lower screen resolution -- but
then of course you're enlarging everything else, too, which is
inconvenient.

The "conceptual" anomaly underlying all this is that Windows,
although customizable in some respects, does not approach
XyWrite's chameleon- like configurability. Hence, to live within
Windows, XyWrite perforce must surrender part of its core
identity, to the consternation of many of us who still remember
the days (not long past!) when "WYSIWYG" meant little more than
seeing margins and indents on-screen. That's why I periodically
agitate (to no visible effect) for a REAL CHARACTER-BASED draft
mode in XyWin, in which screen colors would be customizable as in
DOS and which would use a character-based screen font that would
be an order of magnitude more readable than any draft-mode font
I've seen in
Windows.

2. Echoing David Auerbach, I urge you to get Robert J. Holmgren's
STACK.PM from the TTG BBS Files/User Uploads section. It works
beautifully -- including "hinting", which quickly becomes
indispensable. The AUXiliary utilities are quite interesting,
too. There are two versions, one for Xy4 and one for XyWin; in
my setup, the Xy4 version works in XyWin as well.

3. Robert Holmgren wrote a nifty program called PUTDFB which not
only restores a previously-cancelled DeFine block, but does so
even if the start point and/or end point of the block, or text
within the block, has changed due to editing! (It's actually 2
discrete routines, PUTDFB and GETDFB, which I've married into one
in my U2.) I haven't looked lately, but I believe it's still
available on the TTG board.

4. Glad to hear your setup is shedding weight, Nathan!

--------------
Carl Distefano
70154.3452@xxxxxxxx