Re: Hallucination or possibility?

[Robert Holmgren holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to note from Steve Webber  on Mon,
29 Jan 2001 09:13:29 -0800 (PST)

The answer is Yes, that's the whole raison d'etre of XyShell -- to
(optionally, of course) control your computer from XyWrite, to do so
without ever bumping into memory contraints, and to be able to return,
automatically, to XyWrite whenever any task you've given your computer
terminates.

HOWEVER, you also need to realize that when you start to control a
graphical operating system (especially one called Windows with
impoverished non-GUI services) from a command line interface, you are
going to be flexing muscles (command line tools, requiring ahem typed
arguments) that very few Windows users know about, and that M$ never
intended to be a user's primary way of working. XyShell tries to make
it as easy as possible, by running mainly off aliases (i.e. you
perfect the command, then commit it to a file of aliases, and
thereafter launch the command with a short alias or abbreviation, or a
keystroke in KBD -- you don't have to *remember* those commands+args!).

In short, this is intended for savvy users. But the reward is all
sorts of services you never thought possible, e.g. *direct* pasting
and copying from/to the system clipboard, or direct downloading of
Email into a XyWrite window, which is I guess what your (somewhat
mysterious) message is hallucinating about. We've been testing
XyShell for 7 months now, and the bloody thing works very well. Not
as well as it did in OS/2, nor as it will in Linux -- but that's
another story.

Frankly, my only hesitation about releasing XyShell is utter dread of
having to support it! Also, users must install IBM Rexx (free under
OS/2 and Linux, but US$49 under Windows).

P.S. For several years, Carl has been offering U2 Getmail and
Sendmail utilities, as well as FTP and HTTP file trasnfers, operating
in conjunction with a nimble commercial utility called Hacksaw.
XyShell actually has built-in socket and ftp services, so these sorts
of tasks can be done natively. See, as one example, the SETTIME frame
in U2.

> Am I just hallucinating or might it in fact be
> possible today to: while "in" Xy4 enter my
> Yahoo e-mail, then this Xywrite forum, then read,
> enjoy, perhaps respond to a daily posting, send it,
> then exit this forum and Yahoo to turn to other
> (Xy)writing delights?

>  Or might the time-saving Best Practice today be
> to, more crudely, slowly, just offline a, say, daily
> batch of messages, read them elsewhere or what?

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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