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Re: copying & pasting between XY and MS





On the full-screen problem, I've been looking here and see no perfect
answer. But on copying and pasting, here are a few questions:



I know these things are personal, but why would you prefer a full-screen
(which used to be something about 15" diagonally) to having that same size
as a window on a larger monitor? Full-screen simply deprives one of the
Windows taskbar, with no plus side that I can see.






1) No taskbar:
On my ME, when I hit alt-enter, I get a small screen that reads "EDITOR"
at the very top, and under that, a taskbar with the edit icons--"mark,"
"copy," "paste"--as well as "properties," "fonts," and an icon to return
to full screen. But when I've tested Xy (via flashdrive) on an Xp (or on
Vista, which is worse), there's no taskbar at all. Instead, this appears
at the very top: E:\Xywrite\EDiTOR.EXE.



Have you tried right-clicking (I forget whether you do this with cursor on
title bar or in text area)?





Is there a more efficient way to do this on XP?



The tremendously more efficient way is to use U2. Then you can simply do
ctrl-C and ctrl-V (or whichever keys you assign) as in Windows. It's not an
ME vs. XP issue.
The U2 requires Xy 4. I'm pretty sure you can get that free. To the user,
Xy4 is almost exactly like Xy III+, but it has improvements in XPL handling.


If you don't want to get Xy4, you have to do right-click/Edit/Mark etc.

I'd 100% recommend getting Xy4. You can get it here:

http://www.xywrite.com/ttg/y2k/y2k.htm

Why not just download it, unzip it to get editor.exe (making sure you do it
in a directory that won't overwrite Xy III's editor.exe). And then try it
out? I'm pretty sure you don't actually need *any* other files to see what
it looks like. Then, if you're calmed by the familiarity of it, you can use
your existing keyboard files, etc. and download the U2 from:


http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/



 Or, better, is there any way to get the taskbar on to XP? I could be
wrong, but I think I've read here that anything beyond ME or Win 2000
just can't do that, that they can't take MS-DOS, which is what allows for
the taskbar. (I've tried putting MS-DOS from ME onto the flashdrive, but
when calling it up on XP, I get this message:


E:\EDITOR.pif. Invalid program file name, please check your pif file.
Choose "Close to terminate the application.")


2) The things and arrows of copying/pasting from XY to Windows:
For years, I've been writing on Xywrite and going through this clunky but al-
ways reliable process to send a piece in:
--insert a 3 1/2" floppy and copy the story from C: to A:
--copy the story from A: to the floppy via email (on Outlook Express) by
clicking "insert," then "text from file")



Why is the copy to A: even involved? Why not go straight from C:?



--send story in on email (same could all be done onto a Word doc).


But coming out of my cozy cave, I see that these new-fangled computers
don't do floppies. And so the only way to copy/paste from Xy to email is
to use the mark-copy-paste technique in Xy on windows.



Why? You seem to say that Outlook will import text files, and that's what
Xy files are.



But when I copy to email, long arrows, little boxes, or weird question
marks appear wherever I've used the enter key to end a graf or create an
extra line. Then, in the email or Word doc, I have to manually delete each
little arrow or box, evidence of which I've left in the graf above.


Is there a better way to do this?



Lots. If you use Outlook's Insert/File option, you are sending it as an
attachment. Is that producing the strange characters? Are they only at the
bottom of the file?






3) No scrolling while copying allowed:
Using the mark-copy-paste method for XY to email (and this problem is on
ME as well as XP) you can only "mark" a page (22 lines on my system) at a
time. In full-screen Xy, you can copy and scroll at the same time (but of
course copy/paste only within Xy). Is there anyway to avoid this?



Don't know about this.




4) Finally, before I buy a system, which is likely to best solve the above
problems? A straight Xp Pro, Win7 32 bits with an Xp downgrade, virtual
PC, and/or partitions? (I don't quite understand the recent partition
thread, so this question may make no sense: Is there a way to partition ME
(from an original disk I have) into a new computer?





I don't know, but I don't see any advantage to XP Pro over the (cheaper?)
XP Home edition. I've used both.



My computer guy (a 14 year old!) tried some of these combos, and concluded
that the advantages of an ME (taskbar, full Xy screen, the floppy
business) can't really be replicated. His experiments are below. Anything
he missed? I see he didn't try Win7 32 bits. Would that make a difference?


I apologize for such a long post, and thank you all in advance for your
guidance.



Here are results from my computer guy's experiments. My ME is unable to
call up the screenshots he provided captions for below:



So far, I've tested XyWrite within DOSbox in Windows 7, within Windows 7
64-bit itself, and within virtual machines of Windows 98, Windows 2000, and
Windows XP under Windows Virtual PC.

DOSbox & Windows 7:

-     Basically the same thing as Vista. No taskbar.

-     NO fullscreen, it causes problems.

Windows 7 64-Bit:

-     As I thought, it's a no-go. 64 bit versions of Windows do not
support 16 bit DOS applications anymore.

Windows 98:

-     The OS itself is unstable and not fun to work with.

-     Can copy+paste within Virtual Machine, but not to host system
(the actual system you're running)

-     It runs WITH THE TASKBAR, BUT:

-     Fullscreen is not to your liking (See screenshots)

Windows 2000:

-     OS is rock solid and shares the same interface as ME

-     NO TASKBAR, but I found a workaround (see screenshots)

-     Can copy+paste within Virtual Machine, but not to host system
(the actual system you're running)

-     Fullscreen is not to your liking (see screenshots)

Windows XP Mode:

-     Stable, and supported. Allows seamless integration.

-     NO Fullscreen OR taskbar (taskbar workaround still applies.)

-     Can Copy+Paste seamlessly between systems.

-     Can run either in the Virtual Machine or seamlessly with Windows
7 (that's what I meant my seamless integration)

(screenshots are in windowed mode for the Virtual Machines)

Overall, what you have now is best SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS ONE PROGRAM. While
it is not optimal to use this older operating system, the means of running
your application within newer environments is not optimal either. The
choice is yours.

Captions:

DOSbox1: Same as Vista basically.

98-1: How it appears on Windows 98 - a bit buggy.

98-2: Fullscreen, but not maximized. If I were to maximize it, it would
appear the same way, with blackness surrounding it. Not good.

2000-1: How it appears on Windows 2000. Pretty good.

2000-2: Taskbar workaround for 32-Bit NT-Based versions of Windows (2000,
XP, Vista, 7)

2000-3: Copy+Paste WITHIN the virtual machine, but not with host operating
system

2000-4: Fullscreen, but not maximized (same as 98-2)

XP-1: Selecting and Copying a body of text.

XP-2: Pasting into the host operating system

xpseamless1: Copy+Paste between XyWrite seamlessly run from XP within
Windows 7.








Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx