For Kenny Frank Re: TO Robert Holmgren

[holmgrn@xxxxxxxx]

> Having said that, I am sure you recognize that my primary issue here is not
> pure technical superiority, it is what language is more likely to be in use
> and familiar to or not a purchase decision barrier to the greatest number of
> customers in the Windows world? If the answer, as I think it most certainly
> has to be, is VBA and its variants, then as long as it is adequate for the
> task another choice has to have a really compelling reason.

You can't protest that you're not competing with MSWord and WP,
and yet be ruled by lowest-common-denominator "as long as it's adequate" evaluations
(based really on guesses, not market research, not Xy-user surveys). Meeting
Microsoft's desiderata doesn't mean people will buy XyWin. XyW
is not mass market; it isn't sold in stores; people *special
order* it because it's
*special purpose*. Being the same as others won't sell XyWrite;
being different, and being technically superior, always has and
still might. If you're not different|superior, then what are you
counting on to initiate & sustain a *shift* to XyWrite, a surge
in sales? XyWin has to go beyond just bringing the basic XyW
system over from the DOS world (i.e. continuity for old users,
nothing more); it has to offer features new and distinguishing.
At present, it doesn't. Your niche audience is a quality
audience. They just laugh at Basic. If XyWrite supports REXX
and offers industrial strength not otherwise available, that's a
distinctive selling point.

> You are indeed correct that "D UI=1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,0,0", turns off every
> conceivable bell & whistle....
> When in that mode I really had no problems editing, and didn't see any
> particularly squirly things.

Don't you get error message #688 with every single keystroke? (Set "D MB=0".)
The incessant 688 prompt brings my system to its knees. (Msg
#688 says something about "restoring the view" -- view? what view? -- and "hitting
Ctrl+Shift+V", which keystroke launches my redundancy (Verbosity)
checker -- damned mystifying -- it seems to me that if you're
going to throw a msg like that up, with a reference to a specific
keystroke, you first want to make sure that your expectation that
routine "MaxView" is on Ctrl+Shift+V is justified, with
VA_M,a,x,V,i,e,w -- it should be designed that VA_M,a,x,V,i,e,w
controls which keystroke you reference. But this is another
indication of the design shift away from flexibility -- and not
rare-as-hen's-teeth stuff either, but really fundamental
flexibility! -- the designers are now SO COCKSURE that users are
using their factory-issue keyboard, and have made no
modifications to it, that they are emboldened to hard code
references to specific keystrokes in the
Help facility. Time was, Kenny, when every user had a customized
keyboard, and no assumptions were possible. Customizable
keyboards are the main reason I adopted XyWrite in the first
place; the absence of them remains a main limitation of other
word processors. And now, with the incredible clutter of factory
routines monopolizing every good keystroke on every good table,
what's left for us? A CAPSLOCK+RIGHTBACKSLASH+GREYHOME table?)


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Robert J. Holmgren holmgrn@xxxxxxxx
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