Re: Logging on (was Sans manual still...)

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

> Still, it means that each user on the same computer can have different
> keyboards and start in different queues - sorry, directories. You put the
> relevant instructions in your log file (e,g,: BC load pes.kbdXC)
>

Whooopie! This reminds me of a time, the late 1970s or early 1980s, when
the New York City Transit Authority finally admitted that their subway
map was incomprehensible and decided to revise it. The "beta" version
depicted all the various lines (1-9 plus A-Z, with a few letters left
out, but not very many) in the same color. Red, as I recall. When it was
revealed to the beta testers (i.e., us attitudinal Noo Yawkers), they
objected strenuously to the scarlet spaghetti strings. In response, we
were told that this was not a bug but a wad (works as designed) because
to color code would have rendered the map useless to the color blind. As
I recall it was at that point when the then Mayor, Ed Koch, pointed out
as only he could that most persons were _not_ color blind, and the TA,
raising the white flag, then took it back to the shoppe and produced the
color coded system still in use two decades later.

So: I have to ask--how many of us XyWriters are faced with a
multiple-user situation? Probably not too many. But of course, now that
I have so stated, I shall be besieged with e-mails of hostile intent
claiming quite the contrary. Whatever. I shall withstand such barrages.

And besides: Actually you could do the same thing by some modifications
to your (or in this case the shared computer's) STARTUP.INT file. The
Wise Persons probably already have done something like that and will no
doubt be delighted to share. Indeed, attached is a little XPL macro I
wrote some years ago, when some of the workstations on our LAN did not
yet have VGA monitors. A command to run the macro was, as I remember,
included in the startup.int file.

> But here is another question: If you set up XyWrite as the program to use
> certain files (say with an extension of XW) it insists on a log on first.
> Is there any way to modify the command used by Windows to include a log on
> so that doubleclicking on a .XY file will start XyWrite, logon and then
> call the file?
>

Well now! As Humpty Dumpty might say, "there's a glory for you!" I will
mull this over and get back to you if I think of something, unless, that
is, a Wise Person beats me to it, which is the way to bet.

--
Leslie Bialler
Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx
> http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup