hodgepodge

[Morris Krok essence@xxxxxxxx]

from Morris,

   I wonder if Ann can tell us whether they will ever produce a printed
manual for Nbwin; or have manuals become redundant for a programs running
under windows. In the meanwhile I wonder if anyone knows how to pint out the
help file.

  Nota Bene produced a programming disk that unveiled a strange creature
in its midst. A function they referred to as OV. Has this ever become part
of Xpl in XyWrite, and briefly does anyone know what it does.

   At one time there was talk about a programmable keyboard. Is it
available and to what extent will it enhance the (kbd) keyboard assignments
to various programs and macros..

   Recently mention has been made of an operating system - Ecomstation. Is
this available by downloading or does it come in a package.

   Leslie or anyone living in the New York City area, should enquire
posibly from the compiler of the phone directory whether "Productivity
Software International Inc", the produces of PRD+ shorthand program, is
still in existence. Their last known address is 211 East 43rd Street, Suite
2202, their phone number 212-818-1144 is now always engaged but their fax
212-818-1197 still gives a beep. This fax number may have been taken over by
someone else, if so and they are no longer in existence, I will gladly share
PRD with anyone who wants to investigate this delightful concise dos
program. PRD+ are the people who caused XyQuest to disengage temporarily the
AR function because of so-called copyright intfringement.

   Referring to the AR function to expand shortforms, the code listed
below, contains the heart of my program shortspl.pm (written for Xy3), that
will automatically expand shortforms, enabling you in fact to type in
shorthand. For instance if you typed ra/bv/io/bcz/ppl/ltl/mtd/wtr/abv/abo/.,
this program would render it as follows:

rather be I because people little method water above about.

   Shortspl not only expands shortforms, capitalizes the first letter of a
sentence or paragraph, inserts the necessary spaces after punctuation marks
and also flags all spelling errors and the double insertion of a word, all
this with with one key press. It does not interfere with the longform of a
word. By using this program one need not assgn the AR function to any of the
word-space characters or space bar (key 57) to expand a shortform.

NW CL AR CR BC se .WA.
>BC jmp XC 


   The functions read as follows: NW = next word; CL take the cursor back
to the space after the previous word; AR expands the previous word or   if
not in the shorthand spl file, do nothing; CR then takes you to the first
letter of the next word; the command se WA takes the cursor to the next
available character, and if no longer present jumps to another part of the
program that will either perform other tasks or end the program altogether.
For XY4dos, it will of course can be written differently.


       Thoughts for the day

   The XPL gurus who graciously and freely give of their time to dispel
weakness in our thinking and reveal the heights of this programming
language, need all our appreciation, gratitude and reverent approach. This
is not difficult for me to do as when searching through dusty yoga tomes and
pages, I learnt the need to be humble and to take, figuratively speaking,
the dust from the feet of the teacher. No one need to use a scathing and
sarcasting approach when searching for information and the correct
rendering.

   From the gurus I am thankful for the if@Not(er) code as it removes an
unwanted spaghetti junction showing the need of streamlining and simplifying
a program - a lesson that we can well use in our everyday activities.

   I wonder what my English school teacher would say to me today. 53 years
ago he said that my thinking and writing was so confused and muddled that I
was like a drunken hen scratching with dirty feet on the page. He would
probable say what he also said then, "you do not need anything extraneous
such as grammatical correctness, if you write the way you speak." He
probably would have also added that one would only need a pen or at most a
typewriter and not something so extreme as a computer and the need for a
special program to write lucidly. Perhaps he would have advised the use of a
rubber so as erase errors on the trot.

   As a last thought perhaps we can refer to all those who convey
information over the internet as faceless preachers from cyberspace, showing
in the process that we can dispense with an edifice, the pulpit and the
personal approach..