Batch files in Windows.

["Michael Edwards" mje@xxxxxxxx]

[Robert H. Kubie:]

>I have now been running various versions of Windows for years, but have
>never learned if there is a Windows equivalent to a DOS batch file. I
>suspect that everybody else in the world knows the answer to that question,
>but I don't.
>
>Will somebody kindly put me out of my misery? Is there? What is it?

   I'm not sure if there's a general feeling that silence on this list for
many months takes away my right to suddenly come in again - but you can have
ordinary DOS-style batch files in Windows, and run them from the DOS prompt. I
think there is also a facility for starting them within Windows (as against a
DOS box). You can include commands for at least some Windows programs, too,
although you may have to Alt-Tab back to the DOS window to continue running it.
I have constructed several quite complex ones, up to 70 or so Kb., with menus
and submenus included.
   I did this because I got sick and tired of either typing very long Windows
file-names at the DOS prompt, or navigating my way through nested subdirectories
in the "Open file" facilities of certain Windows programs. I love being able to
do lots of things by a single keystroke, and batch files can enable that. Alas,
those days of efficient keyboard interfaces seem to be gone now.

   Is that what you meant? If there is something specifically Windows-based,
not using a DOS command line, then I haven't found it.
   To be sure, I haven't especially tried to. I am one of those Windows
haters, who got trapped in Windows by adopting it before fully realizing what a
horror I was dropping myself into. It doesn't agree with XyWrite, which is why
(very sadly) I have not followed through with my earlier plans to use XyWrite
all the time.
   I'm so fed up now that I am seriously planning to switch to Linux. I don't
know if XyWrite will be usable there or not. I hope so, but suspect not.
   (Can anyone answer that?)

             Regards,
             Michael Edwards.