RE: Is XY-Write a word-processor or a text editor?

["Steve Hayes" khanyaiis@xxxxxxxx]

On 13 Dec 00, at 6:13, Frank Heydenrych wrote:

> Now, in the PR company I run, where I employ 45 people, everyone uses the
> monumental Word 8.0 to generate TEXT FILES, and Windows Explorer to
> navigate. Their jaws drop when I show them the speed and integrated
> navigation of Xy 3, but they are put off by the non-GUI and non-mouse
> interface. And, of course, the non-long filename support.
>
> On this tack, I just can't get used to Xy 4. Many people told me Xy 3.52
> was the best ever made, and that Xy 4's improvements were marginal, and
> I'm inclined to agree ... I'm going to use the Christmas break to try and
> break through.

I've just bought a laptop that has Word 97 installed, and have decided to try
to learn how to use it, at least a bit better, but I doubt that I'll use it
more than XyWrite. I find long filenames are a pain, and long directory names
even worse. Trying to cd to "My Documents" in XyWrite is a hassle - go to the
DOS prompt, run Norton Commander, scroll down to find what the *real*
directory name is, and then go out of Norton Commander and type editor.

I have an offline web page reader, and can't back its contents up to CD
because of the idiotic long names people use for Web pages (produced, of
course, by Microsoft). Backing up paths with more than 64 characters causes
hassles.

I haven't seen XyWrite 4.x for DOS, but have Signature and the Notabene
equivalent, but the NB one is too hard to use, so I haven't tried it much.

Yes, XyWrite 3.52 was the best, but I use 3.56 because it has the British
spelling dictionary. It won't do automatic text replace, though.

Keep well,

Steve Hayes
E-mail: shayes@xxxxxxxx
  Web: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm