Re: us

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

Except that it doesn't
> really matter, compared to the possibility, pace Leslie Bialler,
> that SmartWords may actually exist and be desirable. Let's have
> the scoop, Leslie!
>

Ok Harry!

Here it is, quick and dirty. I've been trying to put this together for
weeks but, like, you know, it's summer: some are on vacation, others are
swamped. There will be more but for now, this is what I reported to CU
Press.

My trip to meet with Ken Frank of the Tech Group was very useful.

Attending were: Pam Upton, UNC; Chuck Creesy, Princeton; Lee Sioles and
Tom Roche, Johns
Hopkins; Therese Boyd, freelancer, formerly of Hopkins; Lynn Underwood,
computer trainer.

Basics: Ken demoed the new Editor.exe file (on one of those Gateway
machines with those
enormous TV-size monitors), which is the "engine" for "Smart Words"
(more about that below). It has some neat new style features, color
coding for redlining, and some bug fixes that messed up the Windows
version of XyWrite. There are improved type fonts too. The most amazing
thing, however,
is the option, when redlining (or even if you're not), to activate a
feature that will allow you to save your file as _one_ constantly
updated file. The program will track all the changes that you have made
along the way. Not only does this apparently mean that the versions .0,
.1, .2 . . . .n are tracked automatically, but also that if you
accidentally resave a file under the name of a preexisting file, you
are still in business. You activate the feature from a menu, which pops
up a dialog box that shows you all the times the file has been saved and
allows you to highlight and click on the version you want. Behold! It
appears. Also XyWrite, err, Smart Words, now has the same interface as
Word. To the user it looks as if it were Word. The command line features
work as always. The best news is that Ken is willing to sell it to us
for a "very low price," which he will specify after the files are copied
to CDs for distribution. which he claims will be done in the near
future.

[Labor Day, maybe Ken?]

It is supposed to be totally compatible with prior versions of
the program, so that even the 3-Plus users will be able to use the
files. It requires Windows 95, of course, and at least a 486 machine.
Ken is running Windows 95. Chuck asked him about Windows NT, and Ken
said there were a few problems with the dialog boxes on NT, but that the
program otherwise runs smoothly on NT.

NEW FILTERS Ken also bundles new filters with the whole Smart Words
package and is willing to sell these as standalones, too. But since they
are made
by an outside vendor, he cannot sell these at the same low price. But he
will quote us a price on that too. Depending on what that price is, and
what the filters can do, we should probably order those too.

OTHER FEATURES While the whole Smartwords package is hardly necessary
for us, it did
put it through its paces and it is quite a work of art. Essentially, Ken
has expanded XyWrite so that it can pull in files seamlessly from
databases, word processing programs, or HTML files from the internet,
and patched into a master document. He demoed this by changing legal
boilerplate on a sample will, and an Internet web page in which you can
order goods. The file can be saved as XyWrite, Word, or WordPerfect.

There are improved fonts and color coding. Ken _believes_ that the color
coding can be made to work for redlining although that is not the
purpose for which he uses it.
The coding has to do with different elements in inserting the text from
various places.

[Ken, care to amplify?]

No matter, it looks the same to the users when they call up the file
again. Ken says that the idea is for the user to simply open a file w/o
knowing or caring what program it's in. His demo makes this look easy,
but of course he has had a lot of practice doing it.

He also mentioned that he is willing to customize the program for any
organization that might have use for text with much boilerplate. An
HTML editor is included in the
Smart Words package.

Well that's it, in haste. More to come, but now it's time to get back to
work.

--
Leslie Bialler
Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx

"It's nice to be liked
But I far prefer getting paid."
--Liz Phair