Msg: Re: XyWrite's future - NB 10 or something different?

The move from xy3 to NB9 involved here unwelcome compromises -- some XPL routines didn't work and couldn't be made to work, other operations or commands with origins in xywrite were unreliable or null -- but the change did bring long standard Windows conveniences never available in xy3, without the format tyranny, mousing and endless menuing of MSWord.

Unfortunately, NB10 fails to sustain the already limited xywrite compatibility of NB9, and Dragonfly wouldn't give any assurances in that respect. There might be good reason to use NB10, but continuity with xy3 wouldn't seem to be one of them.

One wishes vDosxy could miraculously enlarge the buffer and that printing didn't require add-ons and workarounds, but for this user it looks like the more workable alternative at this point....

From: Paul Breeze
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2015 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: XyWrite's future - NB 10 or something different?

Kari

I held off responding to your email because I thought I had little to
add but most of the ensuing conversation has been about the use of XY
for everything other than the purpose for which it was created in the
first place, writing. I still use it (or more normally NB 9)
exclusively for that and as far as I am concerned there is not a modern
word processor that can touch it for speed and ease of use. I am often
forced to use Word which I find a sobering experience compared with the
exhilaration of XY.

I agree with you about NB10 being a good product. Indeed it has most of
the basic functionality of XY4 and it is quite possible to customise so
that it behaves very similarly. However at the moment it does not
support XPL well and many U2 functions do not work, which is why I do
not use it regularly.

If there were a version of NB10 available that would support U2 then as
far as I am concerned, that would be a winner.

Paul

On 07/03/2015 14:56, Kari Eveli wrote:
> Let's face it: DOS XyWrite is badly dated. New word-processing
> applications and modern editors are very good. New hardware has made the
> Xy speed advantage a non-issue. DOS XyWrite is crippled by its memory
> architecture, it would need a rewrite and a port to 64-bit. And, indeed,
> it has one, albeit a very complex and specialized, namely NotaBene 10. I
> tried this recently, and found that it is a very capable and sleek
> program. But still, it is not for everyone. It is a good academic
> word-processing program for humanities scholars (of a certain affinity,
> namely biblical scholars, etc.), not a general-purpose editor like DOS
> XyWrite or NB 3's main editor component. I was lost in a myriad of
> features that I have no use for. And there are reasons not to use it in
> the academic world, too, as becomes apparent in what follows.