Xy4 Dos Bugs

[Leslie Bialler]

On 9-MAY-1996 21:26:54.5 xywrite said to LESLIE319
  >The problem with Xy4 over Xy III+ is not entirely one of bugs. In some
  >cases specific changes were made, for whatever reason, that make the
  >product inferior:

  I suspect the culprit here is IBM.

  >1) The fix-spell function (ES) no longer returns the cursor to the
  >location at which the function is called, but simply puts it on the next
  >word, which I find very annoying.

  Why? Isn't it more logical to put it on the next word?

  >I've written an elaborate bit of XPL
  >to work around this, but using my version I have to skip over the query
  >about making a word all caps or keeping it the same or whatnot when I
  >choose an automatic replacement for a mispelling.

   Which reminds me: I wish Tech Group would put in an option that would allow you to
eliminate the case sensitive checking altogether if you want, and also program the thing
so that it would realize that a punctuation mark means you _haven't_ repeated a word. I
don't think we're talking rocket science here. And surely there must be some way to get
the speller to recognize that _MacArthur_ is correct dammit!

  >2) When printing, XyWrite IV responds to any printer error by aborting.

    Indeed? I have not discovered this. I will be on the lookout.

  >Thus if my printer runs out of paper at page 80 of a document, it will
  >abort the print job and I will have to set the page range and continue.

    Oh surely not. This happens to me all the time. Sometimes I have to print out
200 or so pp. at once and when my HP Laser 4V runs out of paper, it simply pauses and
politely waits for you to insert more, and then continues on its way. Ditto for a paper
jam.

  >2.1) Speaking of setting the page range, I have found what appear to be
  >actual bugs with that. First, it doesn't seem to work at all if you are
  >printing out pages in reverse order.

  A curious thing to want to do. I think Tech Group can be forgiven for failure to
anticipate that some people might attempt such an endeavor.

  >Second, setting the page range to
  >pages 1-3 will print out pages 1-6!

  Say what??? This doth not happen to me.

  >It always doubles the number.

  Since I sometimes cue up 1-80, let's say, I think I would have noticed and reported
this bug many moons ago if true.

  >3) Xy III+ had a nice little routine for setting tabs in the help file
  >(the help file in III+ was vastly superior to IV's), while in IV there
  >is the more awkward approach of simply typing out the series of numbers
  >for tab stops.

  I agree that the complicated, cumbersome 4 help file is not as useful as the one in
the prior version. And that reminds me: I have asked several times and nobody has _yet_
explained to me how to get those danged U2 things to work properly! I take it this means
either that (a) nobody has or (b)
Robert Holmgren was away when I have queried this (which is more likely).

  >Much of the problem with IV, then, was bad programming decisions that
  >made the product more cumbersome,

  Yessir. Hats off to the Big Blue creator of OS/2. Wait till they get their cerulean
hands on the Mac OS. Bet they can ruin it within 18 months.

  >rather than actual bugs (although I'm
  >still always coming across new quirks in IV).

  But Charles: What about wildcard search and replace?  What about calling up 90s-
sized megafiles without the quaint and curious "creating temporary file, do not remove C"
message, of which we are all so fond?
What about mouse support? What about the cool little thingummy on the right side of the
screen that tells thee how much more of the file thou hast to go?
What about being able to choose fonts, point sizes w/o remembering PT tables? And (if
you're using the DOS version) the hours of fun you can have trying to customize the color
of every element in the header, including the stately clock that appears up there if you
ask nicely.

--Leslie--
"embrace the new"

`[1;34;42mRainbow V 1.19.1 for Delphi - Registered