Re: XyLose err Win

["Bob Brody" rabrody@xxxxxxxx]

On 7 Feb 97 at 11:48, David Firestone wrote:

> For me, XyWin is the ideal Windows
> writing program, in that it unobtrusively produces clean ASCII
> copy, is completely customizable, and most importantly has a
> command line.

Actually it's not completely customizable (far from it; I can't
even get the display to stay in the mode I want to use), but for
command-driven plain ASCII text software there are text editors
aplenty to choose from. Gnu Emacs for Windows, for instance,
which is not only free, it comes with the source code for the
ultimate in completely customizable. (I think they charge a few
dollars for the 32 bit Windows 95 version.) When I wrote
editorial for the Los Angeles Herald I used an ASCII editor that
could fit on a 360k floppy and still have plenty of room for a
month's columns. Writing short stories and straight text for
ASCII electronic transfer is a breeze in Emacs. But I do have
call for more document complexity which is why I bother with a
features-oriented word processor. Notes, annotations, tables
extraction, block linking, column alignment, Styles, among other
things, make a word processor the right tool for the job. For
plain-text, however, lesser tools suffice.

Bob