Re: NBWin comments

[Nathan Sivin nsivin@xxxxxxxx]

Nick Clifford gave an excellent rundown of NB pros and cons. But
I have no problem at all running XPL programs from the NB command
line. You do have to provide a path if they are not in the
durrent directory that shows at the bottom left of the screen.

In order to try out the demo as simply as possible, I have set up
nbstart.int to switch to \XY as the program loads. I can then use
my XY keyboard and have everything (with exceptions that others
have noted) work, including programs run from the keyboard (which
specifies the path for each). For running programs generally, I
have set up my ctrl-R key so hitting it puts
run c:\xy\r\.pgm
with the cursor just before the dot. Thus no matter what the
default directory happens to be, all I need do is type in the
name of the program.

It turns out, by the way, that to use your XY keyboard you don't
need to rename it and copy it to the NB directory. I just use
nbstart.int to load both the original XY keyboard and the XY
save/gets, specifying the path for each. That means as I modify
either of those, the changes work in both programs.

Further to Robert Holmgren's message, another key assignment uses
SAVERK to assign the saved keystroke macro to a file called
FLY.PGM (for on the fly), the running of which is permanently
assigned to ctrl-F. That way, once it is debugged, it runs
without even typing a command.

Cheers,
--
Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-6304
(215) 898-7454
nsivin@xxxxxxxx