Re: Two or more Xys open

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "Francisco Barrau"  on Sat, 15 Oct
2005 01:58:48 -0300


> I only start the second instance from autoexec.bat or from a IDE, but
> I can't launch this new instance of XY from within the first one without
> being "hostage" of this new proces.

"Hostage" means ... what here, specifically?

Have you tried this?
>BX dos/nv/x/z /c kmd /c start "Xy Write2" Q2 
Works in both 9x and NT, perfectly. Creates a second instance of XyWrite with
the distinct Window Title "Xy Write2". (Why the space char in "Xy Write"? To
distinguish the main instance of "XyWrite" from its children, because task
switchers that key on Window Titles would find the substring "XyWrite"
duplicated in more than one Window Title otherwise...)

What Harry is asking for is absurdly easy to conceptualize, but harder to code
because there are technical hurdles to jump, and because of the poverty of
Windows' tools (no ready way to distinguish windowed sessions from fullscreen;
hard to get the Process ID or Window handle; manipulating one process from
another is almost impossible; etc etc). A program called GoXy.EXE, which I've
been developing gradually since last December, fills many of the holes.
Switching back and forth can be readily accomplished with GoXy; files can be
synchronized (kept mutually up-to-date) with frame RECAll. The whole thing can
be controlled by a small suite of XPL routines (actually, just one short U2
frame). It can open an unlimited number of XyWrite iterations, and keep the
documents in all of them synched: whenever you SAve any one document in any
one iteration of Xy4, the same document is refreshed in all the other
iterations of Xy4 (*if* that document is open in one of the iteration's nine
"windows"). If a windowed XyWrite session spawns another iteration, it too
appears in a window (similarly, fullscreen spawns fullscreen). The heart of
this procedure is a dedicated key that you always use to SAve files while
working on them. I presume everybody has such a key already -- nobody types
"SA" on the CMline and then Enter, right? That being the case, all your old
habits can remain the same; but the program or keystroke macro assigned to that
dedicated SAve key, whatever you've chosen, needs to be changed (slightly).

This will be in the next U2, as frame "duo". Tested only in Win2K and WinXP so
far, but it should work in 9x as well. I mention it now because I will
probably forget about it later.