Re: Nota Bene

[yesss@xxxxxxxx]

I would urge anyone considering nbWin to subscribe
to the very active NB list. One reason for winNB's
price (roughly twice that of xyWin)--indeed, winNB's
raison d'etre--is add-ons of value to academics,
linguists, etc. While NB is clearly trying to please
xyWriters by doing things like freeing up as much
of the nbWin keyboard as it can while incorporating
VisualBasic, changes in nbWin are--unsurprisingly--
likely to favor the wants of longtime NB-loyalist
academics, linguists, etc. With Dave Erickson around,
those changes may happen sooner. The clamor now, e.g.,
is for Unicode support.

But if you publish in English and don't assemble
bibliographies, etc., you may not need what Smartwords
and nbWin add to xyWin. I suspect that most journalists,
e.g., would nod in agreement with NYT reporter David
Firestone, who once told this list that he'd never
written a footnote with xyWrite and hoped he never would.
(While the popular assumption here is that all surviving
xyWrite users subscribe, I'm dead sure that hundreds if
not thousands of journalists around the globe use xyW3
every day without feeling a need to discuss it--or cars
or baby names--online. When they do subscribe, like
David--a xyWin user--they rarely hang around long.)

The most-touted Smartwords improvement, 32bit file
support, involves constricted-feeling Explorer-ish
VB dialog boxes. Ordinary nbWin dir lists are like
xyWin's (and xyDos's) and handle LFN the same. The
other big nbWin "improvement" is the substitution
of Courier for the system font in draft view. What's
seldom discussed is that that's possible because the
Smartwords kernel moves xyWrite from the IBM extended
char set to the ANSI standard, which you may or may not
find desirable. The only way to get back and forth is
with file filters. NoteTab toggles IBM/ANSI sets with
a key press. nbWin users express no such need. I
believe that xyWin has an RTF filter, which apparently
is the bridge to Word for those who need one.

Again in sharp contrast to NoteTab, nbWin shares a big
problem with xyWin, near-oblivousness to its Windows
surroundings. TTG CEO Kenny Frank once told the xylist
that a 32bit kernel was under development. Kenny told
the list a lot of things. Well, we'll find out in
due course what Dave Erickson *is* up to.

When used on *my* flat-panel monitor, nbWin *doesn't*
improve at all on xyWin. Neither can do graphics view
on TFT or CRT with a Cirrus CL-GD7548--and who knows
what other--graphics controller(s). Kinda defeats
the purpose. No other Windows app I use has a similar
problem. (Alas, my flat-panel doesn't pivot, but its
built-in tv tuner does let me use xyWrite--dos or
Windows--with "Star Trek" reruns or videotapes in
a scalable, movable window or full-screen with or
without the PC powered up. We all have our priorities.)

If I didn't own nbWin I wouldn't be able to rest
till I did. For one thing, it's amazing that NB
still is there and, retro as this sounds, I feel
some kind of moral obligation to lend financial
support to keeping the xyWrite kernel on the market.
But, except for testing ported U2 xpl, when I want
to use a Windows word processor, I load xyWin.
(http://www.escape.com/~yesss/_x45w4nt.htm
explains why in more detail.) So I'd advise
sticking with xyWin if a Windows app that has
no future but feels a lot like xyWrite is enough.
It well may be. (I don't expect ever to stop using
xyWrite 3; XyQuest built in tools that let v3 meet
then-unforeseeable future text processing needs
and, with a compatible Windows word processor,
I don't need a dos word processor. I think of
xyWin as kind of the Windows equivalent, except
that as far as I know you still can buy xyWin.)

If that's *not* enough, pray for a 32bit kernel
and to get an idea of the shape nbWin's future
is likely to take, lurk on the NB list. ... Ciao. 		--a

======================================= adpFisher  nyc
	xyWin+nbWin+xyW3 !xyWWWiz Web assistants +
	xyWrite 3 supplements !xyWise and !xyWiz +
	Wolfgang Bechstein's seafaring adventures:
======================================== http://www.escape.com/~yesss/