RE: XyWrite orphaned

["Frank Kenneth B." KBF@xxxxxxxx]

FYI I didn't say footnotes or column tables were not supported. What I
said was we had not done any work enhancing those functions or fixing
bugs in those areas. All functions of the editor work at least as well
as they did in XyWin.

In answer to some other inquiries, the draft font issue has been
addressed (and I believe it is user definable, but I'll have to verify
that), internally the editor uses 32 bit structures (although it is
externally a 16 bit app) so maximum file size is substantially larger,
it appears to be more stable, and works with the whole Windows family of
OS's. I don't know how it works under OS/2. As to the keyboard file,
my understanding is that the Alt key issue is primarily a
Windows-related matter, and nothing has changed on that score. I
believe I have read that users on this list have found ways to
circumvent that, but I don't know exactly how it was accomplished.

Things added to the editor, but certainly not required use, include an
outline "view" of a document in addition to the standard graphic,
page-line, draft and expanded views. This outline view is a true
collapsible outline structure, and allows viewing and editing of text at
any level or branch of the outline.

The editor also incorporates an optional "object" mode, providing
greater control of the structure of a document. Objects (usually
paragraphs, but not necessarily) consist of separate components, such as
counters, descriptions, titles and body text. A "framework" may be set
up (and stored for re-use in a framework library) where the
characteristics, including visibility, of every component for objects at
each outline level may be specified. In this manner, when an object is
placed or moved at a particular outline level, all of its
characteristics (e.g. font, indent, punctuation, etc.) are automatically
applied. The framework may be overridden for any object, and multiple
frameworks may be inserted throughout the file. While styles are
utilized to create these frameworks, it is a much more sophisticated
mechanism than the global styles incorporated into XyWrite for Windows,
and the interface for managing it, while a little complicated at first
look, works quite well.

Labels and cross-references are substantially improved. The editor now
displays a list of all labels, and you can select from a variety of
cross-reference formats. Envelope printing is greatly enhanced, and the
interface provides a series of much better organized dialog boxes for
managing document formatting. The ruler bar is also improved, with
optional horizontal and vertical rulers from which document settings can
be changed by dragging ruler objects. The command windows for editing
headers/footers/footnotes, etc. are improved, permitting access to all
toolbar and menu editing functions.

The interface now supports 36 open windows, and the dialogs for
spelling, search/replace and hyphenation have been revised and are, to
my thinking, superior to their predecessors. The interface now also
supports an optional "icon window"-- a sizeable vertical window down
the left side of the document. In this window icons for the 6 types of
notes you can now embed appear opposite the point in the text where the
note is found, and by clicking on the icon an editable "yellow sticky"
window opens with the text of the note. In our expert applications this
window also contains icons for data screens allowing users to input data
used in the text or underlying logic of a document. The product I
alluded to as a possible "beta" will not include this data
functionality, although it is available (along with a complete
"Dictionary" module) to application development partners.

I hope this answers some of your questions. By and large the response
seems positive to the idea, but I am still interested in responses from
those who have not yet been heard from. Clearly this is not designed as
a money maker from our point of view, and is an attempt to offer to
advanced users the opportunity to make use of our current technology as
they see fit. A few of you seemed to be upset in some way by the idea,
so I would suggest that if we do it those people should simply not
participate. We haven't thought about pricing at all, since the idea is
relatively new and we wanted to see how it would be received. But it
certainly won't be expensive.

K.


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	N. Sivin [SMTP:nsivin@xxxxxxxx]
> Sent:	Friday, October 24, 1997 6:25 AM
> To:	xywrite@xxxxxxxx
> Subject:	Re: XyWrite orphaned
>
> If I were offered a word processor that doesn't include footnotes and
> tables, before paying *anything* for it I would ask what else it
> doesn't
> include. The omission of footnotes puts the projected perpetual beta
> seriously behind the 1987 version of PC-Write! The best suggestion by
> far
> that I have seen in this thread is to make available a full-featured,
> time-limited demo. People who try it out and find it does what they
> need
> can then pay a "nominal sum" for the beta, which removes the time
> limitation. That sort of thing is routinely done by an "unlocking"
> procedure, with no necessity for downloading twice.
>
> I suggest we concentrate on this possibility instead of the original
> pig-in-a-poke offer.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -------
> N. Sivin
> History and Sociology of Science
> University of Pennsylvania
> nsivin@xxxxxxxx