Re: Xy under OS/2 (Was: running xy 3+ under windows xp - aarrgghhh!)

["Chris Madsen" cmadsen@xxxxxxxx]

VBX is not a call to another key. It is a call to a VB routine in the
compiled VB code. Keyboard customization remains as it always has. I used to
know what 0,76 meant, but that info in my brain has been overwritten by a
recipe for corn and bean salad. I can find out if you want.

Frankly, you're right about the decision to move to VB.

You must remember that TTG wasn't ever really interested in word processing
per se. TTG had a product called General Counsel that made heavily
customized legal documents. It used Btrieve for the data end, and NotaBene
for the wp component. It was all grafted together in a remarkably ugly
interface. Then, when IBM yanked the rug out from underneath Xyquest, TTG
didn't want to lose its wp component (which it had never really understood;
I had so many go-rounds with their developers about how you could NOT put
spaces arbitrarily inside Xy commands), so it decided to buy Xyquest,
assuring that the wp component would be just what they wanted. Footnotes?
Who cares? Column tables? Nuisance. Expanded mode? Get rid of it. All
development on any purely wp features was "suspended" while we fancied up
the interface with the database. XyWrite replaced the ugly interface with
its own lovable quirkiness. One thing Dave Erickson did insist on was that
XyWrite or whatever you wanted to call it would remain as customizable as
ever, and that the files would remain ASCII files. That holds true, as long
as you realize you have to dump the entire menu system to replace it with
what you really want.

These were not happy times.

Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Holmgren" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: Xy under OS/2 (Was: running xy 3+ under windows xp -
aarrgghhh!)


> ** Reply to message from "Chris Madsen"  on Tue,
24
> Jun 2003 09:10:52 -0400
>
>
> > As I said, the decision to move to VB was not decided democratically.
>
> No indeed, it was decided frankly.
>
> But seriously: why would he and his partners buy XyQuest and XyWrite in
order
> to port it (whatever "it" is) to Wierd? That seems like sheer lunacy.
>
> But I wish he would; maybe then he'd spring XyWrite into the public
domain,
> where it belongs. It's a very unhappy and unsatisfying ending.
>
> So then what does "VBX 0,76" mean? Shift_state 0 [unshifted?],key 76?
> referring to some standard KBD file? Why is the command named "VBX", if
it's
> just a call to a KBD file shortcut? Or is "0,76" a VB routine named after
the
> keystroke that calls it? (So much for KBD file customization! It's a
striking
> thing that in the NB maillist, everybody without exception refers to a
command
> by its keystroke in NB.KBD -- Ctrl-this, Alt-that -- they _never_ refer to
the
> actual underlying funcs+commands, and, hence, have near-zero comprehension
of
> what's going on beneath the hood. That, coupled with the total absence of
> explanatory docs, or any maillist assistance from NB-NYC -- except for
someone
> who bobs up every once in a while, trying to sell product -- and you might
as
> well be running Wierd. NB's approach to their product is the ANTITHESIS
of
> XyQuest's approach. I mean, I know -- and you surely know better -- that
> product support can be incredibly painful, plus all the beating up on the
poor
> SysOp -- but one consequence is fanatical devotion, for better or worse.)
>
> -----------------------------
> Robert Holmgren
> holmgren@xxxxxxxx
> -----------------------------
>
>