Re: NOTA NENE

["Steve Crutchfield" scrutch@xxxxxxxx]

I've been toying with the idea of putting together a document which
shows XyWrite users how to use Nota Bene. Remember back in the old
Signature days there was a booklet called "Making the Transition,"
which helped XyWrite users migrate to Signature. It seems to me that
something like that would be very useful.

For example, I miss the menu-driven routines for setting up tables in
XyWrite for Windows. Four or five mouse clicks, with
fill-in-the-blank options, and voila! A nice table complete with
borders, gutters, and spacing all nicely laid out. It's possible to
do this with the command line, but it's a pain in the tukkus.

Two options occur to me: a) write a manual which shows how to do
XyWrite tasks in Nota Bene, or b) figure out a way to hook into the
XyWrite code in the Nota Bene DLG file to do the tasks we need. I
spent some time this past weekend looking at the DLG file to see how I
could write an XPL program to link into the menus to create tables. I
didn't get very far - I was trying to cook a turkey at the same time.

Maybe we should consider this? Possible a group effort?

Steve Crutchfield

>>> leslie bialler  11/25 10:09 AM >>>
William H. TeBrake wrote (with his usual clarity and good sense):

> Yes, it's a pain not having proper documentation. On the other
hand,
> none of us is totally helpless either.

Quite so. I believe the correct way to approach NB, and in fcat this
is
what I have done, is to think of it as the Windows version of
XyWrite
that works. I simply loaded my customized Xy keyboards, my
altkeys.sav
files, my xpl files, and let 'em rip. When something fails to work I
try
to compare the features with Xy 4 for Dos with the new program and
see
where they diverge, and why.


> As long as you work on copies,
> why not simply try your XPL programs.

I have done precisely that, and while I am far from testing them all,
my
"key" programs do work in the way they have done with XyDos (and did
_not_ in some cases in XyWin). There are two things to keep in mind,
and
you can fix this with the tools/preferences menu. (a) Make sure the
messages are set to appear on the prompt line rather than the dialog
box
and (b) set the message duration to 3 rather than 18, so they don't
stay
up there for an annoyingly long period of time if your XPL depends
on
looping at an  What's to screw up?
> Either they
> work or they don't.

Exactly right.


A surprising number of Robert and Carl's routines
> in XyWWWeb work in NBWin without any tinkering.

Of course they do! What else would you expect from the wisest of the
wise persons?

> Others do not, but they
> do not consequently cause any problems. Now if I could only figure
out
> how to get the help4xxxx frames in XyWWWeb to work in NBWin. I
suspect
> it needs an additional help file loaded (U4, or something like
that?).
> Maybe I will try to load a few of the things that came with
XyWin.
> Best regards,

Let us know, please, Bill.


--
Leslie Bialler
Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx
> http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup