Re: XyWrite's future - NB 10 or something different?

[Bill Troop billtroop@xxxxxxxx]

For myself, I am completely thrilled with the way Xy4 works with VDOS. I
would NEVER in a million years try to have a multi-MB file in any
program. It is just asking for trouble. Prudent operators always split
large fiiles, in any program, in any format on any
plartform. Disasters only happen to people who insist on large files. All
of that said, Carl, the one thing I would love in the VDOS environment is
a fully working JUMBO. - - Any news on that? It seems unfair that there
is something in VDOS which gives JUMBO trouble - - and it seems that the
VDOS people ought, if they can, to work it out.


I know this will make me unpopular, but let me repeat some traditional
advice: NEVER let a file go beyond 50 pages. In any program, on any
platform. If you do, you are begging for trouble. Remember, it is not
prosperity which is around the corner, but Nemesis.


At 07/03/2015 22:02, you wrote:

Reply to note from Kari Eveli
 Sat, 07 Mar 2015

16:56:04 +0200


> Xy should move to 64-bit.


No argument there, Kari -- though I've never been able to see a
clear

path forward to that dream. More bluntly, I don't see it happening,

ever. As for alternatives, most of the powerful editing packages
that

I'm aware of, including the ones you mention and SublimeText,

mentioned by Manuel, seem to have specialized focuses, such as line

editing/code editing, math, science, etc. Ideally I would want an

editor which, like XyWrite, is primarily focused on free-form text,

and which has XyWrite's configurability and programmability. I'd be

happy to give up XPL for a more user-friendly scripting language,

such as Python, provided that it's as tightly integrated with the

editing engine as XPL is with EDITOR.EXE. (Nota Bene is not an
option

for me as it's veered off into a development direction that is far

removed from my interests, and a world away from its XyWrite
roots.)


My two main uses for XyWrite are as a an editor for minimally-

formatted text and as a gateway to Windows and Windows applications.

For the foreseeable future I've found a near-ideal solution in Xy4 +

U2 + XyPy + vDosXy. Peter/catastrophicanomaly's vDos fork came like

manna from heaven just when I needed it. For the more-elaborately

formatted documents I need to produce at work, I'm required to use

Word, which, frankly, I find suitable enough to the task (though
with

commonly-known frustrations). (Word along with its Office mates also

has the advantage, whether earned or not, of being the lingua franca

of the business world.) I'd be delighted, though, to explore and use

a XyWrite-like 64-bit word processor if one, or a reasonable

facsimile of one, could be found.


Finally, I will say that I can fully relate to your frustration with

Xy3/NB3's memory limitations; this was probably the primary reason

(along with the enhancements to XPL) that I embraced XyWrite 4 when

it replaced Signature. In fact, I don't understand how you can even

edit a 3 Meg document in v3. In my experience, Xy3 became flaky with

documents larger than 500KB (which thankfully back then I rarely had

to deal with). It also barfed on directory listings of more than a

couple of hundred files -- an immense frustration. Xy4 does not
blink

at documents of 3-4 Megs, and with Robert's BigEdit U2 add-on I

routinely edit documents of several tens or *hundreds* of Megs.

(Unfortunately, I can't get BigEdit to work reliably under vDosXy,

but I did write a poor man's substitute, called BigEd, which

replicates most of BigEdit's essential functions.)


This is a topic of intense interest here, and I'm sure others will

weigh in.


--

Carl Distefano

cld@xxxxxxxx