solomon@rice.edu (Richard L. Solomon) (03/19/90)
I recently downloaded 4dos 3.0 from Simtel. It is very impressive looking, but with several (for me) disadvantages. As an avid TopDOS user, (and BSD tcsh user) I'm used to having file-completion on the TAB key, not halfway across the world on F8/F9 (Is JP Software affiliated with WordPerfect corp? :) ) Does anyone know of a patch that will allow me to move these functions where I expect them? The second big problem is the lack of help file source. Ok, I can get the source AFTER I register AND pay extra $....not that unreasonable, but I support an installation with fairly extensive help additions. My users will not be happy when I a) give them a new help system and b) Take away the help entries for local progs. Thus my evaluation of 4dos is hampered by the inability to determine how much work/how successful a port of my TopDOS help files to 4dos will be. help "source" (really just 'clear text') and the help make utility seem like they should be included in the distribution package. I've no qualms about paying for real source code, but until the 4dos distribution, I'd never considered un-indexed text files 'source'. (After all my beloved TopDOS comes with the utility to turn plain ASCII files into .HLP files. TopDOS is admittedly payware, but it takes 39k as opposed to 75k... for those of us who are annoyed by swapping the command processor to disk all the time - or support [ugh!] floppy-only systems.) Richard Solomon solomon@owlnet.rice.edu