mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale) (06/22/89)
Hi everybody Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 S.Bale.
chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (06/22/89)
In article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale) writes: > Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 If you will define `word processor', we might be able to answer. My favourite definition is: A food processor does to food what a word processor does to words. Now, if you want to do fine typesetting, rather than slice-n-dice words, TeX, LaTeX, and troff are all available. 4.2BSD does not come with the first two, but they can be obtained cheaply (typically for the price of a trip to the neighbouring University, where they already have one). -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris
tjo@Fulcrum.BT.CO.UK (Tim Oldham) (06/23/89)
In article <18218@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: >My favourite definition [of `word processor'] is: > > A food processor does to food what a word processor does to > words. Is this why editors run in uncooked mode? What does this make the cooked mode line editors? What mode would a fridge run in? :-) Sorry, I just couldn't resist that one. Tim. -- Tim Oldham tjo@fulcrum.bt.co.uk or ...!mcvax!ukc!axion!fulcrum!tjo #include <stdisclaim> Why have coffee, when caffeine tastes this good?
dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) (06/23/89)
From article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, by mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale): > Hi everybody > > Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 Nothing WYSIWYG (thank goodness :-) ) Try ?roff (nroff, troff, roff, ptroff, glorkroff, ......) -- dg@lakart.UUCP - David Goodenough +---+ IHS | +-+-+ ....... !harvard!xait!lakart!dg +-+-+ | AKA: dg%lakart.uucp@xait.xerox.com +---+
dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) (06/27/89)
From David Goodenough: >From article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, by mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale): >> Hi everybody >> >> Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 > >Nothing WYSIWYG (thank goodness :-) ) >Try ?roff (nroff, troff, roff, ptroff, glorkroff, ......) >-- >dg@lakart.UUCP - David Goodenough OK, *roff will *format* most anything I want. But what about a friendly, near-modeless, full-screen editor? Like WordPerfect, frinstance? And for that matter, what the hell's wrong with WYSIWYG, other than being a greatly overworked buzzword? Some of the tools available to PC's and (ick..) MAC's are not only useful, but powerful. Why should UNIX be denied the same tools? Dave dbell@cup.portal.com
seth@ctr.columbia.edu (Seth Robertson) (06/28/89)
In article <19907@cup.portal.com> dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: >From David Goodenough: > >>From article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, by mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale): >>> Hi everybody >>> Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 >> >>Nothing WYSIWYG (thank goodness :-) ) >>Try ?roff (nroff, troff, roff, ptroff, glorkroff, ......) > >OK, *roff will *format* most anything I want. But what about a friendly, >near-modeless, full-screen editor? Like WordPerfect, frinstance? And for >that matter, what the hell's wrong with WYSIWYG, other than being a greatly >overworked buzzword? Some of the tools available to PC's and (ick..) MAC's >are not only useful, but powerful. Why should UNIX be denied the same tools? The actual reason why there are no WordPerfect-like (or WYSIWYG-like) editors on BSD or SV or SunOS is because ASCII terminals can't do graphics (like fonts or scaling or most anything). Sun has quite a few products (notably Frame, and now SunWrite) that have stepped in to fill this gap, but they only work on the console, not on any terminals that you happen to have lying around. This is true on all Unix machine. PCs and (ick) MAC's don't use dumb ttys, they use (usually) bitmapped terminals. -- -Seth Robertson seth@ctr.columbia.edu
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (06/28/89)
In article <19907@cup.portal.com> dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: >And for that matter, what the hell's wrong with WYSIWYG, ... ? Primarily, what one sees on a terminal display is not necessarily appropriate for other output devices. The DWB and TEX approach (embedded formatter commands) supports near-optimal output matched to any device, whereas page layout approaches force the output to be the same for all devices. Depending on what you're trying to do, that may or may not be appropriate.
bbs@nebulus.UUCP (Unix Access Bulletin Bord) (06/28/89)
In article <1989Jun28.044952.7861@ctr.columbia.edu>, seth@ctr.columbia.edu (Seth Robertson) writes: > In article <19907@cup.portal.com> dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: > >From David Goodenough: > >>> Hi everybody > >>> Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 > >> > >>Nothing WYSIWYG (thank goodness :-) ) > > > The actual reason why there are no WordPerfect-like (or WYSIWYG-like) > editors on BSD or SV or SunOS is because ASCII terminals can't do > graphics (like fonts or scaling or most anything). > Am I missing something? I was under the impression that Word Perfect was available for UNIX systems (System V anyways). Also, there are a number of other packages commercially available that allow full screen word processor type functions. Crystalwriter is one, and I think MS Word is even available for UNIX (Again, System V, I don't know what's available for BSD) While it's true that ASCII Terminals cant do graphics like a PC, they can do the basic ANSI graphics set (Most of the common terminals anyway) and that is really all that is necessary for a word processing package. Doing things like fonts and scaling as such is more a Desktop Publishing application, but that's another story (Sigh). There may even be Desktop Publishing packages available for specific terminal types available, I don't know... Regards, Richard Meesters
friedl@vsi.COM (Stephen J. Friedl) (06/29/89)
In article <19907@cup.portal.com>, dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: > > OK, *roff will *format* most anything I want. But what about a friendly, > near-modeless, full-screen editor? Like WordPerfect, frinstance? [ praise-and-hype-mode ON ] We have been using WordPerfect for UNIX on the 3B2 and 386, and we have been absolutely delighted with it. WP Corp did an excellent job maintaining the look-and-feel of the DOS version while still giving it a solid UNIX flavor. They support lots of terminals%, and they even have real plastic keyboard overlays for them. It appears that the files are compatible with those on a DOS machine (determined empirically), and it is reasonably fast. This is a very professional implementation, and it does not bode well for the other UNIX word processors. Steve -- Stephen J. Friedl / V-Systems, Inc. / Santa Ana, CA / +1 714 545 6442 3B2-kind-of-guy / friedl@vsi.com / {attmail, uunet, etc}!vsi!friedl ---> vsi!bang!friedl <-- NEW "Friends don't let friends run Xenix" - me
clewis@eci386.uucp (Chris Lewis) (07/01/89)
In article <1989Jun28.044952.7861@ctr.columbia.edu> seth@ctr.columbia.edu (Seth Robertson) writes: >The actual reason why there are no WordPerfect-like (or WYSIWYG-like) >editors on BSD or SV or SunOS is because ASCII terminals can't do >graphics (like fonts or scaling or most anything). Neither can WordPerfect. [ sizzle ;-) In 4.2 WP you get 8 fonts. Different sizes count as different fonts. 3 of them are usually landscape. Proportional printing works *only* in *one* font at *one* size. WP files are really difficult to make reasonably printer independent (eg: different indents on every printer). I'll take ed, nroff and an ASR33 (well, almost an ASR33...) to WP 4.2 any day.] Actually, there are lots of WYSIWYG-like editors available on UNIX - Lyrix, CrystalWriter, LEX (gag), Qoffice (gag. gag.) SunOS now even has a MacWrite clone. Hell, you can even get WordPerfect 4.2 on a UNIX box! -- Chris Lewis, R.H. Lathwell & Associates: Elegant Communications Inc. UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis Phone: (416)-595-5425
woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) (07/05/89)
In article <1140@vsi.COM> friedl@vsi.COM (Stephen J. Friedl) writes: > In article <19907@cup.portal.com>, dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: > > > > OK, *roff will *format* most anything I want. But what about a friendly, > > near-modeless, full-screen editor? Like WordPerfect, frinstance? > > [ praise-and-hype-mode ON ] [ Hmm... I guess I should say I ususally avoid word-processors at all cost in the first place. ] > We have been using WordPerfect for UNIX on the 3B2 and 386, and > we have been absolutely delighted with it. WP Corp did an > excellent job maintaining the look-and-feel of the DOS version > while still giving it a solid UNIX flavor. They support lots of > terminals%, and they even have real plastic keyboard overlays for > them. It appears that the files are compatible with those on a > DOS machine (determined empirically), and it is reasonably fast. > > This is a very professional implementation, and it does not bode > well for the other UNIX word processors. WordPerfect (4.2 on Unix) may be great for former WP users, and it doesn't mess with "unix" _too_ much, BUT.... WP4.2 is an absolute PAIN when it comes to re-configuring for un-supported terminals and printers. The so-called "friendly", menu-based configuration programmes have wasted more of my time than I care to think about. I will NEVER again attempt to re-configure WP for any unsupported terminal or printer. If it don't work, I'll send it back. WP Corp. did not attempt to use either termcap, or terminfo, and as such, twice as much work is required when configuring terminals, often with 90% of the extra time spent fighting with WP Corp's strange view of terminals, and their time-consuming configuration programme. If only they had used native curses, with potential extensions, or re-implemented curses, but use the same database (either termcap, or preferably terminfo) (again with potential extensions).... You can't tell me curses can't do it, 'cause I've done even more with curses! As for printer configuration, though their database seems quite capable of describing a miriad of different printers and options, they end up not using 90% of the functionality of better printers (i.e. HP LJ) [ perhaps the formatter is broke? ]. They would have been by far better off implementing printcap for those systems without. Again the configuration programme is more hindrance than help. As for being a good "word-processor", WP is severely limited in scope compared to something like *roff, or TeX. WP's menu's and function keys are only slightly less confusing than any other word-processor I've used, with MS-Word beating it by a mile. Word, on the other hand, is quicker to frustrate an expert user. As for being fast, I'll give it that, but at the same time I'm going to call it a bigger memory and CPU hog than GNU-Emacs. Mind you, I compared it to an older version (17.52, I think) on an NCR Tower 32/600. I did no comparison between WP's formatter and troff. Now, to really get up on my soap-box, I say that any reasonably intelligent person can create better looking documents, in less time, with less training, using troff or TeX, than is possible with a "modern" word-processor. I will assure you that people can be taught ed and troff in less time than it takes to teach the WP menu structure and basic WP editing and formatting. The reall problem comes when you try to train someone who has pre-conceived notions about the task of electronic document production. [ Anyone got a WP->*roff xlator? :-( ] -- Greg A. Woods woods@{{utgpu,eci386,ontmoh,tmsoft}.UUCP,gpu.utcs.UToronto.CA,utorgpu.BITNET} +1-416-443-1734 [h] +1-416-595-5425 [w] Toronto, Ontario CANADA
larry@macom1.UUCP (Larry Taborek) (07/05/89)
From article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, by mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale): > Hi everybody > > Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 > > S.Bale. Yes, its called 'vi'. -- Larry Taborek ..!uunet!grebyn!macom1!larry Centel Federal Systems larry@macom1.UUCP 11400 Commerce Park Drive Reston, VA 22091-1506 703-758-7000
dgp@ncsc1.ATT.COM (Dennis Pelton x8876) (07/07/89)
In article <1989Jul4.233559.17107@eci386.uucp>, woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) writes: > I will assure you that people > can be taught ed and troff in less time than it takes to teach > the WP menu structure and basic WP editing and formatting. The > reall problem comes when you try to train someone who has > pre-conceived notions about the task of electronic document > production. > > woods@{{utgpu,eci386,ontmoh,tmsoft}.UUCP,gpu.utcs.UToronto.CA,utorgpu.BITNET} But these days almost everyone, certainly everyone who works in an office, has pre-conceived notions about word-processors. In particular, almost everyone thinks that their favorite (or most recent) w-p is the best and that every other w-p should act like *that*. Dennis Pelton Disclaimer: AT&T has its ideas, and I have mine. I don't claim theirs and they don't claim mine.
uri@arnor.UUCP (Uri Blumenthal) (07/07/89)
From article <4856@macom1.UUCP>, by larry@macom1.UUCP (Larry Taborek): > From article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, by mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale): >> Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 >> > Yes, its called 'vi'. > Great. And it has all those fancy fonts, it can format the text in two columns and make a lot of other things usual WP's do? Or you'll tell that I need also troff, fonts for it (who knows where from), special previewer and so on? Uri.
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (07/07/89)
In article <248@arnor.UUCP> uri@arnor.UUCP (Uri Blumenthal) writes: >From article <4856@macom1.UUCP>, by larry@macom1.UUCP (Larry Taborek): >> From article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, by mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale): >>> Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 >> Yes, its called 'vi'. >Great. And it has all those fancy fonts, it can format the text in >two columns and make a lot of other things usual WP's do? Or you'll >tell that I need also troff, fonts for it (who knows where from), >special previewer and so on? This is getting pretty silly. The original question was too vague -- just what was the term "word processor" supposed to denote? UNIX comes standard with a variety of text editors suitable for editing any text file that conforms to normal UNIX conventions. Special-purpose files require special-purpose software. WYSIWYG formatters are available as third-party software; the (fairly) "standard" UNIX formatting facilities rely on embedded formatter commands (which can be edited with a standard system text editor), with formatting performed separately to map the common formatter input text file onto a variety of different output media without requiring any changes in the input file to accommodate output device characteristics, something WYSIWYG formatters cannot do. On the other hand, the separate formatter and device translator approach can come close to WYSIWYG, by running a "if file changes, reformat it" loop as one layer (window) process while you're editing in another layer process. I do that frequently, using "cip" to interactively draw diagrams, and so forth. If you have the tools and know how to use them my opinion is that the standard UNIX approach beats WYSIWYG hands down.
irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide') (07/07/89)
In article <248@arnor.UUCP> uri@arnor.UUCP (Uri Blumenthal) writes: >From article <4856@macom1.UUCP>, by larry@macom1.UUCP (Larry Taborek): >> From article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, by mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale): >>> Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 >>> >> Yes, its called 'vi'. >> >Great. And it has all those fancy fonts, it can format the text in >two columns and make a lot of other things usual WP's do? Or you'll >tell that I need also troff, fonts for it (who knows where from), >special previewer and so on? > >Uri. We bought the UNIX release of 'WordPerfect' for one of our HP9000/300 boxes running HP-UX. It's really the 4.2 version but it utilizes the fact that it runs in a UNIX environment and therefore has extra capabilities compared to the PC version (up to 9 -sic- documents at the same time, a few 'vi'-isms thrown in etc.) I don't know whether 'WordPerfect', in your eyes, qualifies as a "WP", but if it does, you should be able to get it for a BSD Unix too. Contact the nearest 'WordPerfect' representative or dealer. If you belong to an educational institution you will get 'WordPerfect' for half the PC version price! In my eyes 'vi' is much more fleixble, competent and clever than 'WordPerfect' and the better "WP" of the two so I stick to 'vi' ... :-) This is my personal opinion - no flames, please.
ck@voa3.UUCP (Chris Kern) (07/08/89)
In article <10507@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: > > . . . the (fairly) "standard" UNIX formatting facilities >rely on embedded formatter commands (which can be edited with a standard >system text editor), with formatting performed separately to map the >common formatter input text file onto a variety of different output >media without requiring any changes in the input file to accommodate >output device characteristics, something WYSIWYG formatters cannot do. If WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") word-processing software is sensibly designed, it should not be necessary to alter the input file to accommodate different output devices. The word processor can emit an intermediate object file in a page description language. Then it becomes the responsibility of the program that drives the output device to crack the format of the intermediate file. This approach may add some overhead, but it has compensating advantages. Word processors, or other programs that prepare files that are intended to be printed, need only know how to produce one object file format, regardless of the variety of available printers. Printers (or the software that drives them) need only understand a single input format, no matter how many different programs are used to prepare input files. -- Chris Kern Voice of America, Washington, D.C. ...uunet!voa3!ck 202-485-7020
bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (07/09/89)
>From article <4856@macom1.UUCP>, by larry@macom1.UUCP (Larry Taborek): >> From article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, by mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale): >>> Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 >>> >> Yes, its called 'vi'. >> >Great. And it has all those fancy fonts, it can format the text in >two columns and make a lot of other things usual WP's do? Or you'll >tell that I need also troff, fonts for it (who knows where from), >special previewer and so on? > >Uri. *OH*, YoU /m/u/s/t/ be |one| of those FoNt-WeEnieS who would .s.e.n.d me those "RaNsoM-nOtE" format M!E!M!O!S. Word-processing and desk-top publishing are two different things. Unfortunately some folks like to turn memo-writing into a video arcade game. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade 1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 Internet: bzs@skuld.std.com UUCP: encore!xylogics!skuld!bzs or uunet!skuld!bzs
uri@arnor.UUCP (Uri Blumenthal) (07/10/89)
From article <10507@smoke.BRL.MIL>, by gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn): > This is getting pretty silly. Well, I'll not discuss this. > If you have the tools and know how to use them > my opinion is that the standard UNIX approach beats WYSIWYG hands down. It doesn't seem to work for end users at all, and some programmers (as I noticed) also don't reject additional convenient tools, no matter - can the job be done with conventional tools or not. Uri.
dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi) (07/11/89)
In article <1044@kuling.UUCP> irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide') writes: >We bought the UNIX release of 'WordPerfect' for one of our HP9000/300 >boxes running HP-UX. It's really the 4.2 version but it utilizes the >fact that it runs in a UNIX environment and therefore has extra capabilities >compared to the PC version (up to 9 -sic- documents at the same time, a >few 'vi'-isms thrown in etc.) I have a couple of complaints about these statements. Minor nit: Up to 9 documents at the same time is easily achievable under MS-DOS. I do it all the time with BRIEF, and even the small, QEDIT lets me edit multiple files. If WordPerfect doesn't do it under MS-DOS, it is WordPerfect's fault, not MS-DOS's fault. Major nit: It is theoretically *impossible* for a general terminal- independent version of WordPerfect to exist under UNIX. After extensive research I have determined that WordPerfect *cannot exist* unless you have all or most of F1..F10, Ctrl-F1..Ctrl-F10, Alt-F1..Alt-F10, and Shift-F1..Shift-F10 keys available. Since most terminals used for UNIX do not have such keys at all, the conclusion follows. What you used under UNIX may have been called WordPerfect, but it was something else. -- Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> UUCP: ...!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi
lwilson@umabco.UUCP (Lowell G. Wilson) (07/11/89)
In article <8161@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi) writes: > Major nit: It is theoretically *impossible* for a general terminal- > independent version of WordPerfect to exist under UNIX. After > extensive research I have determined that WordPerfect *cannot exist* > unless you have all or most of F1..F10, Ctrl-F1..Ctrl-F10, > Alt-F1..Alt-F10, and Shift-F1..Shift-F10 keys available... > -- > Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> > UUCP: ...!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi We had a chance to evaluate WordPerfect for Unix and there were some problems in this regard. At that time (last winter) the folks at WP were still working out some terminal definition problems and so we who participated in the evaluation had to use Kermit with a special .ini file which reconfigured all of the function keys so that they would send out the sort of codes you mention above. For evaluation purposes we had no problem with that since all of the testers were users of Kermit anyway. But there are a lot of people on our campus who use Procomm, Reflections (we're a multi-system environment and people tend to stick with the terminal emualation software they use for the system they spend the most time on), and so on and so forth. In fact, that was the reason we decided to pass on the Unix version of WP. Does anyone know if the final release has addressed these problems? There are a LOT of terminals out there, not to mention emulation packages... -- Lowell Wilson : Sinecure III University of Maryland at Baltimore Information Resources Mgt Division UUCP: ...cvl!umabco!lwilson Internet: umabco!lwilson@cvl.umd.edu
wnp@attctc.DALLAS.TX.US (Wolf Paul) (07/11/89)
In article <268@arnor.UUCP> uri@arnor.UUCP (Uri Blumenthal) writes: >From article <10507@smoke.BRL.MIL>, by gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn): >> If you have the tools and know how to use them >> my opinion is that the standard UNIX approach beats WYSIWYG hands down. > >It doesn't seem to work for end users at all, and some programmers (as I >noticed) also don't reject additional convenient tools, no matter - can >the job be done with conventional tools or not. It doesn't work for endusers because the sysadmin isn't doing his job. It took me all of fifteen minutes to write a shell script tieing together vi and troff so as to produce a word processor my wife feels comfortable with. And she's no hacker. There is nothing wrong with using available tools even if they are not part of the standard UNIX environment -- the problem is with your tone of poo-pooing those who feel that the standard UNIX tools are adequate. It likely takes as much work to set up a DOS-style wordprocessor on a UNIX system as it does to set up troff fonts, so your preference is not intrinsically better or more intelligent than sticking with UNIX tools. -- Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101 UUCP: {texbell, attctc, dalsqnt}!dcs!wnp DOMAIN: wnp@attctc.dallas.tx.us or wnp%dcs@texbell.swbt.com NOTICE: As of July 3, 1989, "killer" has become "attctc".
soley@moegate.UUCP (Norman S. Soley) (07/11/89)
In article <8161@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi) writes: >In article <1044@kuling.UUCP> irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide') writes: >>We bought the UNIX release of 'WordPerfect' for one of our HP9000/300 >>boxes running HP-UX. > >Major nit: It is theoretically *impossible* for a general terminal- >independent version of WordPerfect to exist under UNIX. After >extensive research I have determined that WordPerfect *cannot exist* >unless you have all or most of F1..F10, Ctrl-F1..Ctrl-F10, >Alt-F1..Alt-F10, and Shift-F1..Shift-F10 keys available. Since most >terminals used for UNIX do not have such keys at all, the conclusion >follows. What you used under UNIX may have been called WordPerfect, >but it was something else. Hmm.. seems funny but I've got a software package here that has a label on it that says WordPerfect, the address in the manual is the same as the one in the PC manual and golly gee, it certianly feels like WordPerfect 4.2 to me. It works on my VT102 terminal just fine thanks, sure the command keys have moved around a little, ALT-F1 becomes PF1,Keypad1 and my extensive research indicates that yes there are some terminals that just aren't up to the task. I'm disappointed that Rahul, who usually seems to know what's going on, can be so wrong with so much authority. Then again it used to be widely believed that it was theoretically *impossible* for the honey-bee to fly... -- Norman Soley - The Communications Guy - Ontario Ministry of the Environment soley@moegate.UUCP or if you roll your own: uunet!attcan!ncrcan!moegate!soley The Minister speaks for the Ministry, I speak for myself. Got that! Good. Head for the hills - The shriners are coming, the shriners are coming
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (07/12/89)
In article <8161@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi) writes: > After extensive research I have determined that WordPerfect *cannot exist* > unless you have all or most of F1..F10, Ctrl-F1..Ctrl-F10, [etc...] What, you mean like Emacs can't exist unless you have a meta-key that sets the bucky bit on all characters? -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | Th-th-th-that's all folks... Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' | -- Mel Blanc Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U` | May 30 1908 - Jul 10 1989
clewis@eci386.uucp (Chris Lewis) (07/12/89)
In article <248@arnor.UUCP> uri@arnor.UUCP (Uri Blumenthal) writes: >From article <4856@macom1.UUCP>, by larry@macom1.UUCP (Larry Taborek): >> From article <7868@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>, by mysore@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Swamy Bale): >>> Just wondering, is there any word processor utility in UNIX bsd 4.2 >> Yes, its called 'vi'. >Great. And it has all those fancy fonts, it can format the text in >two columns and make a lot of other things usual WP's do? Or you'll >tell that I need also troff, fonts for it (who knows where from), >special previewer and so on? a) depends on what you mean by "usual WP's". The most popular so-called WP's (eg: wordstar, msword, wordperfect, etc.) don't have "fancy fonts". They can lay out Courier fonts okay, but have very limited capabilities with proportional - especially with multiple point sizes. b) BSD is bundled with nroff, troff, tbl, eqn, and various printer support depending on the version of BSD (versatec fonts,ditroff etc. etc.) And is either available or already bundled in almost every other version of *nix. What's the problem? c) Documents are portable across many machines (try printing a wordperfect document on an IBM mainframe!). And there are several companies with extensions. Bundled with DOS you only get EDLIN. -- Chris Lewis, R.H. Lathwell & Associates: Elegant Communications Inc. UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis Phone: (416)-595-5425
mchinni@pica.army.mil (Michael J. Chinni, SMCAR-CCS-E) (07/12/89)
In an article discussing WordPerfect under UNIX Rahul Dhese writes: > Major nit: It is theoretically *impossible* for a general terminal- > independent version of WordPerfect to exist under UNIX. After > extensive research I have determined that WordPerfect *cannot exist* > unless you have all or most of F1..F10, Ctrl-F1..Ctrl-F10, > Alt-F1..Alt-F10, and Shift-F1..Shift-F10 keys available. Since most > terminals used for UNIX do not have such keys at all, the conclusion > follows. What you used under UNIX may have been called WordPerfect, > but it was something else. I disagree. I think that the product is defined by what it does/allows you to do, INDEPENDENT of the set of keys you use. We have WordMarc Composer on both PCs and under UNIX. Under UNIX the keys to be used ARE on a standard keyboard. The keys used by the PC version do indeed use the function-keys plain, ctrl'ed, Alt'ed, and Shift'ed, but the UNIX version uses escape sequences and ctrl sequences. Does the difference in the keys used mean that the products are NOT the same? I think not. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Michael J. Chinni Chief Scientist, Simulation Techniques and Workplace Automation Team US Army Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center User to skeleton sitting at cobweb () Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey and dust covered workstation () ARPA: mchinni@pica.army.mil "System been down long?" () UUCP: ...!uunet!pica.army.mil!mchinni /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
rg@psgdc (Dick Gill) (07/13/89)
In article <330@umabco.UUCP> lwilson@umabco.UUCP (Lowell G. Wilson) writes: >We had a chance to evaluate WordPerfect for Unix and there were some >problems in this regard.... > [text deleted] >... Does anyone know if the >final release has addressed these problems? There are a LOT of >terminals out there, not to mention emulation packages... >-- >Lowell Wilson : Sinecure III University of Maryland at Baltimore > Information Resources Mgt Division > UUCP: ...cvl!umabco!lwilson > Internet: umabco!lwilson@cvl.umd.edu We are dealers for the Unix version of Word Perfect; we have installations on NCR Towers, and have just begun to offer the product on the IBM-RT. The product now seems to work well IF it is set-up correctly with `full featured' terminals. If, for example, you have a Wyse-60 or Wyse-150, you can expect the same extensive function key capabilities as in the PC version (function keys F14, F15 and F16 are used instead of Alt, Ctrl, etc.) even though the specific keystrokes to do a task are not the same as on the PC. Also, on these terminals underlined and bold text will display correctly. Although we don't use them, I understand that VT-100 and VT-220 terminals and (faithful) emulators also work correctly. Of course, noone should expect that the Unix implementation will deliver the same responsiveness, color and graphics capabilities as Word Perfect on a PC; maybe in the future, but certainly not now! Dick -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dick Gill Professional Solutions Group (703)761-1163 ..uunet!psgdc!rg
jos@idca.tds.PHILIPS.nl (Jos Vos) (07/13/89)
In article <228@psgdc> rg@psgdc.UUCP (Dick Gill) writes: >We are dealers for the Unix version of Word Perfect; we have >installations on NCR Towers, and have just begun to offer the >product on the IBM-RT. >..... Of course, noone should expect that the Unix >implementation will deliver the same responsiveness, color and >graphics capabilities as Word Perfect on a PC; maybe in the >future, but certainly not now! Why not? The reason can't be that no fast UNIX workstations with enough color-graphics capabilities exist... And the reason can't certainly be that MS-DOS is just a better OS than UNIX... :-) Anyway, WP is one of the first succesfull PC packages that has made the step to UNIX. Congratulations. Who follows? -- -- ###### Jos Vos ###### Internet jos@idca.tds.philips.nl ###### -- ###### ###### UUCP ...!mcvax!philapd!jos ######
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (07/13/89)
In article <1989Jul11.192542.13711@eci386.uucp> clewis@eci386.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes: >a) depends on what you mean by "usual WP's". The most popular so-called > WP's (eg: wordstar, msword, wordperfect, etc.) don't have "fancy > fonts". They can lay out Courier fonts okay, but have very > limited capabilities with proportional - especially with multiple > point sizes. Perhaps you haven't looked at these programs for a year or two. The current PC and Mac (word & wp) versions do indeed handle proportional fonts, multiple sizes and imbedded graphics. They have a semi-wysiwyg mode for reasonable speed while typing plus a graphic page preview, and drivers for hundreds of printers. >b) BSD is bundled with nroff, troff, tbl, eqn, and various printer > support depending on the version of BSD (versatec fonts,ditroff etc. etc.) > And is either available or already bundled in almost every other version > of *nix. What's the problem? It's easy to hire a temp who knows Wordperfect. Can you say the same about the unix tools? >c) Documents are portable across many machines (try printing > a wordperfect document on an IBM mainframe!). And there are several > companies with extensions. Wordperfect is available for IBM mainframes (I think it is currently only version 4.2 though). >Bundled with DOS you only get EDLIN. And the $50 or so you pay for DOS leaves a bit left over to buy the word processor of your choice compared to the price of unix. Unfortunately you also have to buy a network to approach the functionality in other areas. Les Mikesell
rg@psgdc (Dick Gill) (07/14/89)
In article <1143@ssp15.idca.tds.philips.nl> jos@idca.tds.PHILIPS.nl (Jos Vos) writes: >In article <228@psgdc> rg@psgdc.UUCP (Dick Gill) writes: > > [text zapped] > >>..... Of course, noone should expect that the Unix >>implementation will deliver the same responsiveness, color and >>graphics capabilities as Word Perfect on a PC; maybe in the >>future, but certainly not now! > >Why not? The reason can't be that no fast UNIX workstations >with enough color-graphics capabilities exist... > The problem in our world is price. A couple thousand bucks buys an EGA/VGA PC that offers very snappy response with Word Perfect along with color and (limited) graphics; a UNIX workstation with color-graphics is way out of the price range (although demonstrably superior for more challenging tasks). >And the reason can't certainly be that MS-DOS is just a better >OS than UNIX... :-) Verrrry unlikely! However, let's give credit where due; PC's with software like Word Perfect deliver a good product for the money. For the long run, however, we are banking on UNIX boxes to provide some intelligent connection point for the not-so-bright PC's. >Anyway, WP is one of the first succesfull PC packages that has made >the step to UNIX. Congratulations. Who follows? Many good vendors already have or are in the process. Now if someone can deliver a high quality color terminal with (some) graphics at a list price in the hundreds of dollars .... -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dick Gill Professional Solutions Group (703)761-1163 ..uunet!psgdc!rg
todd@stiatl.UUCP (Todd Merriman) (07/15/89)
In article <1989Jul11.192542.13711@eci386.uucp> clewis@eci386.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes: > WP's (eg: wordstar, msword, wordperfect, etc.) don't have "fancy > fonts". They can lay out Courier fonts okay, but have very > limited capabilities with proportional - especially with multiple > point sizes. The above statement is not true. I am licensed with MS-Word 5.0, and downloadable fonts are handled quite elegantly on supported printers (such as LaserJet II, as I have). You also have the additional capability of viewing the layout of your document before you print it. Comparing MS-Word to *any* Unix word processor is folly: it is so superior that it is incomparable. ...!gatech!stiatl!todd Todd Merriman * 404-377-TOFU * Atlanta, GA
chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (07/15/89)
In article <5794@stiatl.UUCP> todd@stiatl.UUCP (Todd Merriman) writes: >... Comparing MS-Word to *any* Unix word >processor is folly: it is so superior that it is incomparable. I have only one question: can it print the same document in draft (proof) mode on a 300 dpi laser printer and then (assuming it looks good) on an APS typesetter, Merganthaler, or other reasonable first step for offset printing? -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris
gaggy@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US (Gregory Gulik) (07/15/89)
All this discussion about Wordperfect and [nt]roff is just fine and dandy, but I think the original question wasn't completely answered. And, if it was, let me rephrase it... Are there any word processors for UNIX that are BOTH user friendly AND *cheap*? There are two main problems with nroff and WP. nroff: Hard to use. Yeah, I know, a pro can whip out a document in a matter of seconds. I've heard that one a million times. But, let's say you would like to do something not very common, would you prefer to dig through your thick UNIX manuals, or traverse a couple menus to find what you want? WP: EXPENSIVE! Yes, maybe a company CAN afford to buy it for every one of it's users, but there are poor UNIX people out in the real world. Yes, us students dont' exactly have $1000+ to shell out for the program. (Hey, the PC version is still pretty expensive) But, enough said, let's return to this wonderful discussion! -greg -- Gregory A. Gulik Phone: (312) 825-2435 8145 Root Court E-Mail: ...!jolnet!gaggy || ...!chinet!gag Niles, IL 60648 || gulik@depaul.edu || gulik@iwlcs.att.com "Legalize Assasinations!"
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (07/15/89)
In article <1111@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US> gaggy@jolnet.UUCP (Gregory Gulik) writes: > But, let's say you would like to do something not very common, > would you prefer to dig through your thick UNIX manuals, > or traverse a couple menus to find what you want? More than likely, you'd traverse your WP menus and discover that the menu designer had never anticipated your need; at least, that's a common failing of these "user-friendly" interfaces. [tn]roff's programming language is horrible, but at least it IS programmable.
elgie@canisius.UUCP (Bill Elgie) (07/17/89)
In article <18563@mimsy.UUCP>, chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: > In article <5794@stiatl.UUCP> todd@stiatl.UUCP (Todd Merriman) writes: > >... Comparing MS-Word to *any* Unix word > >processor is folly: it is so superior that it is incomparable. > > I have only one question: can it print the same document in draft > (proof) mode on a 300 dpi laser printer and then (assuming it looks > good) on an APS typesetter, Merganthaler, or other reasonable > first step for offset printing? > -- ... provided one has the need to do so ( many of us, with tight budgets, rarely do). greg pavlov (under borrowed account), fstrf, amherst, ny
loo@mister-curious.sw.mcc.com (Joel Loo) (07/18/89)
In article <1111@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US> gaggy@jolnet.UUCP (Gregory Gulik) writes: >There are two main problems with nroff and WP. > >nroff: Hard to use. Yeah, I know, a pro can whip out a document in > a matter of seconds. This is partly true. Ask a pro to start from scratch to whip out document and he will probably take hours. Pros can use *roff or TeX to produce documents in a short time because they have a collection of templates files (or old *roff/TeX files) for them to choose and modify from. Perhaps some kind souls will care to post some useful templates (e.g. letters, reports, tables etc). > would you prefer to dig through your thick UNIX manuals, > or traverse a couple menus to find what you want? Starting from templates files might be much easier than traversing menus in WYSIWYG word processors. I use LaTeX for writing reports. I modify old reports to get new ones all the time (except the first time of course.) Before LaTeX, I was using MS WORD. It takes me approx half to one-third the time to prepare a standard report in LaTeX now. I am totally satisfied. Everybody should try *roff or *TeX. If you are not satisfied, it is always easy to switch back. - Joel
woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) (07/18/89)
In article <1111@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US> gaggy@jolnet.UUCP (Gregory Gulik) writes: > > nroff: Hard to use. Yeah, I know, a pro can whip out a document in > a matter of seconds. I've heard that one a million times. > But, let's say you would like to do something not very common, > would you prefer to dig through your thick UNIX manuals, > or traverse a couple menus to find what you want? And to become a "pro" at typing simple *roff documents, using a good quick-reference card, takes a couple of hours. As has been said, the menu's probably won't let you do something uncommon in the first place. The DWB documentation and the plethora of other publications about *roff will provide a vast body of knowledge from which to draw, and will help you do almost anything imaginable. Perpetuating the myth (YES MYTH) about Unix documentation doesn't help any. Neither does perpetuating the myth that people will not read a manual or book to learn about something they want to do. > WP: EXPENSIVE! Yes, maybe a company CAN afford to buy it for > every one of it's users, but there are poor UNIX people > out in the real world. Yes, us students dont' exactly have > $1000+ to shell out for the program. (Hey, the PC version > is still pretty expensive) How true. $3,500.00CDN for WP for an NCR Tower 32/600. But DWB is usually quite inexpensive, if not already bundled with your system. Of course some people find vi so repulsive they'd rather use ed! I don't know why a simple full screen editor is not a standard part of Unix yet. Perhaps it should even have Wordstar key-bindings as the default, with Emacs as an option. I've also seen the objection against *roff because of the ease of hiring people already trained with WP. Why not re-train them. The experience will undoubtably help raise their understanding of computers. If you can't train a person to use *roff in a very short time, they probably shouldn't be attempting to do that kind of a job at this time. The big stumbling block is often the simple act of entering the text to be word-processed. Again, a simple full screen editor bundled with Unix would help tremendously. Perhaps Jove, or MicroEmacs (gag!) are good alternatives. [ 1/2 :-) ] NOTE: You could probably substitute TeK for *roff, and many probably will! :-) -- Greg A. Woods woods@{eci386,gate,robohack,ontmoh,tmsoft,gpu.utcs.UToronto.CA,utorgpu.BITNET} +1-416-443-1734 [h] +1-416-595-5425 [w] Toronto, Ontario CANADA
chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (07/18/89)
In article <1989Jul17.211715.6273@eci386.uucp> woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) writes: >... to become a "pro" at typing simple *roff documents, using a >good quick-reference card, takes a couple of hours. As has been >said, the menu's probably won't let you do something uncommon in >the first place. The DWB documentation and the plethora of other >publications about *roff will provide a vast body of knowledge >from which to draw, and will help you do almost anything >imaginable. This is true. n/troff's major failing, though, is (in my opinion) in its blind acceptance of virtually arbitrary input. If you feed it modem-noise, it will produce *something*; the only question is what. n/troff is simply not helpful enough at pointing out errors. (Its next-down failing is that it sets type line-by-line, which makes it hard to prevent bad hyphenation, widows, clubs, and the like. TeX typesets things a page at a time [approximately] and can do a better job, although chapter-at-a-time would be better yet.) >I've also seen the objection against *roff because of the ease of >hiring people already trained with WP. Why not re-train them. >The experience will undoubtably help raise their understanding of >computers. The type of manager who hires `word processor' temporaries typically is disinterested in raising his% hirelings' understandings. Also, many people---particularly those in secretarial positions---seem to have `compuphobia'. They fix the idea `I can't program computers' (despite the fact that they do it every time they set their digital alarm clocks) and have to be fooled into it (`this ain't a computer, it's a Word Processor'). Unfortunately, this approach seems to work as well as more direct education---at least at first. (Indeed, from some points of view, it may work better, as it leaves behind a pool of people with limited skills, who will still be there next time they are needed.) ----- % I get the feeling some might object to `her'. Perhaps no one would object to the non-animist pronoun (`its'). ----- >The big stumbling block is often the simple act of entering the >text to be word-processed. [a good screen editor, by which he means >`not vi'] bundled with Unix would help tremendously. Maybe; maybe not. One of the big advantages of WYSIWYG `word processors' here is that the typist gets immediate feedback, not only of the text being entered, but also of the control operations. By definition, that feedback will always be missing from `batch formatters'. On the other hand, WYSIWYG systems tend to lack structural feedback. For some purposes this is fine, and word processors do have their places. For others---including letter- writing, which is one of those `business applications'---reusability and skipping irrelevant details are important; structure-oriented batch formatters win here. (`.LH' or `\letterheader' can generate the company logo and the return address all at once; a phone number need only be changed in one place; etc. WYSIWYG systems tend to allow these things as special cases, if at all. If your case is more special than most, you may be out of luck.) Anyway, there really are tradeoffs. If you need a series of different one-shot special-purpose documents, or if you have spot a WYSIWYG system that does exactly what you have to do, a `word processor' may be the right thing. If you want to do fine typesetting, though: if you want to print books, journals, theses, and the like: then you probably want something like troff or TeX. (And---Valar help you---if you are producing advertisements, colour pictures, glossies, and so on---there is probably nothing that does *exactly* what you need. Raw PostScript might come close.) -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris
Kemp@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL (07/18/89)
> ... Comparing MS-Word to *any* Unix word processor is folly: > it is so superior that it is incomparable. I seem to remember a recent article about a well known writer of IBM books who bought a Sun just so he could use FrameMaker. Presumably *any* IBM PC word processor was not good enough for him. Dave Kemp <Kemp@dockmaster.ncsc.mil>
ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) (07/18/89)
In article <18606@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: >In article <1989Jul17.211715.6273@eci386.uucp> woods@eci386.uucp >(Greg A. Woods) writes: >This is true. n/troff's major failing, though, is (in my opinion) >in its blind acceptance of virtually arbitrary input. If you feed >it modem-noise, it will produce *something*; the only question is >what. n/troff is simply not helpful enough at pointing out errors. You might look at the MKS/SQPS version of troff/nroff for PeeCees. I've just started using it, but can at least observe that it has an option similar to some C compilers to provide varying levels of diagnostic and warning information. Perhaps someone will get the message and port this system back to **IX?
mcclaren@euripides.cs.uiuc.edu (Tim McClarren) (07/18/89)
In article <18606@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: >In article <1989Jul17.211715.6273@eci386.uucp> woods@eci386.uucp >(Greg A. Woods) writes: [lots of stuff about wp's] >Maybe; maybe not. One of the big advantages of WYSIWYG `word >processors' here is that the typist gets immediate feedback, not only >of the text being entered, but also of the control operations. By >definition, that feedback will always be missing from `batch >formatters'. On the other hand, WYSIWYG systems tend to lack >structural feedback. For some purposes this is fine, and word >processors do have their places. For others---including letter- >writing, which is one of those `business applications'---reusability >and skipping irrelevant details are important; structure-oriented batch >formatters win here. (`.LH' or `\letterheader' can generate the >company logo and the return address all at once; a phone number need >only be changed in one place; etc. WYSIWYG systems tend to allow these >things as special cases, if at all. If your case is more special >than most, you may be out of luck.) I wasn't going to get into this conversation, because I hear it too often. I don't understand why people say things such as the above. I do have two theories: 1) They don't use WYSIWIG wp's, like MS Word on the Mac, or 2) They don't read the manual figuring there isn't anything in the manual that isn't in the menus. IMO, it's simpler to have a file named 'template' that has a letterhead already in it, one that you can actually see, load it into word, and type in the letter! Save using 'save as...' to a any arbitrary file. Actually, if you really want to save time, define a macro with the letterhead in it. IMO, there's just no comparing good ole' cut and paste with "label letterhead: define letterhead; preview; print; if {doesn't look right} goto letterhead", etc. Tim McClarren herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (07/19/89)
In article <26420@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes: >Perhaps someone will get the message and port this system back to >**IX? I could have sworn that SoftQuad's enhanced DWB software has long been available for UNIX systems. I've even heard that AT&T officially signed over ownership of DWB to SoftQuad. I know for a fact that SoftQuad's version of troff has not only optional warning messages for use of unitialized strings, etc. but also supports object names longer than 2 characters.
soley@moegate.UUCP (Norman Soley) (07/24/89)
In article <1989Jul17.211715.6273@eci386.uucp>, woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) writes: > In article <1111@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US> gaggy@jolnet.UUCP (Gregory Gulik) writes: > > > > WP: EXPENSIVE! Yes, maybe a company CAN afford to buy it for > > every one of it's users, but there are poor UNIX people > > out in the real world. Yes, us students dont' exactly have > > $1000+ to shell out for the program. (Hey, the PC version > > is still pretty expensive) > > How true. $3,500.00CDN for WP for an NCR Tower 32/600. What? you must be talking to the wrong people, I paid just under $2,000 for exactly this almost a year ago, prices have been coming down fast too. WP started out at $995 US for 386 XENIX (that's rougly $1250 CDN), now I can consitantly find it for $795 CDN. That's a 33% drop in price in only a few months. > But DWB is usually quite inexpensive, if not already bundled with your > system. Of course some people find vi so repulsive they'd rather > use ed! I don't know why a simple full screen editor is not a > standard part of Unix yet. Perhaps it should even have Wordstar > key-bindings as the default, with Emacs as an option. Oh how true, I can't get the lusers here to get past the vi-block and have not found an editor which meets their needs without being just as difficult to use (a good example of this is the Interactive Ten+ editor for 386ix, it looks real nice and all but the key bindings are a mess). As repulsive as this sounds (even to me) what they really want is SPF. I've talked to CTC (the people who make SPF-PC) and they just aren't interested in the idea. Now considering that I can't even get users to spend the 1/2 hour necessary to pick up the basics of vi, guess what happens if I tell them that they're going to have to learn to use nroff, when something they know and like is available from WordPerfect, for a few hundered bucks. I'd be run out of town that's what. nroff is a great tool but face it, it's designed for producing technical reports not memos and letters. I would no more recommend that a business use nroff for that kind of work than Lotus Manuscript. > I've also seen the objection against *roff because of the ease of > hiring people already trained with WP. Why not re-train them. > The experience will undoubtably help raise their understanding of > computers. If you can't train a person to use *roff in a very > short time, they probably shouldn't be attempting to do that kind > of a job at this time. OK, my secratary goes on vacation and I hire a temp to replace him. I can just picture the conversation: Good morning, Temps'r'us Good morning, I need someone to fill in for my secretary for a week. OK, I'm sure we can find someone, what skills do you need? Well, someone who knows vi and nroff Huh? vi and nroff, that's the editor and text processor that comes with UNIX Pardon me [she slips a note to her supervisor about a crank caller] we have people who know WordPerfect, Wordstar, Wang or MICOM 3000 will any of them do? I'm afraid not, maybe I could train someone. [By this time the police have been called, the call traced and the cops are on the way to arrest you for making obscene phone calls] :-) vi and nroff are fine tools for acedemics, technical users and dp professionals but I can't imagine anyone trying to use them for production word processing. I also can't imagine trying to use WordPerfect to produce a complex scientific paper. -- Norman Soley - The Communications Guy - Ontario Ministry of the Environment soley@moegate.UUCP or if you roll your own: uunet!attcan!ncrcan!moegate!soley The Minister speaks for the Ministry, I speak for myself. Got that! Good.
wcs) (07/25/89)
In article <1143@ssp15.idca.tds.philips.nl> jos@idca.tds.PHILIPS.nl (Jos Vos) writes: = In article <228@psgdc> rg@psgdc.UUCP (Dick Gill) writes: = >..... Of course, noone should expect that the Unix [WordPerfect] = >implementation will deliver the same responsiveness, color and .. = Why not? The reason can't be that no fast UNIX workstations = with enough color-graphics capabilities exist........ = Anyway, WP is one of the first succesfull PC packages that has made = the step to UNIX. Congratulations. Who follows? A year ago, a project I was on was evaluating UNIX wordprocessors that also ran on DOS. WordPerfect was being done at the time (may have been betas?), a garage-shop made Arrow which was really nice and came from the UNIX side first, and there was Samna, which I tried out personally. I'm going to comment about Samna's implementation and use that to make some general comments about why it may be easier to do a good editor on a PC than on terminals. [ Disclaimer: You've heard disclaimers before. This is one of them. ] Samna *reeked*. Some of its problems were because it was their first UNIX implementation, and may be fixed by now, but some were just inherent. A critical problem is that Samna is an old editor, and the original implementations were made to fit on small PCs, with overlays and stuff that us old-timers remember doing on PDP-11s, and to adapt to the modern world (or even the semi-modern 640K) would be a major re-implementation for them, restructuring *everything*. Samna is a character-oriented editor with several lines of menu at the top of the screen, which are context-sensitive and tend to change with about every other command-letter you type. I don't remember if it was modeless or mode-explicit, but when you were typing something it assumed was a command the cursor would go to top-of-screen and write stuff there, which is rational. Unfortunately, it couldn't do windows right, and constantly had to redraw the entire screen from cursor down. This was exacerbated by the fact that the menu at the top kept changing from two lines to three, causing everything on the page to shift down by one line (dumb) which it did by redrawing instead of insert/delete line (real dumb), even though the terminfo description included insert/delete line. At 19200 it was too slow to be useful; I'd rather use ed. On the console of the PC (16 MHz AT&T 6386) the screen could scroll characters at about 100,000 baud equivalent, and Samna was still ugly. <end insult-the-product mode> One basic difference between PC/Workstations and terminals is the difference in speeds of direct access vs. communication. On a terminal, the way to gain efficiency is by calculating the minimum set of commands to change the screen from what it was to what you want. On a workstation, the screen is right there in the frame buffer, and it's much faster to just write characters where you want them than to think about each location at least three times. Sometimes you know what the optimization is, as when the user types <INSERT LINE>, so you call a subroutine that does that, but usually you just redraw. This makes it very hard to move a PC-oriented product to the UNIX/terminal world, because the assumption that to change the screen you just write to it tends to be all-pervasive, even in well-written modular code. In particular modular routines for screen-handling are probably much lighter-weight than Curses. In Samna's case, the original was probably written in assembler, and the modularity was mostly done to make things fit, though they've used it well to add features. They apparently never used an insert-line module; I assume they just called the copy-line routine N times, resulting in N little calls to curses, each redrawing a line. Another difference between MS-DOS PCs and UNIX terminal system is that PCs have a lot more keys than the traditional terminal, and you can use these to improve the human-factors aspects significantly. The modes-versus-modeless argument really tends to mean "How can I tell a command from input text", which is easy when you have a lot of Function and Arrow keys; the ^F key is always a ^F, because there's a forward-arrow-key to use for forward-cursor commands. Input is always ASCII, while terminal scan codes give you a lot of out-of-band options like control-alt-rightshift-F3, even if Wordstar does use the ^K key as a function key. Some of these arguments go away when you're talking about genuine workstation word processors for UNIX, such as Interleaf and Frame, and Interleaf has been ported to PCs (big hulking ones only, but PCs.) But most UNIX products are oriented toward character-oriented terminals, where WYSIWYG means you only get monospace ASCII; there are some products like CrystalWriter and WordMarc what live in this environment, but it's pretty limiting. To make money in the software business, you either need to have a large market for a low-priced product, or a high-end product that can support high prices if your market is small. The high end of the UNIX text processing market is people who already have troff or TeX, with zillions of powerful features that few of the high-end PC systems can duplicate, where users know that what they work with on their terminals will never come close to what their laser printers can draw. A character-based WYSIWYG system like CrystalWriter can do drafts of straight text and produce nroff-code output, but if you're doing mathematical equations your ASCII terminal doesn't have the character set you need, and even a 132-column mode terminal won't let you draw really hairy tables. (You know the type, where you're using 6-point landscape to make it all fit in a page with lots of T{ T} and weird boxed sections.) For that matter, Microsoft Word on a Macintosh won't let you create a complex table as easily as tbl. Maybe Interleaf or Frame will. But the low end market for UNIX WP's isn't big enough, because most of us roff-users get too frustrated by a system that can't keep track of numbered lists on the fly, so we keep using vi/emacs+TeX/*roff. It's tough to do a cheap low-end product, because the roff-users and PC-market raise the functionality standards for the low end, because it's harder to build a great product for terminals than PCs, because (until recently) a UNIX development shop cost more than a PC development shop, and because you just *know* that three months after you ship Foo-Writer, some college student will use it, like it, and write an Electric-Foo-Writer Gnu Emacs mode which she'll post to comp.sources.misc. It will be slower than your product, but it will have more features, and on a 386-box the speed will be ok. The alternative channel is for a "big" company to port an existing system from PCs or VMS, which they may be able to do cheaply, or for some major market player (SCO, AT&T, IBM, SUN ..) to sell a word processor powerful enough to pay for but cheap enough to buy when you're already buying their UNIX or their 386 hardware. Most of us have tried, but the fact that this discussion keeps coming up is evidence that none of the products has gotten significant market penetration. -- # Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G218 Holmdel NJ 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs # also cloned at 201-271-4712 tarpon.att.com!wcs # ... counting stars by candle light ....
woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) (07/27/89)
In article <2557@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> wcs@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (Bill Stewart 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs) writes: > [.....] They apparently never used an insert-line > module; I assume they just called the copy-line routine N times, > resulting in N little calls to curses, each redrawing a line. [ This is an aside, not really related to the thread.... ] What's wrong with making special effort to determine how the various versions of curses keep their in-core screen images, and writing to that buffer, just like you write to a PC-screen buffer? This has it's problems, but it means you can skip the crud on top of curses that fills the buffer in the first place. For that matter, skip all of curses, and just use the termcap/terminfo routines to read the existing database, and re-implement the curses screen buffering/optimization scheme. There's simply no excuse for sending that much data out a port, except pure lazyness. It all depends upon what you are starting with. You can easily use all of curses if the editor portion of your code is structured like the guts of vi. > Another difference between MS-DOS PCs and UNIX terminal system is > that PCs have a lot more keys than the traditional terminal, and you > can use these to improve the human-factors aspects significantly. I seriously doubt it. The smart terminals people buy today, and even in the recent past, almost always have more than 10 function keys. Even my VT-100 has 14 function keys, plus cursor keys. The difficult thing to find consistently is a meta (alt) key. I won't mention that terminals usually have far better keyboard layouts... > Input is always ASCII, while terminal scan codes give you a lot of > out-of-band options like control-alt-rightshift-F3, even if Wordstar > does use the ^K key as a function key. Yes, this is the real problem with moving some applications from the PC to a terminal. Of course, I always been quite disgusted with applications that used the scan codes anyway. There are much better paradigms than <CTRL-ALT-RIGHTSHIFT-F3>. Over use of multi-key combinations shouts "POOR USER INTERFACE DESIGN!". As you said (in the paragraphs I've deleted), even though there's a lot of noise being generated, the market really isn't big enough to be worth while. I strongly suggest what's required is a good text editor, with some of the editing features of the best word processors. Since I find Jove does more than I need, I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to identifying the requirements perceived by those who design things like WordPerfect. Once the text has been input, wrapping troff or TeX around the paragraphs is a reasonably simple task. Even someone who can barely operate a typewriter can be taught to enter text in such a way to not increase the effort required to format lists and tables and such. Once you've got them that far, a couple more hours and they can put the troff/TeX requests in themselves. I've personally taught several people this skill, and have even managed to teach them vi or emacs as well. WYSIWYG is a definite no-no in Unix land. Even going so far as attempting a real-time simulation like WordPerfect tries, costs far too much in CPU and I/O. The simple emacs clones (like Jove) are resource intensive enough. The one thing which might have an impact would be cheap graphics terminals, be they X-Window, or BLIT style. At home I have a DMD5620, and I can set up troff to proof to a window every time I save my file. It should be quite easy for someone with sufficient motivation and knowledge to write a programme like 'proof' for MS-DOS. You might even be able to get all of layers running on a PC, though even VGA resolution is only satisfactory for useful windowing. There certainly are enough PC's out there that would make good terminals. -- Greg A. Woods woods@{eci386,gate,robohack,ontmoh,tmsoft,gpu.utcs.UToronto.CA,utorgpu.BITNET} +1-416-443-1734 [h] +1-416-595-5425 [w] Toronto, Ontario CANADA
woods@robohack.uucp (Greg A. Woods) (07/27/89)
[ It's 08:00, and I haven't had a shower yet! ] In article <485@moegate.UUCP> soley@moegate.UUCP (Norman Soley) writes: > In article <1989Jul17.211715.6273@eci386.uucp>, I wrote: > > In article <1111@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US> gaggy@jolnet.UUCP (Gregory Gulik) writes: > > > > > > WP: EXPENSIVE! Yes, maybe a company CAN afford to buy it for > > > > How true. $3,500.00CDN for WP for an NCR Tower 32/600. > > What? you must be talking to the wrong people, I paid just under $2,000 for > exactly this almost a year ago, prices have been coming down fast too. That's a 32 user lisence. And as far as Canada goes, there was only one distributor. (And, for that matter, I don't know what we paid for it. That's after markup, which might be ~30% in this case.) Some prices have been dropping, but a lot of software has been getting more expensive. > > I don't know why a simple full screen editor is not a > > standard part of Unix yet. Perhaps it should even have Wordstar > > key-bindings as the default, with Emacs as an option. > > repulsive as this sounds (even to me) what they really want is SPF. I've talked > to CTC (the people who make SPF-PC) and they just aren't interested in the idea. How hard would it be to _write_ a custom version? > Now considering that I can't even get users to spend the 1/2 hour necessary to > pick up the basics of vi If you had a "micro" emacs, or some other "designed for unix" editor, [I still won't advocate training them with vi] and a way to send all your users on a good training course, they'd be more than happy, and would not need any over-blown word-processor for entering and editing text. > guess what happens if I tell them that they're going > to have to learn to use nroff, when something they know and like is available > from WordPerfect, for a few hundered bucks. I'd be run out of town that's what. Have you tried? Have you showed them a simple business letter, or a memorandum, and it's input text? ...with explanation? > nroff is a great tool but face it, it's designed for producing technical reports > not memos and letters. I would no more recommend that a business use nroff for > that kind of work than Lotus Manuscript. It works just as well, no matter the size or complexity of the job. In fact, for simple jobs, it is _extremely_ easy to use. Most of the formatting for a memo is fill-in-the-blanks, and automatic. Most simple work can even be done with raw troff/TeX with the same, or less, number of directives (it's just that the style will then vary as much as it does for WP users). > > I've also seen the objection against *roff because of the ease of > > hiring people already trained with WP. Why not re-train them. > > OK, my secratary goes on vacation and I hire a temp to replace him. I can just > picture the conversation: I realize you are trying to make a point. However, I'm trying to de-bunk a myth. Have you tried phoning a number of temp. agencies? If the demand were there, they would have the personel. If the people who sell and use Unix wouldn't perpetuate the myths about how hard it is to use, there'd be a few more user's of troff, and maybe even vi, and there might even be temp.'s with those skills. [And yes, that really is a myth.] At the same time, I doubt a temp. agency would mind you paying their rates while you trained one of their people. > vi and nroff are fine tools for acedemics, technical users and dp professionals > but I can't imagine anyone trying to use them for production word processing. > I also can't imagine trying to use WordPerfect to produce a complex scientific > paper. I know of several organisations using troff/TeX and laser printers for routine business communications. I know of many more oranisations that have in-consistent memo and letter styles because they use WordPerfect. I want to know if WP Corp. set their manuals with their own WP, and if so, how the hell do they achieve the consistency. I know of many organisations who don't use troff/TeX, because they don't know how to make either work for their printer, and can't/won't find someone who could. -- Greg A. Woods woods@{robohack,gate,tmsoft,ontmoh,utgpu,gpu.utcs.Toronto.EDU,utorgpu.BITNET} +1-416-443-1734 [h] +1-416-595-5425 [w] Toronto, Ontario; CANADA