Wordstar 2-key sequences for OpenOffice

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bruce Hoyt
  • Start date Start date
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Bruce Hoyt

I am a dedicated/committed user of the Wordstar control keys sequences. They
have been built-into my brain for 20 years. I have redefined the control key
to be just to the left of the 'A' key on my keyboard -- where God intended
it to be.

I have used MS Word 97 for many years having redefined the keyboard to my
taste. Two-key sequences are easy to do under MS Word 97. But it seems that
they are not allowed in OpenOffice.

Is there anyway to do this? Am I missing something?

All that to ask: **can someone help me find a keyboard hooking program**
that will allow two keys sequences to be hooked in the OpenOffice window and
replaced by another single key which Open can use? Something like AutoIt
with key input detection would be great.

Thanks for you help.
 
Bruce Hoyt wrote:
| I am a dedicated/committed user of the Wordstar control keys
| sequences. They have been built-into my brain for 20 years. I
| have redefined the control key to be just to the left of the
| 'A' key on my keyboard -- where God intended it to be.
|
| I have used MS Word 97 for many years having redefined the
| keyboard to my taste. Two-key sequences are easy to do under
| MS Word 97. But it seems that they are not allowed in
| OpenOffice.

Yeah!
And I want XyWrite commands for the fastest-handling, two-fisted,
cigar-chomping reporter's tool that ever existed.

Richard
 
Does anybody have any idea where one might find, like in purchase, a copy of
xywrite?
 
| Does anybody have any idea where one might find, like in
purchase, a copy of
| xywrite?

I have seen it at one used computer store, The Used Computer
Store in Berlekey, California. This was a long time ago, very
cheap. I'm not sure that it is abandonware, but the company that
acquired XyQuest, an outfit in Baltimore or Philadelphia, went
under too, as I recall.

I'm curious as to why you want it. I have the transitional
WYSIWYG product that I bought, (named Signature) which I could
sell. I don't think that I ever took the shrinkwrap off. I recall
that it was written to run in Windows 3.1 and maybe DOS, too. The
great old XyWrite ran in DOS. Signature was the final product
from XyQuest. I can tell you from experience that the original
XyWrite runs perfectly in Windows 3.11 and Windows 98. I think
that I tried it in Windows Me, and that it was OK. I can't speak
for Win XP, etc.

The reason that I bought but never tried Signature is that my
clients weren't using anything like XyWrite. At the time, I was
doing a project at H-P in which I was moving text from Unix and
Word Perfect into XyWrite, and then back out into Unix HP-Tag, a
version of SGML, a predecessor of HTML. XyWrite never caught on
in the SF Bay Area the way it did in LA, New York, Denmark and
lots of other places. In fact, my news reporter friend in Denmark
misses XyWrite as much as I do. He's slogging around in the muck
of Word on the job these days. After XyWrite, working in Word is
depressing; Word Perfect is agony.

The brilliant programmers who wrote XyWrite built it directly in
assembler, so it diddles the chips directly in machine language,
using DOS when neccessary. This gives the software blazing speed
when used on an old 8088 processor. DOS command interpretation
was built directly into the program, so you could issue DOS
commands while in any one of 9 open documents and they'd be
performed seamlessly. I've been amazed at how the program was
able to keep up with the much more complicated directories that
some of us have been using in Windows. Files are straight ASCII,
with embedded text commands that are boundaried by the European
quote symbols.

The equally brilliant shareware program, PC-Write, could not be
used to turn out a newspaper from stem to stern the way XyWrite
could. It was wonderful for small documents, and highly
customizable for all kinds of people including the handicapped.
Bob Wallace, the marvelous coder who cobbled this masterpiece
together died last year in Marin County, California, of
pneumonia. Unfortunately, PC-Write gets caught in directories
nested more than about 3-deep.

Although this is a freeware forum, I must say that it was a
pleasure to for me pay for this software. When people write code
that's this user-oriented and debugged so well, you naturally
want to support them, to help keep them going. It's an honor to
be able to use their work.

Richard
 
Richard,

Back in the '80s and '90s, many book and magazine publishers used a
mini-computer (a mid-size system between a mainframe and the
microcomputer, which we now call the personal computer or PC) publishing
system whose name I can't remember (Atex?). As I do remember however
(incorrectly?), XyWrite was originally designed as compatible
word-processor that enabled PC users to write for that large-computer
publishing system.

Anyhow, to get back to the off-topic flavor of your post, the hyper-sell
and subsequent mass adoption of Word has been one of the biggest
disservices ever for PC users. Word may be okay for occasional use, but
when you have to help large numbers of users who need to get decent
reliable formatting for their reports, letters, and forms, it's amazing
how uncooperative that huge mass of Microsoft code is. Oh for the days of
software such as Xywrite, small, fast, extremely powerful, and bug-free,
particularly when compared with what's around now.

Steve . . .

PS: While you include WordPerfect with Word, I remember that program as
published by WordPerfect Corp., as relatively bug-free and fast --
although never up to XyWrite standards. IMHO, it's the contemporary Corel
versions that compete with Word for honors as the most bloated buggy mass
of word processor code available.
_____________
 
| Richard,
|
| Back in the '80s and '90s, many book and magazine publishers
used a
| mini-computer (a mid-size system between a mainframe and the
| microcomputer, which we now call the personal computer or PC)
publishing
| system whose name I can't remember (Atex?). As I do remember
however
| (incorrectly?), XyWrite was originally designed as compatible
| word-processor that enabled PC users to write for that
large-computer
| publishing system.
|

You are correct, Steve. In fact, the same two guys who wrote the
Atex system for the 70s wrote XyWrite for the 80s. It was more
than just compatible: it was an expanded rendition of the same
thing for a newer, standard platform. I wish they'd get back onto
the stick and put out a version for now. Understandably, such an
undertaking would be fraught with uncertainty regarding the
business climate. And FrameMaker, integrated with the rest of
Adobe's professional publication packages, would be a competitor
that might be impossible to compete with. I think that
FrameMaker's handling is better than Word's, but not by very
much. XyWrite would blast it away as a fast writer's tool.

| Anyhow, to get back to the off-topic flavor of your post, the
hyper-sell
| and subsequent mass adoption of Word has been one of the
biggest
| disservices ever for PC users. Word may be okay for occasional
use, but
| when you have to help large numbers of users who need to get
decent
| reliable formatting for their reports, letters, and forms, it's
amazing
| how uncooperative that huge mass of Microsoft code is. Oh for
the days of
| software such as Xywrite, small, fast, extremely powerful, and
bug-free,
| particularly when compared with what's around now.
|

Agreed. One of the main differences, I think, is that the two
word programs I mentioned in earlier posts were programs that
were designed for people who type. Perhaps the programmers
themselves were good typists. I'm amazed, for example, at how
many programmers I've worked with who type with two fingers. I
think that a person who can't touch type doesn't have the ability
to empathize with folks who are skilled at the keyboard, and
their output really handicaps the rest of us. To be fair to the
coders, the blame may fall more than equally on the architects,
project managers, and product managers who must shove the product
out the door on a tight schedule with not much attention to the
fine points of what the users need.

Where this comes home to the Freeware forum is that most freeware
is cobbled by individuals who are dedicated to solving one
problem, and a lot of it solves that problem very well. As many
of us know, there's some freeware out there (shareware, too, to
be fair, and some code sold by small shops) that runs circles
around the high-priced bloatware. There's a joy in discovering
such gems, and perhaps some of us get off, not on getting
something for nothing, but getting our hands on some
brilliantly-crafted code that does something we really need to
do. There can be great pleasure in using fine tools!

I wonder what a person who must struggle with the laborious
handling of the current word programs might think if they watched
someone working in XyWrite, with text flying around the screen,
abruptly being formatted into columns with two levels of
indentation: blam! I mean, this program lets you fly!

PC-Write was a cottage industry, and XyQuest was a specialty shop
wedded to publishing and the people who worked in that business:
writers, editors, typesetters, and page designers. These small
businesses were personal and listened carefully to their
customers, carefully crafting their wares for their users. I like
small a lot better than big.

Richard
 
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