Re: GUIizing ... Was: Upgrade from RD

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
says...

> Was the windows version of Word or Excel at the time that much better than
> the dos versions of these two products???  

Was there Excel on DOS?  Don't quite remember.

> I was an avid
> user of both Wordperfect and Lotus 1-2-3 until their windows versions were
> launched!.    However, in becoming "me-too's" both Lotus and Wordperfect
> effectively committed corporate suicide.

They committed suicide because they waited too long to embrace the 
Windows platform.  Once Windows took hold, new users didn't want "old" 
DOS programs.  When Lotus finally embraced Windows, they didn't do a 
great job and by that time MS had also established their "Office" 
suites along with their questionable marketing and business tactics.

> At the moment, whilst we are working slowly on Windows functionality, we are
> (and will continue to) develop the character version.   When developing a
> part of our software in Windows, whilst it may be a subset of overall
> functionality it has to past the test of being "better" than the character
> version.   As a developer, that is often a very tall order!

Not really such a tall order.  As has been stated, you can certainly 
make the navigation of a GUI app mouseless and more "standard" than the 
different and sometimes bizarre character sequences or special key that 
one has to press in a CUI to move the cursor among fields.

For me, one of the greatest advantages of GUI apps is better use of 
screen real estate and multiple windows for pop-up information or 
selections.  This was always brutal to program on standard Ascii 
terminals or required the use of proprietary windowing functions of 
certain terminals.

-- 
Kevin Powick