CompuServe Messages

Mike Apologies for not getting back. I have a ton of stuff in my in-box going back to September. I fully intended to answer everything, I'm just having scheduling problems and giving priority to getting serial numbers to folk registering my WPWin macros, and trying to complete (please, let it end…) a CD-ROM project. As to the 4.1b macros… I have to think of a way to phrase this so that I don't seem to be drumming up 'business' for my macros (or appearing arrogant), and without causing offense to my pals at Okna. Having said all that, I think the 4.1b macros can be, um, improved. On my system, the WinWord macros seem to have serious DDE timing problems (and occassionally give GPFs), and the WPWin macros use a WPWin 6.0a menu structure even when using WPWin 6.1. Funnily enough, the Ami Pro macros (disclaimer: I know Ami Pro least well of these three) seem to be the best. All versions function identically, but some work better than others. The Ami Pro macros, for example, can start Calendar, and after Calendar is minimized, can restore the running instance of Calendar. The WPWin macros, on the other hand, can start Calendar, but cannot restore it once it's running, and nothing ends up happening. So, the 4.1b macros have a number of problems, in my opinion. As I know WPWin best and have spent a year refining my WPWin macros, I think the 4.1b WPWin macros are way too slow, have too few features, that they should have gone with a toolbar approach rather than a menu item approach, and that they should all have been more result oriented. Example: the 4.1b macros bring up a template, spin their wheels for a few seconds, and then dump the currently selected record into the template, which has to be cutom built to Okna specs. My macros, on the other hand, first throw up the Address Book (incidentally, I manage to get Address Book to load about twice as fast as the 4.1b macros can; not because I'm cutting back on code, but because of a neat little programming trick I have up my sleeve<g>) letting you choose who you want to send your correspondence to, then brings up a filled in dialog with options up the wazoo, callbacks galore and the onscreen ability to view and modify the Home or Business address, and then dumps the text and whatever options have been selected into the document. My key letter macro works with the shipping WPWin templates, with custom templates (interactive and non-interactive) and blank documents. In other words, my macros let you work with what you have, and don't require that templates be especially created to work with them. I think that last one is a biggy, as my belief is that typical users want to be productive rather than spending time designing and laying out letterhead. However, for those who do want extra options (besides a Personal Info dialog for letterhead, plus four pre-configurable Closings, Signatories and Titles) and custom fields, my macros have a setup screen that lets you use any five valid DDE fields per address, and an about to be released version lets you relatively easily pre-configure all elements of formatting, so the date, for example, can be above the recipient address, below the signatory, or 44pt, rotated 90-degrees, and on page 7 only. Basically, the current generation of my macros (only WPWin conforms to the current generation so far) are as simple or complex as you want them to be, and quiet nicely balance ease of use, flexibility and power. Of course, my WPWin macros have been evolving for the better part of a year, have had input from hundreds of users, and are currently a 3.0 release, compared to Okna's 1.0. Will there be an Ami Pro version of my DTS macros? Almost certainly yes, although I may well not write all of them (probably a good thing<g>). They will, however, conform absolutely to the specs of the current WPWin version and the forthcoming WinWord version. As to those pesky fax numbers, tricky (I assume you're talking about dumping the fax number into a dialog box and/or into a document). My fax add-on was an afterthought (well, a response to 4.1b having a fax option, frankly<g>). I started out trying to intelligently use country code, area codes and long distance dialing. The problem I ran up against was that while I could query the currently selected record for its area code and country code, I didn't seem to be able to query DTS itself for the user's area code and country code, and trying to be overly clever (having the macro do some parsing) ended up with undesirable results. So, the option I went with was to just use what was available. A future version of the macro may well have a setup option of its own; that is, the user will setup the macro's defaults for area code and country. Actually, another thing that ticked me off was that all three 4.1b macros read and write to different places. WinWord writes to WINWORDx.INI, Ami Pro writes to AMIPRO.INI, and WPWin writes to WIN.INI (WPWin uses a binary file system for defaults, which can as easily be read and written to as an .INI, but…). The current generation of my macros use a single .INI file, DTSWARE.INI, which is stored in the \DESKAPP directory, and which gives consistent defaults irrespective of word processor (I'm also trying to get them to conform as much as possible to Win95 requirements, and this is the first step down that path). I very definitely believe 4.1b should have used a single configuration file, and should have kept it in its own directory. Okay, are you glad you asked, now?<g> David