Dear All
I am NOT normally active contributor on the list, but listen in to the more urgent items that are discussed. I started using DP in 1988 when it first came out and became an addict because of its intimate relation to WP under the Office package (the Shell macros were what really sent this combination flying and I have never seen anything like that under Windows. Once you learned to use the Macro editor and the power of the Office Clipboard you were really at a vantage point). I use DP for my Bibliographic database which it quite complex with formulas for many fields that automatically updates or suggest entries at record creation. I also use it to organize my collection of CD's and LP's in a similarly rather intricate relational database. So why not shift to e.g. ENDNOTE for the bibliographical and FILEMAKER PRO for other more user defined purposes or something like that? Well, firstly the harassment of reprogramming and exporting and importuning. But that could be done of course. What keeps me stuck is the unbeatable user interface in DP. Firstly, you can do everything by the keyboard! That is a boon on a laptop. Secondly, the division of the screen into the record and the look up panel is again unbeatable. Finally, and I guess really most important: That each field can be used as a look up field and with its own field list and index associated with it and these things can (if you wish) be changed easily while the database is still filled with data. Add to that that the filesizes are very small, and that Dataperfect run real fast, the only thing I miss is real mouse interface to get rapidly to fields (I never bothered with the DP mouse, but maybe I should) and that files are xported in WP 4.x format rather than WP 5.X so you often need to import exported filed to WP first, then save before importing to WORD. If not, you loose diacritical characters, underlining and such like. There is another hassle: For us that use non US keyboards it is a bother to set up Office/WP/DP to make the keyboard work. If you do not do it right both keys (often all shifted keys) and Function (F) keys do not work. I do nthat now by starting Office form a bat file that first invokes the Danish keyboard setup as under old MS dos Config.sys and autoexec. I got help for that here form the list. But this batch file has to tuned to each and every PC because WIN (I still use XP) is not really the same on all PC systems. So sometimes I need a long detailed command in the batch file invoking the codepage 865 and other times I just call "kb16 dk" and there you are. I have not tried other command prompt systems than the integrated Command Prompt in Win XP. May be I should, especially, and I fear the day, when I have to move from outdated XP to a newer WIN platform. But on XP I enjoy that you can grab things from the Dos window and thus from DP and insert it into the Win clipboard. You jst have to invoke that option in your doswindow (batchfile) shortcut. It even works with the WIN OFFICE clipboard so you can do multiple "puts" from the DP windows and thus for a single record incrementally put fiels to the WIN system. A little slow but it works when you need it. One final note: I venture WP (5.1) DP and WP-OFFICE as among the top programs that were ever made. Nothing, but nothing beats WP and its "style" and "macro" system. I am missing that every day under WORD. Sure you can program macros, sure they can be allocated to keyboard strokes but making an on the fly macro that makes a complicated search and replace function and then repeating that macro to run multiple times? Forget it under WIN unless you want to creep deep into programming. Not everything on computers is an advance. Windows won out mostly because it offered a system for those that did not want to "know anything" and not wanted to "climb any learning curve" such as learning by heart the F-key combinations in WP and DP. WIN and OFFICE remains systems that are slow to use and difficult to shape to user needs and difficult to migrate to a new pC with your own preferences. Not like WP where you just needed to copy your the WP system files and your macros. In WORD you cannot even copy a macrto apparently unless you copy the whole "normal.dot" What a bother! Hail WP/DP/Office and thanks to Lev Bastian wherever he is. His legacy lives on Jens Jens T. Hoeg, PhD, DSc Marine Biology Section Room 20-1-118 Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen Universitetsparken 4, 2100 Copenhagen DENMARK Pho 28 75 12 47 Priv 44 84 11 60 Mail to: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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