NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/comp/softsys/andrew/1369

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-15 | 1.9 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Jim Morton [ext 237])
Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.andrew
Subject: Re: Postscript Printing Comments? (was) Re: Printers
Summary: Aster*x documents are not binary
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 16 Nov 92 04:13:34 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Applix, Inc., Westboro, MA
Lines: 26

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
] A drawback with WYSIWYG editors as you describe is that they require a
] binary format in which to store working drafts and editable document
] copies.  One can rest assured that there will never exist a
] WYSIWYG-to-ATK interpreter.
]
] I think one of the celebrated features that ATK offers over many (if not
] all) commercially available counterparts is that its intermediate data
] format is non-proprietary and ASCII readable. This open systems
] approach, to coin increasingly popular buzz term, makes text formatting
] packages like ATK far more attractive, in my opinion, than similar
] look-alikes (like Rapport and Asterix, for examples) which have limited
] usefulness outside of their own proprietary formatting protocols.

Whoa - hold on a second! Aster*x documents are NOT binary, and have
identical formats on the 14 platforms that it runs on. Furthermore, we
will gladly provide format specifications for the three document formats
(Words, Graphics, and Spreadsheets) to anyone who asks. And even further,
we provide easy macro and socket hooks, with examples, for anyone who
wants to hook up to outside applications.

Aster*x had open-ness and extensibility as design requirements from day 1...

--
Jim Morton, Applix Inc., Westboro, MA
...uunet!applix!jim    [e-mail]