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authorNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
committerNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
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+PC-WRITeX update v2.3 (a few bug fixes) No 5: 03 Jan 89
+----------------
+
+The main change has been adding "{}" after a lot of macro names. This avoids
+you having to use a hard space after control sequence names, and fixes the
+problem of such names gobbling spaces after them.
+
+The definition of "end-of-page" as far as PC-Write itself was concerned (the $J
+in PR.DOC), this has been changed from a 0 (zero: ASCII NUL) to a 32 (ASCII
+SPACE) because SBTeX chewed up over a NUL.
+
+A few new command names have been added to make life a little easier: details
+are in PCWRITEX.DOC (let me know if you invent more!)
+
+Peter Flynn
+<cbts8001@vax1.ucc.ie>
+<cbts8001@iruccvax.bitnet>
+_______________________________________________________________________________
+
+PC-WRITeX update v2.2 with tables No 4: 27 Aug 88
+----------------
+
+DEVELOPMENTS --- The major change in v2.2 is the addition of ruled and
+unruled tables. The IBM PC box-drawing character set can now be used
+to produce simple tabulations like
+
+ ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍËÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ»
+ º PRODUCT º PRICE in $ º
+ ÌÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÎÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͹
+ º dBASE II º 49.95 º
+ ÌÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÎÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͹
+ º *WARS º 25.00 º
+ ÌÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÎÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͹
+ º PACMAN º 15.00 º
+ ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÊÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ
+
+Using the double-line character set will produce a ruled table. Only
+the horizontal and vertical lines, corners, crossovers and T-characters
+can be used. The single-line character set will produce an unruled
+table:
+
+ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
+ ³ PRODUCT ³ PRICE in $ ³
+ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
+ ³ dBASE II ³ 49.95 ³
+ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
+ ³ *WARS ³ 25.00 ³
+ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
+ ³ PACMAN ³ 15.00 ³
+ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ
+
+This is nice, but the same restrictions apply: NO MIXING OF DOUBLE-
+LINE AND SINGLE-LINE CHARACTERS IN THE SAME TABLE. Partially-ruled
+tables may be possible at a later date.
+
+There is no (logical) limit on the number of rows or columns, but the
+inherent assumption is that all columns except the last will be left-
+aligned: the last will be right-aligned (because it is often used for
+money or other numbers). You can bodge your own copy of PR.DOC to
+change this if you want it different. Making character 203 equate to
+"\hfil#&#&" instead will make all columns except the first one right-
+aligned: this may be more useful for invoices, where column 1 is text
+and all remaining ones are numeric.
+
+Because of all this, a few things have had to change:
+
+ The character code 206 (double-line crossover (Shf Ctl S), which
+ gave the TeX logotype, has been removed. To get "TeX" you now
+ need to use the Alt Z literal.
+
+ The character code 179 (Shf Alt V), which gave a vertical rule,
+ is now needed for tables. A plain vertical rule is now got with
+ character 221 (6<accent>`).
+
+ The character code 196 (Shf Alt G), which gave a horizontal
+ rule, is also needed for tables: use character 223 (8<accent>`)
+ for horizontal rules.
+
+I hope this is all worth it. A couple of small bugs have been fixed,
+mainly concerning the caret mark in typewriter type.
+
+Peter Flynn
+<cbts8001@vax1.ucc.ie>
+<cbts8001@iruccvax.bitnet>
+_______________________________________________________________________________
+
+PC-WRITeX update v2.1 now out No 3: 22 May 88
+----------------
+
+DEVELOPMENTS --- Since the last copy of v1.1 went out the door (or
+rather, off onto the network), I have been busy converting quite a lot
+of my own documentation from an assortment of formats into PC-WRITeX
+format. With the use of a PR.TXT file as well as the PR.DOC, it has been
+possible to maintain a single source file in PC-WRITE which can be
+printed (a) on any of the printers supported by PC-WRITE; (b) as a plain
+text file with no attributes at all (ie plain unvarnished ASCII,
+suitable for network mailing); and (c) as a TeX document. This has
+proved very successful: the only caveat is not to get carried away, once
+you see the quality you get from TeX typesetting, into overusing the
+facilities so much that your documents become unuseable on ordinary
+printers.
+
+A NEW VERSION --- is now available: converting all this documentation
+has made a lot of things clear both about PC-WRITE and about what is
+needed from a multi-output documentation system. The new version has
+some extra bells and whistles, and very few actual changes, but I'm
+afraid there are indeed some Alt keys which have had to change. ED.DOC
+defines a few extra keystrokes to operate new features.
+
+Reasons --- The major change was triggered by finally grasping that PC-
+WRITE does not turn font attributes off at the end of the line in the
+order that you turned them on, or in the order that you specified. In
+fact the rules are as follows (obtained by inspection of a print-to-disk
+of a line containing all possible font characters on and off in order):
+
+Details --- Fonts C and P cause a reversion to font F first before
+activating themselves (logical, I suppose). Fonts D, E, F, Q and V turn
+OFF the current font first before activation. This limits what you can
+do in certain styles: you can't get small caps (Alt P) within the
+compressed face (Alt C) for example. In general, fonts are turned OFF
+in the following order at the end of a line:
+
+ S B E V P C M J X Z D N W O K I Q U H L R Y
+
+and not in either alpha or user-implied order. The effect of this on
+PC-WRITeX was to utterly screw up some modes (center line, math mode)
+because the translation of the turn-off sequences into TeX were coming
+out in the "wrong" order (wrong for TeX, that is). The consequent
+changes to font characters are:
+
+ Was Now
+
+ O u/d footnote
+ n/a O narrower margins this paragraph
+ R X no indent this paragraph
+ M R math mode (linear, not display)
+ J M quad horizontal space
+ Y J blank line (quad vertical space)
+ Z Y center line
+ n/a Z TeX literal
+
+CHANGES --- The implementation of footnoting was unsuccessful for
+anything involving multi-line footnotes because when typing it in, the
+Alt Os wrapped with the text, causing chaos. Footnoting is now
+implemented by usurping characters 175 and 177 decimal (shaded boxes,
+unrepresentable in TeX) respectively. ED.DOC defines Shf Ctl F1 and Shf
+Ctl F2 as the turn on and turn off keystrokes
+
+Math mode was made Alt R and the short chain of consequent reassignments
+now means that TeX closing sequences are honored correctly. The math
+characters now work alone and in math mode transparently. In particular,
+super- and sub-scripting now produces roman (upright) type, not math
+italic.
+
+A new facility has been introduced in Alt Z, which outputs a backslash,
+so TeX commands can be passed to the output file if you require special
+effects such as changing indentation amounts etc.
+
+Another extra is right-alignment, initiated by character 222 (defined in
+ED.DOC as Shf F5) and terminated by 177 (Shf F6). This causes a
+\line{\strut\hfil and a closing }
+
+One final new addition is a verbatim mode for quoting DP output in
+typewriter type (Tex's \tt face). This is implemented by usurping
+characters 178 and 219 (the other two shaded boxes) to turn this mode on
+and off. They both cause a paragraph skip, so put them on a line by
+themselves. They cause any intervening text to be printed in small size
+typewriter type, but it is not a true verbatim mode, because backslashes
+will not work. Most plain ASCII text will reproduce OK this way, though.
+ED.DOC defines Shf Alt F1 and Shf Alt F2 as the turn on and turn off
+keystrokes.
+
+The default TeX output is now \magstep1, not \magstep0. Most people seem
+to prefer documentation at the larger size, but you can change this
+locally in PCWSTY.TEX if you wish.
+
+DISTRIBUTION ---To ease the pain of this, I am now shipping a
+replacement help screen which you can put in ED.HLP wherever you like (I
+replaced the SHAREWARE panel in my personal copy, because QuickSoft,
+having pioneered the concept in the US, are refusing to honor it in
+Europe). I am also shipping a four-line ED.DOC which defines the
+characters 176, 177, 178 and 219 as Shf Ctl F1 and F2 and Shf Alt F1 and
+F2 for operating the new features mentioned above.
+
+Sorry to go making these changes if you've gotten yourselves
+established, but they were required to make the thing work
+satisfactorily. I am sending v2.1 out with this note to all those who
+requested the original (v1.2) and I would ask them please to circulate
+it to those to whom they gave the previous version. An announcement will
+also appear in the TeXHaX list to this effect. I have removed the .TEX,
+.DVI and .HP files from the .arc distribution because of size. A copy of
+the PR.TXT file is included, however.
+
+FUTURES --- The next phase of development will be creating TeX
+definitions for the box-drawing character set. This is a non-trivial
+task (help welcomed!) and no timescale exists yet for this phase.
+
+Peter Flynn
+<cbts8001@vax1.ucc.ie>
+<cbts8001@iruccvax.bitnet>
+_______________________________________________________________________________
+
+PC-WRITeX update v1.2 changes No 2: 31 Mar 88
+----------------
+
+Several people have asked for closer co-operation between PC-WRITE's way
+of using Alt characters and that used by PC-WRITeX. It is difficult to make
+them very much closer, but one change which seems desirable is to exchange
+the definitions of Alt-N and Alt-Y, so that itemising is done with Alt-N,
+as in PC-WRITE ("autonumber" facility), and \vskip space is done by Alt-Y
+(as in "y-axis") rather than vice-versa. The two lines in PR.DOC should
+therefore look like this:
+
+#N=17 +"\item{"-"} " (itemises para [only works with indent>0])
+#Y=31 +"\vskip"-"em " (leaves vertical space in ems eg, 12)
+
+Another problem is that of generating plain unvarnished ASCII files from
+PC-WRITeX documents. If you have nicely formatted files which print well
+in TeX but which you want to send across a network or give to someone
+who only has a mainframe lineprinter, you need to de-TeX (or at least
+de-PC-WRITE) the file. I have therefore put together a "dumb ASCII" driver
+which will reproduce only the text, with no formatting at all (you can
+put in a ruler line with a J for justification if you wish). This file
+PR.TXT is being sent out along with this update, and should be added to the
+distribution .ARC file if you are acting as a supplier. All users need do
+is put PR.TXT in their \pcwrite subdirectory, and copy or rename their
+text files to .TXT instead of .DOC Printing to disk in the normal way will
+then generate a plain ASCII file.
+
+One unfortunate by-product of doing this, though, is that the Alt commands
+which in .DOC file usage enclose a numeric argument (eg for setting para
+skip values) will reproduce just a number in the plain ASCII output, on its
+own. For the moment you'll just have to edit these out where they occur.
+One suggestion is that these value-setting Alt commands should be replaced
+by macros which increment or decrement the TeX values by a fixed amount,
+instead of allowing the user to specify how much to set them to. I am not
+entirely in favour of this, as it would lead to rather more restrictiveness
+than is desirable for typesetting, but it would get rid of lone digits in
+plain ASCII output because the definition of the Alt characters in PR.TXT
+would be null.
+
+Peter Flynn
+<cbts8001@vax1.ucc.ie>
+<cbts8001@iruccvax.bitnet>
+_______________________________________________________________________________
+
+PC-WRITeX update No 1: 26 Feb 88
+----------------
+
+Since the first distribution of PC-WRITeX, three points have been brought
+up which require correction. PLEASE ENSURE YOUR COPY IS UPDATED, AND TRY
+TO PASS THIS NOTICE ON TO THOSE TO WHOM YOU HAVE ALSO PASSED THE SOFTWARE.
+
+ 1. In PCWRITEX.DOC, the reference to the 1-line contents of file
+ PR.DEF should have the period removed from between the
+ exclamation mark and the pr.*: this file should thus contain
+ the line !pr.*
+
+ 2. In PCWRITEX.DOC, the reference at the very end to a public-domain
+ version of TeX called MS-TeX is incorrect and should be deleted.
+ My apologies to Mr McGuffey for any inconvenience I have caused.
+ There *is*, however, a limited MS-DOS implementation called DOSTeX
+ available for US$75 ($85 outside the US) from Electronetics Inc,
+ 119 Jackrabbit Run, Round Rock, Tx 78664. Contact Gary Beihl there,
+ or on the Internet as <beihl@wahb.cad.mcc.com>
+
+ 3. Some early versions of PCWSTY.TEX have an incomplete definition of
+ the font changes in the \sans and \bigger macros, which omitted
+ to reference an equivalence for the \bx (bold extended) type.
+ Please substitute the following macros in that file:
+
+\def\sans{\let\rm=\zrm\let\it=\zit\let\bf=\zbf\let\sl=\zit\let\bx=\zbf\rm}
+
+\def\bigger{\let\rm=\brm\let\it=\bit\let\bf=\bbf\let\sl=\bsl\let\tt=\btt
+ \let\bx=\bbf\rm}
+
+
+Peter Flynn
+<cbts8001@vax1.ucc.ie>
+<cbts8001@iruccvax.bitnet>
+