FilePro Must Haves...

[Bill Campbell]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2006, Bob Rasmussen wrote:
>On Thu, 19 Jan 2006, Bill Campbell wrote:
>
>> The default display for most xterms is 25x80, and my guess would be that
>> Windows programs like Anzio, putty, and teraterm default to 24x80 or 25x80
>> as well.
>> ...
>
>Let me describe an actual capability now in place, to demonstrate what is
>possible.
>
>A user runs xterm or Anzio, over a telnet or SSH connection. TERM is vt220
>or similar. Screen size is 80x24.
...technical stuff deleted...

>Acucobol implemented mouse action support in their character-based
>environment about 10 years ago.

I learned about writing full screen handlers when I switched development of
our accounting packaged from FilePro to UNIFY RDBMS in 1985, one of the
first things I did was to write my own character window handling routines
to replace those supplied by UNIFY since theirs basically sucked (e.g. you
had to retype entire fields that changed and couldn't save changed except
from the top left field in the screen).

My UNIFY routines took much of their behaviour from FilePro (ESC-ESC to
save F1 to insert, F2 to delete, etc.), mostly because my target customers
were already familiar with Profile16+/FilePro so I wanted to minimize the
retraining.  I also provided key synonyms to make data entry easier, such
as F4 to save as an alternate to ESC-ESC so that people doing data entry on
the keypad didn't have to move their fingers to reach the ESC keys (the
early DEC and Wyse terminals had PF1->PF4 keys immediatly above the keypad
where they were very easy to reach).  When the 101 key PC style keyboards
because ubiquitous, I added synonyms to that PGDOWN functioned the same as
F4/PF4 and ESC-ESC, as well as mapping other keys in the group to the left
of the keypad where they are easy to reach without moving fingers far from
the keypad.

In 1988, we started working with a customer who had an existing UNIFY
application that had been orphaned (they did have the C source code).  The
first thing I did was to build their application using my windowing
routines.  This change alone cut their data entry time by about 90%!

My point is that you're not limited by what a vendor supplies.  If you
don't like it, you are free to use what you like and leave the rest.

FilePro is a tool that makes it easy for people who don't know much to
easily create data applications.  People who know more, and are willing to
write applications have used FilePro to build very complex and useful
applications.

The major problems I've found with most business applications are:

  1.  They're written by programmers who know little or nothing about the
      business operations.

  2.  They're written by programmers who know little or nothing about
      bookkeeping and/or accounting principles.

  3.  They're written by programmers who grew up on PCs in a single-user
      environment, think that BASIC is a programming language, and that
      Windows is an Operating System.

Now that I've managed to piss off large numbers of people, I have to get
back to paying work :-).

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676

``...I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil.  I simply
suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an
interpreter.'' -- Nick Petreley