The future of filePro... one major one anyway!

Wed May 16 10:03:50 PDT 2007

John,

We use weblink and its great!

One question on reface. Will it work with thin clients?

Dennis Malen
516.479.5912
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Esak" <john at valar.com>
To: "Filepro-List at Lists. Celestial. Com" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 6:28 AM
Subject: ADV: The future of filePro... one major one anyway!

>
>
> Hello World,
>
> I'm going to write a few sentences here to briefly describe a new product 
> I
> have had the pleasure (and honor) to see grow from an idea into what will 
> in
> my opinion instantly become one of the most important futures of filePro. 
> It
> comes from Sound Ideas, and is called Reface.
>
> I won't steal his thunder, and I can NOT in a few words describe the 
> massive
> complexity of design that makes this program what it is, nor will I try 
> and
> describe how it works... I'll let Dave (the author) and his formal
> announcement and press release in the next week or so do that good stuff. 
> I
> will say, however, that this is it. This is, finally, the holy grail.  By
> that I mean it is the product we have all been looking for this past 20
> years or so for filePro.
>
> Okay, okay... what does it do! As simply put as I can do it, "Reface" 
> allows
> you to convert your existing filePro Unix applications to full Windows GUI
> programs.
>
> It does this totally respecting every bit of processing you have, yet does
> it with Windows style screens, buttons, etc., that give the user full
> mouse-ability and the uncompromising belief that they are running a 
> Windows
> graphical application rather than a character based database. Do NOT make
> the assumption that this is some kind of "screen scraper" or anything even
> remotely like that. It is absolutely nothing like anything you (or I) have
> ever seen before, and it is so far ahead of everything else out there, 
> that
> as I said it will instantly become the de-facto method for putting
> completely graphical Windows front ends on any legacy character based
> application.
>
> This year SCO is spotlighting how to bring legacy character based apps 
> into
> the GUI world... *but* they are showing and suggesting only ancient and
> essentially ridiculous programs to accomplish this. All of the things they
> are suggesting and "pushing" in their upcoming technical conference are
> *incapable* of truly doing the job in nearly every way. They all come from
> an outmoded "idea" of how to do the job, so they can never be really
> "right", and they will never be anything but slow, cumbersome (and stupid
> looking) bad screen renderings of your app that look like and work like 
> just
> what they are, crap.
>
> When everyone sees what Sound Ideas has come up with this time, and I know
> it has taken them years to do right, everything else on the market will be
> blown away. You don't have to take my word for it, just wait and see. The
> approach and methodology Dave has used to make this product work the way 
> we
> all have been waiting for is going to succeed where everything else has
> failed.  He already has the product out there in a couple places where the
> participating developer has a huge user base of a filePro app that they
> simply can not afford to "re-write" in Windows... nor do they really 
> *want*
> to do this! Hell, the programs are written in filePro and because of that
> are fantastically powerful and correct for their users, why in the world
> would they want to change them?  They don't, all they want to do is make
> them full GUI compliant apps that "look and feel" like Windows programs.
> Users these days want, need, and honestly *deserve* to roll from any of
> their other Windows programs directly into their filePro app without
> thinking they've gone into the dark ages of DOS... losing not only their
> mouse and their cut and paste, but their entire intuitive *feel* of how to
> run things on their desktop. This new product, Reface, lets you do this 
> for
> them... and for your filePro packages... yes the ones you've been working 
> on
> for all your life. You don't have to lose them, change them or drop any of
> their functionality. You get to just convert and re-design their look and
> feel to be *mainstream*.  Yes, I think this product from Sound Ideas will
> finally move filePro into that "real" world which has been so illusive for
> it in the past.
>
> Best of all, the product is reasonably priced for what it does. If you 
> have
> a package that is deployed to many people out there, imagine what it would
> cost to rewrite it, or have it rewritten by someone else to be a full
> Windows GUI application? $20K maybe for starters?  Who knows... the only
> starting point for such a task is *high* whatever it is. Besides, the 
> first
> thing that really happens if you take that route is that you lose design
> control and adaptability control and in general the ability to just change
> your program at will, or whenever a user needs something,  that filePro
> gives you. With Reface, you not only don't lose any of this because you
> still program *in* filePro, but you gain the sorely wanted ability to
> enhance your apps by doing all the graphical stuff you've always wanted to
> do... be it just make the damn program mousable with nice looking fonts,
> buttons, and dropdowns, etc., or, doing some of the new, really valuable
> things Reface empowers you to do like browsing through images in a parts
> file and flipping through GUI filePro screens and functionality as you do
> it... all never taking your hand off the mouse!
>
> All right, I've gotten the "wow!" out of my system...I can't wait for the
> formal release in the next   couple weeks. When you see it... take a good
> look. Remember, this product comes from the same people who brought us so
> many amazing programs before, from the dead simple but wonderful Datapipe,
> to the amazing Weblink, which is without doubt the simplest, most secure 
> and
> dead easiest way to integrate your Unix filePro apps with a website... if
> you haven't seen Weblink, take my word for it... this product does exactly
> what you want and more.  I couldn't work a day without it when it comes to
> the web and filePro integration. However, we are not talking about this
> stuff now... we are talking about Reface... or at least we certainly all
> will be doing so shortly. I'm betting also all the X-org and IXnet and
> W-cubed legacy-to-GUI engineers out there. This is not just a something 
> for
> filePro, although it has been specifically designed to facilitate moving
> filePro to GUI, it will work with *any* character-based *nix app.
>
> I'm so glad to have been a little in the background on this one in that 
> Dave
> Stauble is my long time friend, and therefore able to scoop the news to 
> you
> first. Once again, as with any of my reviews or "scoops", this was
> completely unsolicited. Sound Ideas has no idea :-) I've written it. Like 
> I
> say, I'm not trying to steal any thunder, just ride on top of the wave as 
> it
> happens.
>
> So, what is the summary of all this praise and premature disclosure? If
> you've got big (or little) filePro Unix apps (or even just ideas) and you
> want to put them on  everyone's desktop in a way they will immediately
> accept and love... check this out when Sound Ideas does their release next
> week or so, you will not be disappointed.
>
> John Esak
> Hazleton, PA
>
> Visit The FilePro Room at www.tinyurl.com/97y9u
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Filepro-list mailing list
> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
>
>
> 