Wordperfect under unix - opinions?

[Bill Vermillion]

In article <3596 at zorba.Tynan.COM> uunet!maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca!art (Art Mulder) writes:
>Hello all, I manage a Microvax II runing 4.3 BSD unix.  It is rather under
>used, so I am considering getting Wordperfect for it.  I was wondering if
>anyone out there in net land has any experience with wordperfect under UNIX
>that they can share with me.
>  - I understand that 4.2 is the most recent WOrdperfect release for unix.

I have just have my first experience with WP - running 5.0 under SCO Xenix, so
the WP 5 should be out for Unix, if not now, soon.

>My questions:
>  1) how well does it work with different terminals?  ie: most of our 
>     terminals do not have function keys, so the WP commands would have to
>     be <Ctrl> key combinations to work for us.

The terminals we are using are DASI terminals.  Dual ports, with a polled
select environment to a Burroughs mini, and the RS232 ports to an ACER 1100
with Digiboards serial ports.  The DASI emulates a Vt100.

Since the original WP on the PC was designed to use 10 (or more) function
keys, in combination with shift, alt, and cntrl to give a minimum of 40
function keys this is the approach that WP uses on these terminals.

On Vt100s you can set the keypad to application mode.   The 9 key becomes
help, and 6 becomes exit.   The PF1 thru PF4 keys are used as lead in sequence
keys to the needed commands.  A sequence might be PF1 - NumKey 4 for example.
Thus all commands, execept help and exit, are two key strokes.  No real
problem since most of the WP commands in the PC require holding the cnt,alt,
or shift and pressing a function key.

>  2) is it horribly slow compared to Wordperfect on the PC?

Can't answer that because I have avoided WP on the PC - but seems to work just
fine in this environment.

>  3) is the command structure similar to that of wordperfect on the PC's?

There was a DOS partition that everyone was using until the Xenix side was
brought up.  The only difference is the using a color monitor in DOS all fancy
stuff, bold, undeline, etc, was done with colors.  On these DASIs the only
things we can do are bold and underline but they appear that way on the
screen. That's the only difference the users saw.

>  4) any personal opinions?

Yup!  I don't like wordprocessors that encode their files.  It makes it a pain
to transport them elsewhere in the Unix environment.  But that doesn't mean
much for a lot of users.


-- 
Bill Vermillion - UUCP: uunet!tarpit!bilver!bill
                      : bill at bilver.UUCP