In case anybody's interested, I now have a much slimmer, more direct way of doing the Autohotkey macro than the stupid opening of Notepad that I used below. With this, I no longer need U2's ClipW routines. ^c:: ; Ctrl-c: copy a block in a Win 7 app and paste into c:\db\_xfr\HBCLIP.TXT for subsequent pasting into any program, including XyWrite Send ^c ; copy the block Clipboard = ; empty the clipboard ClipWait 3,1 ; wait up to 3 seconds for clipboard to be non-empty (the final 1 tells it to stop waiting after any kind of data, not just text) Clip := clipboard FileName = c:\dropbox\_xfr\hbclip.txt file := FileOpen(FileName, "w") File.Write(Clip) File.Close() Return ^v:: ; crl-v the inverse of ctrl-c. pastes contents of HBCLIP.TXT into active app FileRead Clip, c:\dropbox\_xfr\hbclip.txt GoodClip := RegExReplace(Clip, "\x1A", null, -1) ; remove end of file char. put in by XyWrite Clipboard = %GoodClip% Send ^v Return The equivalent Xy-side routines are: on ^c: BX sad/nv c:\dropbox\_xfr\hblcip.txt on ^v (leaving off the niceties): BX me c:\dropbox\_xfr\hbclip.txtQ2 -----Original Message----- From: xywrite-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:xywrite-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Harry Binswanger Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:32 PM To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: A general strategy for retaining XyWrite in a non-DOS world Carlo's mention of Boot Camp made me start thinking about booting into a machine running XP or W2k. Maybe the future for us is to have a dedicated XP (or Win2K) machine, and connect that machine to the modern one via network or Dropbox. Advantages: None of the slowdowns or configuration jiggering and re-jiggering required for virtual machines. Low cost--zero, if you already have such a machine in your closet. Disadvantages: Networking is even flakier, flukier, funkier than virtual machine settings; but then Dropbox is amazingly robust, transparent, fast. And you can copy/paste by having clipboard.txt be in a folder that's inside Dropbox (so that clipboard.txt resides on both machines all the time). I already do the equivalent to copy and paste between my PC and my (old) Mac, using Notepad on the PC and TextEdit on the Mac. Eventually, parts will wear out--how long can we expect an old machine to run? Aha, when you get your next computer, the Xy machine can be migrated to the to-be-retired machine. So the scheme is: Main Legacy Year Machine OS | Machine OS ------------------------------------------------------ 2012: A XP | 2013: B Win 7 | A XP 2015 C Win 8 | B XP To migrate the legacy software to the new machine, I would use my standalone disk duplicator. That bypasses any issues of licensing. However, some hardware-specific issues would arise, no? E.g., presumably the old drivers wouldn't work in the new machine. Comments? BTW, here's the AutoHotkey macro for the PC side of copy and paste (equivalents on the Mac under the much more onerous Quickeys). ! = alt ^ = ctrl !c:: ; Alt-c: copy a block & paste into HBCLIP.TXT, which is also on the Mac via Dropbox Send ^c ; copy the block run notepad c:\dropbox\_xfr\hbclip.txt ; open HBCLIP.TXT with Notepad sleep 300 ; allow time for Notepad to open Send ^a^v ; select all existing content, then paste in the new, overwriting the existing content Sleep 300 ; allow time for paste Send ^s ; save file Sleep 1500 ; allow 1.5 seconds for save and to see that the paste went okay WinClose Notepad Return !v:: ; the inverse of !c. Copies what the Mac has put into HBCLIP.TXT Run Notepad c:\dropbox\_xfr\hbclip.txt Sleep 300 Send ^a^c Sleep 800 WinClose Notepad Sleep 150 ; wait for Notepad to close Send ^v ; paste into whatever app was active before launching Notepad Return -----Original Message----- From: xywrite-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:xywrite-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of C.Caballero Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2014 11:48 AM To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: XY4 on Mac Mini in Boxer I think you're right, Harry. I was confusing Parallels with Boot Camp. Carlo Caballero On Sat, 17 May 2014, Harry Binswanger wrote: > Parallels is the same, isnt it? Its not a partition, its a file. One > file (with subfiles) and a program to run it. > > From: xywrite-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > [mailto:xywrite-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Fred Weiner > Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2014 9:19 AM > To: XyWrite List > Subject: Fwd: XY4 on Mac Mini in Boxer (fwd) > > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: C.Caballero <Carlo.Caballero@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > Date: Fri, May 16, 2014 at 11:17 PM > Subject: Re: XY4 on Mac Mini in Boxer (fwd) > To: fw1948@xxxxxxxxx > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 09:27:15 -0600 (MDT) > From: C.Caballero <thyrsus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: XY4 on Mac Mini in Boxer > > But I think this is comparing apples and oranges. Parallels (Harry) > requires an entire partition devoted to Windows 7 (or whatever > version), whereas Fred, using Boxer, is (if I understand correctly) > running DOS on a virtual machine inside OS X. > > Carlo Caballero > > > On Thu, 15 May 2014, Harry Binswanger wrote: > > On the Mac hard drive my XY system is accessible in Finder so it can > be manipulated from there. Some of the things that U2 has automated > for Windows systems I have to do by hand, but it's a small price to > pay for being able to use XY on my Mac. > > Under Parallels, it's even better, and there's no real "price to pay." > > >