Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!bagate!dsinc!unix.cis.pitt.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!mp.cs.niu.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!cs326ag From: cs326ag@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Loren J. Rittle) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications Subject: Re: dBMan 5 (Was Re: Still no Ami businessware.) Message-ID: <1991Mar14.042035.20543@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 14 Mar 91 04:20:35 GMT References: <27839@netcom.COM> <1027@pallas.athenanet.com> <28219@netcom.COM> Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 84 In article <28219@netcom.COM> rodent@netcom.COM (Ben Discoe) writes: >>Also, just as a thought, does/will dBMan support ARexx? > > It will if you ask for it. Let me know how you could use it, and I'll >toss on an ARexx port in a jiffy. An application without an ARexx [from Wishful Thinking, Inc.] interface is like `a day without sunshine', `ice cream without cherries', `a car without gas', `a startup company without an angle'. I don't own a data base program for the Amiga (save the little one builtin to Advantage [from Gold Disk, has an ARexx port, BTW]), but I can think of many uses of such a creature... Oh, you want to know what some of the uses are! :-) Well, for one: I would like to be able to hit one key in CED [from ASDG, full ARexx interface], and have the address of the person whose name is under the cursor get plopped down in TeX format. If I had a data base engine (a good one that ran in the background with only its ARexx port always open waiting for requests), then this would be easy, my ARexx glue would request info from your data base engine and format into TeX format and stick into my CED document right past the name. Hate to say it, but I don't think what your company sells would satify me, unless it had a background mode, as I described above. This means that I should be able to say something like: `runback null: dbMan -r' (-r for rexx server mode, of course :-) This would start up dbMan in the background (no cute windows or anything!). Then, I would be able to interact with dbMan as follows (from ARexx, of course): /* sample ARexx program */ /* PersonAddress.ced ... ARexx Program to obtain a person's address while in CED! */ status 87; bytepos = result; status 55; line = result; parse var line curline '0a'x do i = 1 to words(curline) if wordindex(curline, i)-1 > bytepos then break end item = compress( word( curline, i-1 ), ' ~`,./<>?;:"[]{}!@#$%^&*()+|=\' ) /* the name under the cursor is now in item, boy there should be an easier way of doing this... */ if item = '' then exit address 'dbMan' openDB 'root:user/ljrittle/address/AddressBook.db' address 'dbMan' lookUp item person. /* person. is the stem variable we want the result in */ 'text' '\vbox{\hbox{'person.name'} \hbox{'person.address1'} \hbox{' person.address2'} \hbox{'person.address3'}}' /* this is rough, but you get the idea... */ How many others out there would like a plain Data Base Engine with a FULL ARexx interface (like CED or TxED, etc)? I think every non-trivial program for the Amiga should have *full* ARexx support. The WorkBench (tm) should have an ARexx port for heaven's sake! If anyone from C= can explain this one, I'd like to hear it! Final thought! No one has an excuse for not adding an ARexx port, as MinRexx has been placed in the Public Domain [by Radical Eye Software, maker of AmigaTeX]. You can use MinRexx for any blasted thing you want to, there are no restrictions. If you are an application writer, do yourself a favor and get MinRexx (and do us a favor by adding an ARexx port! Be sure it is complete (see CED, ProVector and others) ARexx support.) It took less than one weeks time to add an ARexx port to ISpell (most of that time was spent figuring out how ISpell worked, hopefully you know how your application works! :-). Loren J. (if you don't fully support ARexx, I won't buy your product) Rittle -- ``NewTek stated that the Toaster *would* *not* be made to directly support the Mac, at this point Sculley stormed out of the booth...'' --- A scene at the recent MacExpo. Gee, you wouldn't think that an Apple Exec would be so worried about one little Amiga device... Loren J. Rittle l-rittle@uiuc.edu