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From: richi@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Richard Jennings)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Re: HP NewWave 3.0?
Message-ID: <37140011@hpopd.pwd.hp.com>
Date: 28 Mar 91 11:54:15 GMT
References: <1991Mar18.163900.9424@news.cs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard CCG-PWD, UK.
Lines: 86

Kumar posts a nice summary, to which I'd like to draw out a few points,
both from my own experience of using NewWave and WRT the program manager
& DDE...

>A consistent front end to a number of different tools is 
>already being provided by various window based GUI 
>suppliers.

As well as the apps.  shipped as standard in the NewWave box, I also use
Micrografx Charisma for NewWave, Dexotek's Office Accessories and Excel 3.0.


>Encapsulation:
>This feature protects your investment in existing MS-DOS & 
>Windows application software, by incorporating these 
>applications into the NewWave environment where they appear 
>as objects. Encapsulation is provided at 3 levels of 
>sophistication. At the highest level, applications can be 
>made to look like purpose-built NewWave applications and 
>their data can be "shared".

Object sharing (in the sense that an object can be filed in more than
one place) *is* available for object types encapsulated at the simplest
level.  The more complex levels of encapsulation are required in order
to allow the encapsulated objects to be viewed inside another object
(e.g.  a Excel 3.0 spreadsheet inside an Ami/NewWave document).  This
typically involves developing a NewWave browser, or modifying the app.
to be NewWave-compliant.


>True Integration of different data types:
>NewWave provides true integration of different data types 
>(like text, database data, spreadsheets, graphics, scanned 
>images) in one document thru its Object Management Facility. 

Note that the underlying app.  for the document type does not need to be
updated, in order to support a new document type!  For example, no
changes were necessary to the NewWave Write application to support the
inclusion of objects that display full-motion video in a window.


>Information Linking:
>A data item (like a spreadsheet, a graphic item etc) can 
>either be copied from one object to another or it can be 
>"shared". When it is a shared item, any change made to the 
>object in one location is automatically & immediately updated 
>in all the other locations where all or part of it appears. 

The key words here are "automatically" and "immediately":  No DDE dialog
box asking the user whether it's OK to fire up the application; no
concerns that the app.  might hang the system or run out of memory while
updating the "links" and thus lose the changes.  NewWave objects shared
in multiple locations are ACTUALLY THE SAME OBJECT.  The NewWave Object
Manager maintains the links to the ONE object, so the automatic update
is instant.


>Task Automation:
>This facility (the Agent) allows the user to record a 
>sequence of instructions to be played back at the click of a 
>mouse, or scheduled for a given time. It is especially useful 
>for the automation of functions that are periodically 
>performed using software on the PC/host you may connect to.

The task language is orders of magnitude more powerful, flexible and
robust than the Windows 3.0 Recorder.  With the Windows recorder, you
only need to move a window by a few pixels, or rename a completely
unrelated file, and your task either doesn't work, or (more worryingly)
does the wrong thing (e.g.  deletes the wrong file).


Regards,

richi.
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  Richard Jennings,  Software Development Engineer
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         >> Of course, I don't speak for Hewlett-Packard <<