[7048] in Consulting_FYI
XESS VERSION 3 New Features.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dudzai Saburi)
Mon Aug 1 00:52:56 1994
To: cfyi@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 94 00:52:42 EDT
From: Dudzai Saburi <dsaburi@MIT.EDU>
Xess Version 3 has a bunch of new stuff but it's most striking difference from
the previous version is it's new look as explained below.
New features include:
New look-and-feel Xess 3.0 brings the look-and-feel of popular PC-
based spreadsheets to the X Windows environment while
continuing to optimize the functionality for Unix
platforms. Compliance with OSF/Motif Style Guide has
been maximized.
WYSIWYG model Simply put: what you see on screen is what you get
on hardcopy output: fonts (family, size, style),
formats, color, justification (placement), customized
charts, with new page layout and printer options - all
preserved with the sheet.
Navigation In addition to the GOTO feature found in earlier
versions, users now have direct access to TOP/BOTTOM
with ability to display new windows containing the
current sheet. Each window supports independent
scrolling.
Text Wrapping Long text strings can now be automatically wrapped
within the bounds of a column width, selectable on
a cell-by-cell basis.
Row/Column Sizing Row height and column width can be automatically
adjusted to fit the maximum cell content. For columns,
this is dependent on the length of the longest
string in the column. For rows this is dependent on
the font type and size.uit.]
Page Layout Simple header and footers support file name, date/time, and page numbers. Page breaks are now selectable by row and column.
Highlighting Users may select background and foreground colors
to highlight errors, negative values, and
constraint expressions - wherever they occur in the
sheet.
Printer Chooser Each site may define a list of print name and
associated print commands that is selectable from the
Printer Options menu. These print destinations can
be defined to reflect different paper trays,
different print locations, or even a print
previewer instead of a printer.
Graphics Xess 3.0 now gives you control over graphs and
charts while preserving your ability to create
graphs with a single mouse click. Graphs can
be in separate windows as in earlier versions or
be placed directly into a spreadsheet cell. There
is no longer an artificial limit placed on the
number of graphs a sheet can have.
Types of graphs can be combined in the same
chart. In addition you can customized all elements:
background color, line color, tic mark placement,
axis color, label/title fonts. It is now possible
to create presentation-quality charts within Xess.
Cell Linking between Xess 3.0 formulas may now include references to
Sheets cells in another sheet. This has a variety of uses
including the consolidation of financial data.
Improved Performance Xess 3.0 typically reflects a factor of two and
frequently greater performance improvement with
loading and subsequent recalculation.
Some of the demos in the examples/xs_examples directory illustrate these new
features.
Dudzai Saburi
