[Papyrus-L] An observation and a question about Papyrus

[Raisa Deber]

At 09:44 PM 10/12/2001 +0000, you wrote:

>Rick Lentz's suggestion about member support for further development 
>basically amounts to suggesting that RSD should go public, if there is to 
>be substantial support.  That's a big step and probably distasteful to 
>Dave and his crew.
>
>I seem to be the only one who doesn't understand why abandoning the move 
>toward a Windows version is such a calamity.  It is evidently such an 
>elementary thing that everyone else takes it for granted, but someone 
>please explain to me why we would want a Windows version?  What am I 
>missing with the present DOS version?  This is not a joke.  Please explain.

A few things.  First, the ability to handle long file names.  I do a lot of 
collaborative work, and the files are not always unique in the first six 
characters.  Second, some issues around use of special character sets 
(e.g., if the reference is in a foreign language).  Third, use of the clip 
board can be a pain - I use Windows 2000, and it seems to make random 
changes to the clip board file if I use the Papyrus default name (not to 
mention Papyrus' habit of forgetting that I asked it to use a file and 
needing to have this initialized over and over again); this really fouls up 
inserting references into manuscripts.

I agree; I've been checking out the competition a bit (don't have time for 
anything thorough) and it does not seem to be nearly as good as 
Papyrus.  Those of you who have switched - and I still hope I won't have to 
- which systems allow you to keep the Papyrus reference numbers?  Our whole 
system, being used by our research team (and yes, I purchased a few copies, 
even though the license policy said that wasn't necessary), is all filed by 
Papyrus number, with a '"located" set of keywords to indicate who has hard 
copy.  Switching to any system which doesn't allow that - e.g., those which 
do dynamic allocation of record numbers - is simply not on.  That being 
said, Biblioscape seems better than End Note, Reference Manager, or Pro 
Cite - but the details just aren't there, and I really do not have the time 
for trying to investigate systems and port them over.  So, we're staying 
with Papyrus for now - but I'm starting to think about the long term, and 
how much we can rely on Papyrus to still be there.  (I have this awful 
tendency to like legacy systems.)

Dave - these cries of anguish indicate the high esteem in which we hold you 
and your team.  Are you burned out with Papyrus?  What's the story?  How 
can we help?
Best wishes
Raisa Deber

>Christopher K. Starr
>Dep't of Life Sciences
>University of the West Indies
>St Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago
>
>
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Raisa B. Deber, PhD
Department of Health Administration
University of Toronto
12 Queens Park Crescent West, 2nd Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A8 Canada
phone:  (416) 978-8366
fax:  (416) 978-7350
e-mail:  raisa.deber at utoronto.ca