I have just given ECCO 3.0 a test run with XyWIN. I have very good news
and a disappointment to report.
The new user interface took 10 minutes to get used to. I like it a lot.
The new features I've tried are all rock solid and great. (Auto assign
items typed or inserted into specific folders based on assigned key
words and phrases, split and join outline items, etc. etc.). Most
relevant to XyWIN, the shooter is enhanced and works flawlessly. Best
improvement, now from within a xywin document you can click the shooter
icon and choose "Get address." You can then search you phonebook and
select a name. The full address (business or home, with or without
telephone and fax numbers appears as a perfect address block). Just as
important, I can still enter filenames (files with an extension
associated with xywin in the file manager) into any view. Simply by
double clicking the filename xywin loads itself and opens the selected
document. This worked before and still does.
Here's the disappointment. There's a new module in ECCO 3.0 called
Correspondence Manager. Jack, its WAY COOL. It allows for the creation
within ECCO of a wp mailmerge templates. You can select any number of
people from your phone book, call CorrMangr to compose a letter. With
one click, get this, ECCO will as directed 1) Print out letters
addressed to each person selected (and envelopes) 2) Fax a copy of the
letter to any of those people who have a fax number in their record 3)
email a copy to anyone who has an email address in their record. You can
instruct it which mode to prefer. After the letters/faxes/emails are
sent, the actions taken are permanently logged in the ECCO phone book.
Here's the disappointment. Correspondence Manager works with WINWORD,
WORDPERFECT WINDOWS and AMIPRO, not XYWIN. I contacted Phil Seeman's the
author of the CM module to ask what it would take to write the mailmerge
templates and interface for XyWIN. He said "time and $$$." He also
indicated that market realities mean that this simply will not happen
by HIM/NETMANAGE.
Ken, this is too bad. It seems just like the kind of thing you indicated
you were trying to do with XYWIN and General Counsel. I sure could use a
little more encouragement from you that the good things from xywin are
still coming. It sure is tempting to get one of the big three WPS loaded
on my work machine to let ECCO take care of managing and logging
correspondence.
Allan Needell, Dept. of Space History, Nat'l Air & Space Museum
Smithsonian Institution, MRC 311, Washington, DC 20560
i: nassh100@sivm.si.edu; b: nassh100@sivm; CServe: 71461,1115
tel 202/357-2828; fax 202/786-2947