93-546: MicroPro International Corporation was an American software company founded in 1978 in San Rafael, California . They are best known as the publisher of WordStar , a popular early word processor for personal computers . Seymour I. Rubinstein was an employee of early microcomputer company IMSAI , where he negotiated software contracts with Digital Research and Microsoft . After leaving IMSAI, Rubinstein planned to start his own software company that would sell through
186-401: A Data General minicomputer system owned by the city of Orem, Utah . Bastian and Ashton retained ownership of the software that they created. They then founded Satellite Software International, Inc., to market the program to other Data General users. WordPerfect 1.0 represented a significant departure from the previous Wang standard for word processing. The first version of WordPerfect for
279-464: A form creation wizard and data entry application (FormGen) and a database retrieval and updating utility (DataStar). Introduced in 1983 as part of the revised InfoStar, ReportStar generated textual reports from the data generated by DataStar. Introduced in 1984, StarBurst was a menu-based shell that attempted to integrate the full line of MicroPro applications. MicroPro sold the application separately, as well as bundling it with InfoStar as part of
372-477: A table of contents (also allowing to the user to adjust the degree of the subheadings the table of contents lists). StarIndex also allowed the user to automate the creation of indices by flagging words in the body pages and taking note of the page number. The software allowed the words, page numbers, and page number prefixes to be formatted independently. StarIndex also facilitated the creation of hierarchical outlines , appendices , and lists of figures. CalcStar
465-509: A vulnerability . Software patches are often released to fix identified vulnerabilities, but those that remain unknown ( zero days ) as well as those that have not been patched are still liable for exploitation. Vulnerabilities vary in their ability to be exploited by malicious actors, and the actual risk is dependent on the nature of the vulnerability as well as the value of the surrounding system. Although some vulnerabilities can only be used for denial of service attacks that compromise
558-520: A web application —had become the primary method that companies deliver applications. Software companies aim to deliver a high-quality product on time and under budget. A challenge is that software development effort estimation is often inaccurate. Software development begins by conceiving the project, evaluating its feasibility, analyzing the business requirements, and making a software design . Most software projects speed up their development by reusing or incorporating existing software, either in
651-544: A Dutch housing company (VZOS, Den Haag, several thousands of apartments) had its mutation administration build with WordPerfect. Beginning with WordPerfect Office 10, the suite also included the Microsoft Office Visual Basic macro language as an alternative, meant to improve compatibility of the suite with Microsoft Office documents. Macros may be used to create data-entry programs which enter information directly into WordPerfect documents, saving
744-457: A change request. Frequently, software is released in an incomplete state when the development team runs out of time or funding. Despite testing and quality assurance , virtually all software contains bugs where the system does not work as intended. Post-release software maintenance is necessary to remediate these bugs when they are found and keep the software working as the environment changes over time. New features are often added after
837-516: A clear meaning on a DOS screen, but no definite meaning with a Windows screen. WordPerfect lacked a way to meaningfully record mouse movements. A new and even more powerful interpreted token-based macro recording and scripting language came with both DOS and Windows 6.0 versions, and that became the basis of the language named PerfectScript in later versions. PerfectScript has remained the mainstay scripting language for WordPerfect users ever since. It dealt with functions rather than with keystrokes. There
930-498: A close replacement. Specialist vocabulary such as jargon or proper nouns could be added to any dictionary; users could disable words within the dictionary as well, to prevent the false-flagging of certain words. MailMerge was another add-on program to WordStar (becoming integrated from WordStar 4 onwards) which facilitated the merge printing of bulk mailings , such as business letters to clients. Two files were required: The writer would insert placeholders delimited by ampersands into
1023-486: A code's correct and efficient behavior, its reusability and portability , or the ease of modification. It is usually more cost-effective to build quality into the product from the beginning rather than try to add it later in the development process. Higher quality code will reduce lifetime cost to both suppliers and customers as it is more reliable and easier to maintain . Software failures in safety-critical systems can be very serious including death. By some estimates,
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#17327730183921116-467: A company's four regions". Functions included: Additionally data could be piped into a BASIC program using the CHAIN function. InfoStar was a database manager introduced in early 1982. Originally only a report generator, the software was later expanded as a full database application suite comprising DataStar and ReportStar. Introduced in 1980 and later integrated into InfoStar, DataStar consisted of
1209-461: A defined "stop" condition occurred. This capability provided a powerful way to rearrange data and formatting codes within a document where the same sequence of actions needed to be performed repetitively, e.g., for tabular data. But since keystrokes were recorded, changes in the function of certain keys as the program evolved would mean that macros from one DOS version of WordPerfect would not necessarily run correctly on another version. Editing of macros
1302-555: A doubt the best-known and probably the most widely used personal computer word-processing program". The company released WordStar 3.3 in June 1983; the 650,000 cumulative copies of WordStar for the IBM PC and other computers sold by that fall was more than double that of the second most-popular word processor, and that year MicroPro had 10% of the personal computer software market. By 1984, the year it held an initial public offering , MicroPro
1395-483: A general-purpose flat file database program that could be used as the data file for a merge in WordPerfect and as a contact manager . After Novell acquired WordPerfect Corporation, it incorporated many of these utilities into Novell GroupWise . In 1990, WordPerfect Corporation also offered LetterPerfect, which was a reduced-functionality version of WP-DOS 5.1 intended for use on less-capable hardware such as
1488-426: A graphical mode that showed the document as it would print out, known as WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). WordPerfect 5 had introduced an graphic view mode that displayed the layout of the document on a page using generic fonts, but the view mode was ineditable. The editing still needed to be done in text mode. By the time WordPerfect 6.0 was released, the company had grown "to command more than 60 percent of
1581-581: A highly popular grammar checker for DOS, in January 1993 for $ 19 million. RSI's remaining employees were absorbed into WordPerfect in Orem, and the functionality of Grammatik and Reference Set (a spell checker that RSI also sold) were eventually integrated into WordPerfect. WordPerfect continued selling Grammatik as a standalone product for several years. WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS, released in 1993, could switch between its traditional text-based mode and
1674-443: A legal regime where liability for software products is significantly curtailed compared to other products. Source code is protected by copyright law that vests the owner with the exclusive right to copy the code. The underlying ideas or algorithms are not protected by copyright law, but are often treated as a trade secret and concealed by such methods as non-disclosure agreements . Software copyright has been recognized since
1767-549: A major application category on the DOS platform. By 1987, Compute! magazine described WordPerfect as "a standard in the MS-DOS world" and "a powerhouse program that includes almost everything". In November 1989, WordPerfect Corporation released the program's most successful version, WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, which was the first version to include pull-down menus to supplement the traditional function key combinations, support for tables,
1860-441: A poor reputation among customers. PC Magazine wrote in 1983 that MicroPro's "motto often seems to be: 'Ask Your Dealer'", and in 1985 that Almost since its birth 4 years ago, MicroPro has had a seemingly unshakable reputation for three things: arrogant indifference to user feedback ("MicroPro's classic response to questions about WordStar was, "Call your dealer"); possession of one of the more difficult-to-use word processors on
1953-429: A printer driver editor called PTR, which features a flexible macro language and allows technically inclined users to customize and create printer drivers. An interesting feature of version 5.0 for DOS was its Type-Through feature. It allowed a user with certain compatible printers to use WordPerfect as a conventional typewriter. This functionality was removed in version 5.1 for DOS. WordPerfect Corporation produced
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#17327730183922046-412: A quick web search . Most creative professionals have switched to software-based tools such as computer-aided design , 3D modeling , digital image editing , and computer animation . Almost every complex device is controlled by software. WordPerfect WordPerfect ( WP ) is a word processing application, now owned by Alludo , with a long history on multiple personal computer platforms. At
2139-421: A second editing screen that can be toggled open and closed, and sized as desired. The codes for formatting and locating text are displayed, interspersed with tags and the occasional objects, with the tags and objects represented by named tokens. This provides a more detailed view to troubleshoot problems than with styles-based word processors, and object tokens can be clicked with a pointing device to directly open
2232-495: A significant role in the distribution of software products. The first use of the word software is credited to mathematician John Wilder Tukey in 1958. The first programmable computers, which appeared at the end of the 1940s, were programmed in machine language . Machine language is difficult to debug and not portable across different computers. Initially, hardware resources were more expensive than human resources . As programs became complex, programmer productivity became
2325-514: A specific version of the software, downloaded, and run on hardware belonging to the purchaser. The rise of the Internet and cloud computing enabled a new model, software as a service (SaaS), in which the provider hosts the software (usually built on top of rented infrastructure or platforms ) and provides the use of the software to customers, often in exchange for a subscription fee . By 2023, SaaS products—which are usually delivered via
2418-685: A spreadsheet-like feature, and full support for typesetting options, such as italic, redline, and strike-through. This version also included "print preview", a graphical representation of the final printed output that became the foundation for WordPerfect 6.0's graphic screen editing. WordPerfect 5.1+ for DOS was introduced to allow older DOS-based PCs to utilize the new WordPerfect 6 file format. This version could read and write WordPerfect 6 files, included several third-party screen and printing applications (previously sold separately), and provided several minor improvements. WordPerfect Corporation acquired Reference Software International , makers of Grammatik ,
2511-415: A system's availability, others allow the attacker to inject and run their own code (called malware ), without the user being aware of it. To thwart cyberattacks, all software in the system must be designed to withstand and recover from external attack. Despite efforts to ensure security, a significant fraction of computers are infected with malware. Programming languages are the format in which software
2604-433: A variety of ancillary and spin-off products. WordPerfect Library, introduced in 1986 and later renamed WordPerfect Office (not to be confused with Corel's Windows office suite of the same name ), was a package of DOS network and stand-alone utility software for use with WordPerfect. The package included a DOS menu shell and file manager which could edit binary files as well as WordPerfect or Shell macros, calendar, and
2697-453: Is written. Since the 1950s, thousands of different programming languages have been invented; some have been in use for decades, while others have fallen into disuse. Some definitions classify machine code —the exact instructions directly implemented by the hardware—and assembly language —a more human-readable alternative to machine code whose statements can be translated one-to-one into machine code—as programming languages. Programs written in
2790-712: The CP/M operating system. MicroPro began selling the product, now renamed WordStar , in June 1979. By early 1980, MicroPro claimed in advertisements that 5,000 people had purchased WordStar in eight months. An exhausted Barnaby left the company in March 1980, but due to WordStar's sophistication, the company's extensive sales and marketing efforts, and bundling deals with Osborne and other computer makers, MicroPro's sales grew from $ 500,000 in 1979 to $ 72 million in fiscal year 1984, surpassing earlier market leader Electric Pencil . By May 1983 BYTE magazine called WordStar "without
2883-624: The IBM PC was released the day after Thanksgiving in 1982. It was sold as WordPerfect 2.20 , continuing the version numbering from the Data General program. Over the next several months, three more minor releases arrived, mainly to correct bugs. The developers had hoped to program WordPerfect in C , but at this early stage, there were no C compilers available for the IBM PC, and they had to program it in x86 assembly language . All versions of WordPerfect up to 5.0 were written in x86 , and C
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2976-438: The high-level programming languages used to create software share a few main characteristics: knowledge of machine code is not necessary to write them, they can be ported to other computer systems, and they are more concise and human-readable than machine code. They must be both human-readable and capable of being translated into unambiguous instructions for computer hardware. The invention of high-level programming languages
3069-605: The machine language specific to the hardware. The introduction of high-level programming languages in 1958 allowed for more human-readable instructions, making software development easier and more portable across different computer architectures . Software in a programming language is run through a compiler or interpreter to execute on the architecture's hardware. Over time, software has become complex, owing to developments in networking , operating systems , and databases . Software can generally be categorized into two main types: The rise of cloud computing has introduced
3162-457: The 4.2 release in 1986, and it became the standard in the DOS market by version 5.1 in 1989. Its early popularity was based partly on its availability for a wide variety of computers and operating systems, and also partly because of extensive, no-cost support, with "hold jockeys" entertaining users while waiting on the phone. Its dominant position ended after a failed release for Microsoft Windows ;
3255-735: The Ctrl-Alt, Shift-Alt, and Shift-Ctrl double modifiers, unlike early versions of WordStar , which used only Ctrl. WordPerfect used F3 instead of F1 for Help , F1 instead of Esc for Cancel , and Esc for Repeat (though a configuration option in later versions allowed these functions to be rotated to locations that later became more standard). The extensive number of key combinations are now one of WP's most popular features among its regular " power users " such as legal secretaries, paralegals and attorneys. WordPerfect for DOS shipped with an impressive array of printer drivers —a feature that played an important role in its adoption—and also shipped with
3348-452: The Editor program of WordPerfect Office. WordPerfect 4.0 was released in 1984. WordPerfect 4.2 , released in 1986, introduced automatic paragraph numbering, which was important to law offices, and automatic numbering and placement of footnotes and endnotes that were important both to law offices and academics. It became the first program to overtake the original market leader WordStar in
3441-456: The InfoStar+ package. It was the first-ever office suite of personal computer programs. Software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the execution of a computer . Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital computers in the mid-20th century. Early programs were written in
3534-554: The WordPerfect Library for DOS, the Novell / WordPerfect Office suite was integrated by " middleware ". The most important middleware suite, still active in current versions of WordPerfect Office, is called PerfectFit (developed by WordPerfect). The other "middleware" (developed by Novell) was called AppWare. The WordPerfect product line was sold twice, first to Novell in June 1994, for $ 1.4 billion. Novell sold it (at
3627-621: The WordPerfect name that include the Quattro Pro spreadsheet, the Presentations slides formatter, and other applications. The common filename extension of WordPerfect document files is .wpd . Older versions of WordPerfect also used file extensions .wp , .wp7 , .wp6 , .wp5 , .wp4 , and originally, no extension at all. In 1979, Brigham Young University graduate student Bruce Bastian and computer science professor Alan Ashton created word processing software for
3720-404: The appearance of boxes, borders, lines and fills and store the customized design for reuse. The possibilities include patterns and color gradients for fills; corner, endpoint, pen-type and thickness for lines. Box styles can be used as container style, including a border, lines, fill, text and caption; each with its separate style. A text box style shows that WordPerfect cascades its styles. Around
3813-427: The basis of WordStar 4.0 in 1987, four years after the previous version. Word (four versions from 1983 to 1987) and WordPerfect (five versions), however, had become the market leaders. More conflict between MicroPro's two factions delayed WordStar 5.0 until late 1988, again hurting the program's sales. After renaming itself after its flagship product in 1989, WordStar International merged with SoftKey in 1993. WordStar
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3906-399: The bottleneck. The introduction of high-level programming languages in 1958 hid the details of the hardware and expressed the underlying algorithms into the code . Early languages include Fortran , Lisp , and COBOL . There are two main types of software: Software can also be categorized by how it is deployed . Traditional applications are purchased with a perpetual license for
3999-691: The company after a January 1984 heart attack. His replacements canceled the promising office suite Starburst, purchased a WordStar clone, and used it as the basis of WordStar 2000, released in December 1984. It received poor reviews—by April 1985 PC Magazine referred to WordStar 2000 as "beleaguered"—due to not being compatible with WordStar files and other disadvantages, and by selling at the same $ 495 price as WordStar 3.3 confused customers. Company employees were divided between WordStar and WordStar 2000 factions, and fiscal year 1985 sales declined to $ 40 million. New management purchased NewWord and used it as
4092-460: The company blamed the failure on Microsoft for not initially sharing its Windows Application Programming Interface (API) specifications, causing the application to be slow. After WordPerfect received the Windows APIs, there was a long delay in reprogramming before introducing an improved version. Microsoft Word had been introduced at the same time as their first attempt, and Word took over
4185-487: The company introduced printer drivers , a file containing a list of control codes for each model of printer. Version 3.0 had support for fifty different printers, and this was expanded to one hundred within a year. WordPerfect also supplied an editor utility that allowed users to make their own printer drivers, or to modify the included ones. Antic magazine observed, that "WordPerfect is almost unusable without its manual of over 600 pages!" A version of WordPerfect 3.0 became
4278-600: The configuration editor for the particular object type, e.g. clicking on a style token brings up the style editor with the particular style type displayed. WordPerfect had this feature already in its DOS incarnations. WordPerfect for DOS stood out for its macros , in which sequences of keystrokes, including function codes, were recorded as the user typed them. These macros could then be assigned to any key desired. This enabled any sequence of keystrokes to be recorded, saved, and recalled. Macros could examine system data, make decisions, be chained together, and operate recursively until
4371-404: The correctness of code, while user acceptance testing helps to ensure that the product meets customer expectations. There are a variety of software development methodologies , which vary from completing all steps in order to concurrent and iterative models. Software development is driven by requirements taken from prospective users, as opposed to maintenance, which is driven by events such as
4464-400: The cost of poor quality software can be as high as 20 to 40 percent of sales. Despite developers' goal of delivering a product that works entirely as intended, virtually all software contains bugs. The rise of the Internet also greatly increased the need for computer security as it enabled malicious actors to conduct cyberattacks remotely. If a bug creates a security risk, it is called
4557-419: The cost of products. Unlike copyrights, patents generally only apply in the jurisdiction where they were issued. Engineer Capers Jones writes that "computers and software are making profound changes to every aspect of human life: education, work, warfare, entertainment, medicine, law, and everything else". It has become ubiquitous in everyday life in developed countries . In many cases, software augments
4650-573: The default settings for a document. After the purchase of the desktop publishing program Ventura , Corel enhanced the WordPerfect styles editor and styles behavior with the majority of Ventura's capabilities. This improved the usability and performance of graphic elements like text boxes, document styles, footer and header styles. Since WordPerfect has been enriched with properties from the CorelDraw Graphics suite, graphic styles are editable. The Graphics Styles editor enables customizing
4743-603: The entire office suite, no matter whether that function was designed for WordPerfect, Quattro Pro or Presentations. The macro development wizard presents and explains all of these functions. The number of functions available through PerfectScript is unparalleled in the office market. On top of the functions available in the main components of the office suite, PerfectScript also provides the user with tools to build dialogs and forms. Widgets like buttons, input fields, drop-down lists and labels are easily combined to build user-friendly interfaces for custom office applications. An example:
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#17327730183924836-445: The fact that the newer version is extremely rich in functionality, WordPerfect X5 documents are fully compatible with WordPerfect 6.0a documents in both directions. The older program simply ignores the "unknown" codes, while rendering the known features of the document. WordPerfect users were never forced to upgrade for compatibility reasons for more than two decades. A key to their design is its streaming code architecture that parallels
4929-438: The form of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or open-source software . Software quality assurance is typically a combination of manual code review by other engineers and automated software testing . Due to time constraints, testing cannot cover all aspects of the software's intended functionality, so developers often focus on the most critical functionality. Formal methods are used in some safety-critical systems to prove
5022-433: The formatting features of HTML and Cascading Style Sheets . Documents are created much the same way that raw HTML pages are written, with text interspersed by tags (called "codes") that trigger treatment of data until a corresponding closing tag is encountered, at which point the settings active to the point of the opening tag resume control. As with HTML, tags can be nested. Some data structures are treated as objects within
5115-439: The functionality of existing technologies such as household appliances and elevators . Software also spawned entirely new technologies such as the Internet , video games , mobile phones , and GPS . New methods of communication, including email , forums , blogs , microblogging , wikis , and social media , were enabled by the Internet. Massive amounts of knowledge exceeding any paper-based library are now available with
5208-524: The height of its popularity in the 1980s and early 1990s, it was the market leader of word processors, displacing the prior market leader WordStar . It was originally developed under contract at Brigham Young University for use on a Data General minicomputer in the late 1970s. The authors retained the rights to the program, forming the Utah-based Satellite Software International ( SSI ) in 1979 to sell it;
5301-418: The language has hundreds of commands and functions and in fact creates full-fledged programs resident on and executed on the user's computer. In WPDOS 6 the source code is generated using the same interface used to edit documents. A WordPerfect macro can create or modify a document or perform tasks like displaying results of a calculation such as taking a date input, adding a specific number of days and displaying
5394-524: The laptops of the day, and as an entry-level product for students and home users; the name (but not the code) was purchased from a small Missouri company that had produced one of the first word processors for the Atari 8-bit computers . LP did not support tables, labels, sorting, equation editing or styles. It sold for about US$ 100 but did not catch on and was soon discontinued. Another program distributed through WordPerfect Corporation (and later through Novell)
5487-417: The market because it was faster, and was promoted by aggressive bundling deals that ultimately produced Microsoft Office . WordPerfect was no longer a popular standard by the mid-1990s. WordPerfect Corporation was sold to Novell in 1994, which then sold the product to Corel in 1996. Corel (since rebranded as Alludo ) has made regular releases to the product since then, often in the form of office suites under
5580-446: The market; and possession of the most powerful word processor available. By late 1984 the company admitted, according to the magazine, that WordStar's reputation for power was fading, and by early 1985 its sales had decreased for four quarters while those of Multimate and Samna increased. Several MicroPro employees meanwhile formed rival company Newstar. In September 1983 it published WordStar clone NewWord, which offered several features
5673-516: The master document, e.g. , &TITLE&, &INITIAL&, &SURNAME&, &ADDRESS1&. In each copy of the letter the placeholders would be replaced with strings read from the DAT file. Mass mailings could thereby be prepared with each letter copy individually addressed. StarIndex was an indexing and chapter management program that allowed WordStar users to demarcate chapter title headings and sectional subheadings to automatically generate
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#17327730183925766-597: The mid-1970s and is vested in the company that makes the software, not the employees or contractors who wrote it. The use of most software is governed by an agreement ( software license ) between the copyright holder and the user. Proprietary software is usually sold under a restrictive license that limits copying and reuse (often enforced with tools such as digital rights management (DRM)). Open-source licenses , in contrast, allow free use and redistribution of software with few conditions. Most open-source licenses used for software require that modifications be released under
5859-413: The new date in a dialog box. Documents created or edited by a WordPerfect macro are no different from those produced by manual input; the macros simply improve efficiency or automate repetitive tasks and also enabled creating content-rich document types, which would hardly be feasible manually. The PerfectScript macro language shows especial versatility in its ability to deploy every function that exists in
5952-592: The new network of retail computer stores. He founded MicroPro International Corporation in September 1978 and hired John Robbins Barnaby as programmer, who wrote a word processor , WordMaster, and a sorting program, SuperSort, in Intel 8080 assembly language . After Rubinstein obtained a report that discussed the abilities of contemporary standalone word processors from IBM , Xerox , and Wang Laboratories , Barnaby enhanced WordMaster with similar features and support for
6045-632: The new software delivery model Software as a Service (SaaS). In SaaS, applications are hosted by a provider and accessed over the Internet . The process of developing software involves several stages. The stages include software design , programming , testing , release , and maintenance . Software quality assurance and security are critical aspects of software development, as bugs and security vulnerabilities can lead to system failures and security breaches. Additionally, legal issues such as software licenses and intellectual property rights play
6138-472: The operating system) can take this saved file and execute it as a process on the computer hardware. Some programming languages use an interpreter instead of a compiler. An interpreter converts the program into machine code at run time , which makes them 10 to 100 times slower than compiled programming languages. Software is often released with the knowledge that it is incomplete or contains bugs. Purchasers knowingly buy it in this state, which has led to
6231-541: The original lacked, such as a built-in spell checker and support for laser printers . Advertisements stated that "Anyone with WordStar experience won't even have to read NewWord's manuals. WordStar text files work with NewWord". Despite competition from NewStar, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect , and dozens of other companies, which typically released new versions of their software every 12 to 18 months, MicroPro did not release new versions of WordStar beyond 3.3 during 1984 and 1985, in part because Rubinstein relinquished control of
6324-618: The physical world may also be part of the requirements for a software patent to be held valid. Software patents have been historically controversial . Before the 1998 case State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc. , software patents were generally not recognized in the United States. In that case, the Supreme Court decided that business processes could be patented. Patent applications are complex and costly, and lawsuits involving patents can drive up
6417-743: The program first came to market under the name SSI*WP in March 1980. It then moved to the MS-DOS operating system in 1982, by which time the name WordPerfect was in use, and several greatly updated versions quickly followed. The application's feature list was considerably more advanced than its main competition WordStar , an established program based on the operating system CP/M that failed to transition successfully onto MS-DOS, which replaced CP/M. Satellite Software International changed its name to WordPerfect Corporation in 1985. WordPerfect gained praise for its "look of sparseness" and clean display. It rapidly displaced most other systems, especially after
6510-408: The release. Over time, the level of maintenance becomes increasingly restricted before being cut off entirely when the product is withdrawn from the market. As software ages , it becomes known as legacy software and can remain in use for decades, even if there is no one left who knows how to fix it. Over the lifetime of the product, software maintenance is estimated to comprise 75 percent or more of
6603-424: The same license, which can create complications when open-source software is reused in proprietary projects. Patents give an inventor an exclusive, time-limited license for a novel product or process. Ideas about what software could accomplish are not protected by law and concrete implementations are instead covered by copyright law . In some countries, a requirement for the claimed invention to have an effect on
6696-538: The same time, Corel included WordPerfect, with its full functionality, in CorelDraw Graphics Suite as the text editor. Present since the earliest versions of WordPerfect, the Reveal Codes feature distinguishes it from other word processors; Microsoft Word's equivalent is much less powerful. It displays and allows editing the codes, reduces retyping, and enables easy formatting changes. It is
6789-678: The stream as with HTML's treatment of graphic images, e.g., footnotes and styles, but the bulk of a WordPerfect document's data and formatting codes appear as a single continuous stream. A difference between HTML tags and WordPerfect codes is that HTML codes can all be expressed as a string of plain text characters delimited by greater-than and less-than characters, e.g. <strong>text</strong> , whereas WordPerfect formatting codes consist of hexadecimal values. The addition of styles and style libraries in WP 5.0 provided greatly increased power and flexibility in formatting documents, while maintaining
6882-494: The streaming-code architecture of earlier versions. Styles are a preset arrangement of settings having to do with things like fonts, spacings, tab stops, margins and other items having to do with text layout. Styles can be created by the user to shortcut the setup time when starting a new document, and they can be saved in the program's style library. Prior to that, its only use of styles was the Opening Style, which contained
6975-527: The time and effort required to retype it. WordPerfect had support for European languages other than English. The Language Resource File (WP.LRS) specified language formatting conventions. In addition, WordPerfect Corporation did some aggressive marketing in Europe. In January 1993 they signed a three-year, $ 16 million deal to sponsor the WordPerfect cycling team in international competitions. The team
7068-431: The total development cost. Completing a software project involves various forms of expertise, not just in software programmers but also testing, documentation writing, project management , graphic design , user experience , user support, marketing , and fundraising. Software quality is defined as meeting the stated requirements as well as customer expectations. Quality is an overarching term that can refer to
7161-697: The user through the software. Introduced in 1982, PlanStar was another spreadsheet application, oriented toward financial planners. PlanStar prioritized the presentation of data over number-crunching, allowing users to define such through an instruction list of name–value pairs that define the headers of rows and columns, what to calculate, and how the data is to be formatted. It also supported rudimentary creation of graphic reports, such as pies and line charts . Up to 9,999 stored instructions were supported, to manipulate an array of 999 "worksheets" (spreadsheets). Entire worksheets could be fed into functions, for example, "to consolidate four income statement worksheets for
7254-431: The vice president of strategic planning at Sperry Corporation , under which he had spearheaded Sperry Link—an office productivity software suite of Sperry's own—which Haney said afforded him experience in the microcomputer market. Rubinstein remained on the board of directors. WordStar became popular in large companies without MicroPro. The company, which did not have a corporate sales program until December 1983, developed
7347-460: The word processing software market." The distinguishing features of WordPerfect include: The ease of use of tools, like Mail Merge (combine form documents with data from any data source), "Print as booklet", and tables (with spreadsheet capabilities and the possibility to generate graphs) are also notable. The WordPerfect document format allows continuous extending of functionality without jeopardizing backward and forward compatibility. Despite
7440-708: Was DataPerfect for DOS, a fast and capable hierarchical database management system (DBMS) requiring as little as 300 KB of free DOS memory to run. It was written by Lew Bastian. In December 1995, Novell released DataPerfect as copyrighted freeware and allowed the original author to continue to update the program. Updates were developed until at least 2008. DataPerfect supports up to 99 data files ("panels") with each holding up to 16 million records of up to 125 fields and an unlimited number of variable-length memo fields which can store up to 64,000 characters each. Networked, DataPerfect supports up to 10,000 simultaneous users. Another program distributed through WordPerfect Corporation
7533-572: Was PlanPerfect, a spreadsheet application. The first version with that name was reviewed in InfoWorld magazine in September 1987. WordPerfect was late in coming to market with a Windows version. WordPerfect 5.1 for Windows , introduced in 1991, had to be installed from DOS and was largely unpopular due to serious stability issues. The first mature version, WordPerfect 5.2 for Windows , was released in November 1992 and WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows
7626-430: Was also rendered obsolete by Windows' use of its own printer device drivers. WordPerfect became part of an office suite when the company entered into a co-licensing agreement with Borland Software Corporation in 1993. The offerings were marketed as Borland Office, containing Windows versions of WordPerfect, Quattro Pro , Borland Paradox , and a LAN-based groupware package called WordPerfect Office. Originally based on
7719-468: Was an add-on program to WordStar that allowed the user to check words for misspellings against either a dictionary of 20,000 English words, a user-defined dictionary, or a third-party dictionary list for other languages besides English. SpellStar marked words flagged as misspelled in real time within WordStar and allowed the user to review words that it flagged as misspelled but for which it could not find
7812-479: Was an entry-level spreadsheet application, introduced for CP/M in November 1981 and MS-DOS in April 1983. A direct competitor to VisiCalc , MicroPro programmed CalcStar's shortcut keys to closely follow WordStar's and allowed for direct formatting of text within cells, including boldface and underlining. CalcStar was oriented toward novice users, based around a menu-driven interface that provided many prompts to guide
7905-559: Was difficult until the introduction of a macro editor in Shell, in which a separate file for each WordPerfect product with macros enabled the screen display of the function codes used in the macros for that product. WordPerfect DOS macros, which assumed a text-based screen, with fixed locations on the screen, could not, or could not easily, be implemented with the Windows WYSIWYG screen and mouse. For example, "go down four lines" has
7998-724: Was directed by the Dutchman Jan Raas . The move was intended to raise WordPerfect's profile throughout Europe and especially in the Alpine countries of France, Switzerland, and Italy, and it was also thought that young bicycling enthusiasts fit the WordPerfect user profile in the United States. In the third year of the deal (1995), Novell took over the sponsorship, due to having acquired WordPerfect. Like its 1970s predecessor Emacs and mid-1980s competitor MultiMate , WordPerfect used almost every possible combination of function keys with Ctrl , Alt , and Shift modifiers, and
8091-404: Was extremely slow in switching to support sub-directories in MS-DOS. In 1983, WordPerfect 3.0 was released for DOS. This was updated to support DOS 2.x, sub-directories, and hard disks. It also expanded printer support, where WordPerfect 2.x only supported Epson and Diablo printers that were hard-coded into the main program. Adding support for additional printers this way was impractical, so
8184-413: Was no way to import DOS macros, and users who had created extensive macro libraries were forced to continue using WordPerfect 5.1, or to rewrite all the macros from scratch using the new programming language. An important property of WordPerfect macros is that they are not embedded in a document. As a result, WordPerfect is not prone to macro viruses or malware , unlike MS Word. Despite the term "macro",
8277-461: Was only adopted with WP 5.1, when it became necessary to convert it to non-IBM compatible computers. The use of straight assembly language and a high amount of direct screen access gave WordPerfect a significant performance advantage over WordStar , which used strictly DOS API functions for all screen and keyboard access, and was often very slow. In addition, WordStar, created for the CP/M operating system, in which subdirectories are not supported,
8370-619: Was released in 1993. By the time WordPerfect 5.2 for Windows was introduced, Microsoft Word for Windows version 2 had been on the market for over a year and had received its third interim release, v2.0c. WordPerfect's function-key-centered user interface did not adapt well to the new paradigm of a mouse and pull-down menus, especially with many of WordPerfect's standard key combinations overridden by incompatible keyboard shortcuts that Windows itself used; for example, Alt-F4 became Exit Program , as opposed to WordPerfect's Block Text . The DOS version's impressive arsenal of finely tuned printer drivers
8463-401: Was simultaneous with the compilers needed to translate them automatically into machine code. Most programs do not contain all the resources needed to run them and rely on external libraries . Part of the compiler's function is to link these files in such a way that the program can be executed by the hardware. Once compiled, the program can be saved as an object file and the loader (part of
8556-646: Was the first microcomputer word processor to offer mail merge and textual WYSIWYG . Besides word-wrapping (still a notable feature for early microcomputer programs), this last was most noticeably implemented as on-screen pagination during the editing session. Using the number of lines-per-page given by the user during program installation, Wordstar would display a full line of dash characters onscreen showing where page breaks would occur during hardcopy printout. Many users found this very reassuring during editing, knowing beforehand where pages would end and begin, and where text would thus be interrupted across pages. SpellStar
8649-536: Was the world's largest software company with 23% of the word processor market. The company additionally scored a contract with the Kaypro Corporation to have its WordStar, MailMerge, CalcStar, DataStar, and SuperSort applications included with all of Kaypro's bundled computer packages in April 1984. Rubinstein resigned as chief executive officer in August 1983. He was replaced by E. Glen Haney, previously
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