Talk:Lotus Symphony (MS-DOS)

message: I was told by a database professional that Symphony's database environment is exceptionally powerful. Its "macro command language" is also quite powerful, allowing bytes to be read from any file, processed, and output to any file. Also, it takes advantage of Symphony's menu-handling routines, allowing the command language writer to create menu systems of any depth. Symphony is actually an integrated suite of five environments: SHEET (spreadsheet), FORM (database), DOC (word processing), COM (modem-based communications), and GRAPH (simple business-oriented graphs, including bar charts, pie charts, X-Y plots, and so on). The version I have is 2.2, of which the COM environment is useless (as of 2007), and though the GRAPH environment uses CGA graphics, it's still usable under Windows XP. Years ago, a Toshiba customer support representative told me that Symphony caused some problems because instead of using standard DOS procedures, it sometimes used direct BIOS calls, but Windows XP seems to support it well. D021317c 06:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Database power 

message: It seems to me that Symphony was severely hampered by the hardware available at the time of its appearance. It required a rather complicated setup procedure which loaded drivers for all sorts of equipment, including printers, modems, monitors, math coprocessors, etc.  The article ought to mention these problems, which were common to all sophisticated programs of the early 1990s, that is, programs which integrated graphics, text, printing, communications, and serious math operations.  
It must have been a major headache creating and supplying those drivers, and the lack of modern ones is Symphony's main problem today.
A single paragraph including links to the issues would do nicely. D021317c 17:36, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The problem with Symphony 

message: it seems that IBM are launching a desktop office suite and reusing the Symphony name. The new product will have a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tool. Essentially this consists of OpenOffice.org code presented through an Eclipse framework, with some new user interface components.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.173.69.162 (talk) 12:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: relaunch of the name with new code from Notes8/OpenOffice.org

message: They older dos version and the recent version have little to do with each other, unless the old source code had been released as open, the entire code base for the two will be entirely different. At best a brief mention of the dos version should be mentioned along with the current version. WikipedianYknOK 23:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Should recent IBM Symphony be forked

message: I only just heard about the new version.  Is it based on the old Lotus Smart Suite, which has not been actively developed for a while?  I would hope this to be the case, as Word Pro was the most elegant Word Processor I have ever used.  I would have deary loved it ported to Linux...  
On the other hand, is it related to OpenOffice.org, given it is using the OASIS file format?  
Can some one please provide me with some information about the development history of this?  Is it open source software, for instance, or proprietary IBM code?  The IBM site did not give much information in its FAQs. Thanks.  210.50.60.30 23:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the quick response.  I wish they'd just open source Lotus Smart Suite and be done with it though.  :-(  Word Pro is the only Windows application I really miss on Linux.  210.50.56.48 21:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Questions

message: How is it proprietary? Shouldn't it be under the LGPL like OpenOffice? Perhaps this is due to not understanding the LGPL, but I thought that, even though it's weaker than the GPL, it still meant that most of the code in Lotus Symphony falls under it. SteveSims 22:19, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that OpenOffice.org is LGPL 3.0 I think the source doesn't have to be released?  How does this change things? -kslays (talk, contribs) 23:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Proprietary license?

message: I know Lotus Symphony is a work-in-progress product and there is not much published about it in notable sources, and I appreciate any info that someone has managed to collect here (that is why I came to this article), but still seeing a blog comment (even if by the original poster) referenced in an encyclopedia is surprising. --Cyhawk (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blog comment as reference? 

message: Is there any reason why Lotus does not feature an auto text tool?
All other wordprocessor, Word Starwirter and Wordperfect, have it.--78.48.19.199 (talk) 03:20, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Auto text 

message: I would reckon that essentially every user searching for "Lotus Symphony" would expect to see the current, IBM office suite, not the discontinued software from the 80s this article refers to. Yet "Lotus Symphony" currently redirects here, not to the more relevant IBM office suite. Hence this current page should be moved to Lotus Symphony (DOS) or Lotus Symphony (1980s), and the current page should redirect to IBM Lotus Symphony (which already has "For the 1980s DOS software, see Lotus Symphony" for those who are indeed looking for this page)  Tuxcantfly (talk) 02:43, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm interested only in the product from the 80s, and am disappointed that there isn't more information about it and that there are no links to websites from which it can be downloaded. Unfree (talk) 05:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move current page to Lotus Symphony (DOS), and redirect to IBM Lotus Symphony 

message: Throughout this article, there are some points where Microsoft Windows is specifically mentioned. In this context, of course, it is appropriate to capitalize the W in Windows. Aside from that, though, there are also some descriptions of certain user interface elements in Lotus Symphony (for DOS), and specifically the fact that certain parts of the UI could be split into panes and windows. In this second context, the word "Window" is also capitalized, but since it's referring to a generic user interface element it would probably be more appropriate to use the lower-case "window". 142.68.80.147 (talk) 142.68.80.147 (talk) 16:25, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization of "Windows" in this (DOS application) article