Despite solid follow-on versions with improvements to usability for entry-level users, Paradox faded from the market. This effectively killed the end-user desktop database market for standalone products. In 1995, Microsoft bundled Access into their Microsoft Office Professional Suite with Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Property inspection and layout tools could be 'pinned up' to stay on screen, an idea borrowed from the NeXT and now fairly widely adopted in Windows. The ObjectPAL was (like Hypercard) associated with the visual objects - also revealed by right click. The mouse right-click was used for access to Forms and Reports properties, inspired by the Xerox Alto and Smalltalk, in a way now almost universal to Windows programs. The Forms and Reports designers used device independent scaling including ability to work in zoomed mode for detailed layout. An object-based language based on ideas from Hypercard was used in place of keystroke recording.
The ObjectPAL changes were controversial but forced since PAL was based on keystroke recording actions that had no equivalent in Windows. Although key features of the DOS product, the QBE and the database engine, were ports keeping the DOS code, there was a major break in compatibility from PAL to ObjectPAL and in the shift to a GUI design metaphor for Forms and Reports. Paradox for Windows applications are programmed in a different programming language called ObjectPAL. Paradox for Windows is a distinctly different product from Paradox for DOS, and was produced by a different team of programmers. Particularly in Paradox 1.0 and 2.0, the user and programming manuals won readability awards – they were copiously illustrated, well laid out, and explanations were written in common English.Lotus-like text menus and windows, which was the native interface (in contrast to dBase, which had a command-line interface with menus layered on top).An innovative programming language, the Paradox Application Language (PAL), that was readable, powerful, and could be recorded from keyboard actions (rather like Lotus 1-2-3 macro recording).Effective use of memory (conventional, as well as extended/expanded) – caching data tables and particularly indexes, which caused Paradox to execute tasks very quickly in contrast to the explicit skills required for xBase performance optimisation.An enhanced design and implementation of visual Query by Example that was supported by an AI engine for heuristic, dynamic, query optimization.The features that distinguished Paradox/DOS were:
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