| Hi,
|
| I'm looking for a text editor. It MUST have a column ruler,
and it MUST
| have some indication on the page of the position of the lie
wrap. (A
| vertical stripe would be good.) It must have settable line
wrap position.
|
Hey, Demetrius:\
With two possible issues, I recommend the old DOS program
PC-Write, one of the very first shareware offerings. You can see
your cursor move along the ruler at the top of the screen, or at
another place that you program. Word wrap takes place where you
place an "R" in the ruler line. These two features will ring your
chimes, Demetri.
It is one of the two very best programs that I've used: word
processors made for people who write. The human crafting was
brilliant (the coder who wrote it majored in human interface in
college). The program does what a writer's tool should do: stay
the hell out of your way. By comparison, MS-Word and Word Perfect
are obstructive and break the writing flow. PC-Write has also
been a favored tool of coders; it was written with that work in
mind, too. Coded in assembler, its efficiency allows you to work
with blazing speed on an original 8088 IBM-PC! Under Windows, you
won't have to install it; juse run the .exe. However, you'll
probably have a "configuration curve."
Documentation should be provided with the release files, but
you'll find it chatty. It's thorough, however. The program
contains hundreds of custom switches that are listed at the end
of the manual.
Here are the two possible problems:
- The application must be placed fairly high in the directory
(gag: "folder") structure. It also helps to have your work files
fairly high, too, because the program's own file load menu won't
allow more than a certain number of characters in the path.
However, you can call files into PC-Write using other methods, so
this may not limit you.
- I can't vouch for its ability to work right under the newest
versions of Windows. I've used it in W98 just fine (with the
above proviso). It functions, although not as well, in WMe.
- Printing may be an issue because this program comes from the
days when software coders had to provide their own printer
drivers. However, you can set it to feed out to a universal Epson
or HP-2.
The file structure is straight ASCII, with embedded symbols for
bold, underlining, fonts, etc. Many of those symbols are placed
in the text easily from the keyboard using canned key commands.
Other commands can be inserted by hand using a chart. Of course,
if you are only creating straight text, no formatting codes need
be used at all. Lines will wrap where you set your right margin.
There are ways to vary that margin, too.
Your files will have neat line ends; every line will be
terminated with the standard CR-LF symbols, the classics for line
breaks. In many other programs, however, these symbols are used
only for paragraphs, and their text is not held with fixed line
lengths except on-screen. Reformatting paragraphs is done within
the PC-Write program itself, if desired, also using a very
logical sequence of keystrokes.
If any of you readers would like to try a word processing program
that facilitates fast writing, you may like trying this (these
days, mostly practical for taking notes). The program predates
Windows, so you don't see a pretty screen. Just text. I've used
it to take notes while working, sort of a "better notepad." Your
files, being straight ASCII, will zip right into "Notepad" if you
give your files the extension ".txt." Your files will also zip
right into anything else that takes in ASCII: just about
everything.
If you're a "faith-based" human, why not send a prayer. If not,
send good wishes, good vibes, good thoughts to Bob Wallace.
Wallace, who wrote PC-Write, passed away from pneumonia in Marin
County, California, two years ago. With his passing, the world
lost a truly great programmer.
Richard
