Wordpad alternative.

[Susan Bugher]

fitwell <[email protected]>:

I dislike splash screens, too. For disabling it, there is nothing in the
options. No magic launch parameter in the readme, either. So I think we're
out of luck on this point.

nope, in luck

edit/ options/ view: uncheck the box for "show Crypt Edit logo at
Startup."

Susan
--
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org
PL2003: http://www.pricelessware.org/2003/about2003PL.htm
PL2004 Review: http://www.pricelessware.org/2004/2004nominationsPL.php
alt.comp.freeware FAQ (short) - maintained by John F.
http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html

 

[omega]

nope, in luck

edit/ options/ view: uncheck the box for "show Crypt Edit logo at
Startup."

Can I borrow someone's glasses a minute? Wait, oh, I see it!

Glad it was brought up. That's three years, already, I'd had to endure that
splash startup, had resigned to considering it a fixed part of the routine.

 

[omega]

omega, thanks! I just wanted to mention that after a reinstall, I go
into registry and delete the two references to RTF that word leaves
then right-click to get the OPEN WITH... context item (since I'm in
Win98SE), and then associate RTF to WordPad and then Word never
bothers me again. Of course, it would if I accidentally opened an RTF
somehow in Word, but that's no easy to do. So just an fyi that Word's
proprietary nature _can_ be circumvented quite easily through rededit
re RTF.

Word taking over RTF, my memory is fuzzy. Whether it is only upon install,
or probably as well when you update its install. Possibility about when
opening an RTF with it, that made me curious, whether it would use that
excuse for a takeover. Just now I tested.

The one I have installed is Word2000, aka Word 9x. I just now watched my
registry for what would happen if I used it to open an rtf. Surprise: it
didn't do anything bad. It's this version that I've had installed for the
past several years, the one who has committed hostile takeovers on me. So
must be it occurred just during times I'd submitted to its update or repair
installation procedures.

Next, for test, I tried Word97, ask Word8...

I've never had Word97 installed on this machine. The MSOffice 97 directory
is extracted from a previous machine, and sits on my removable drive. The
apps run, despited not being installed. They automatically insert a bunch of
CLSID, Typelibs, etc into the registry, change paths of things to point to
themselves, and then are happy to proceed.

Word97's behavior was bad. And the report shows this for the part about
which .xxx associations changed:

HKLM\Software\CLASSES\.doc @ "Word.Document.8"
HKLM\Software\CLASSES\.rtf @ "Word.RTF.8"
HKLM\Software\CLASSES\.rtf Content Type "application/msword"

Since there could be some chance that this behaviour is specific to my
setup - that is, due to Word8 viewing things as "first launch" - I tried
a next step. I cleaned my registry key for .rtf, above, set it back to
normal; but left in all the other stuff that Word97 added. Then relaunched.
This time it didn't change the .rtf key.

So, based on what you said, together with my going ahead to take a closer
look: it seems to be that Word does the hostile takeovers only when it
is being first run, installed, updated, that sort of thing. Therefore,
yes, clean up after Word, reset your associations, only at those times.

After that, all we have left to worry about are all the other ill-behaved
programs out there. 8-o


.. . .

On a different note, want to mention how convenient it was to run this test
using EpsilonSquared's Installwatch. The registry snapshots took less than
twenty seconds.

And I find highly usable its interface, for viewing reports on such things.
There the benefit of using a registry logger, like Installwatch, instead of
a dedicated uninstaller, like TUN.

The prog gives me the original state of any registry keys with changed
values, so I can merge what I want right back to that state. And also gives
me the "after" state of the keys, as a .reg file, in case I later decide
those are changes that I want.

The one part of the prog that is weak, for purposes of this kind of
restoration, is that the removal of newly added keys requires using an
external program, to insert the minus (-) operator through the .reg file.
Still ideal, this prog, to see the before and after states of certain keys.

 

[fitwell]

Word taking over RTF, my memory is fuzzy. Whether it is only upon install,
or probably as well when you update its install. Possibility about when
opening an RTF with it, that made me curious, whether it would use that
excuse for a takeover. Just now I tested.

The one I have installed is Word2000, aka Word 9x. I just now watched my
registry for what would happen if I used it to open an rtf. Surprise: it
didn't do anything bad. It's this version that I've had installed for the
past several years, the one who has committed hostile takeovers on me. So
must be it occurred just during times I'd submitted to its update or repair
installation procedures.

Next, for test, I tried Word97, ask Word8...

I've never had Word97 installed on this machine. The MSOffice 97 directory
is extracted from a previous machine, and sits on my removable drive. The
apps run, despited not being installed. They automatically insert a bunch of
CLSID, Typelibs, etc into the registry, change paths of things to point to
themselves, and then are happy to proceed.

Word97's behavior was bad. And the report shows this for the part about
which .xxx associations changed:

HKLM\Software\CLASSES\.doc @ "Word.Document.8"
HKLM\Software\CLASSES\.rtf @ "Word.RTF.8"
HKLM\Software\CLASSES\.rtf Content Type "application/msword"

Since there could be some chance that this behaviour is specific to my
setup - that is, due to Word8 viewing things as "first launch" - I tried
a next step. I cleaned my registry key for .rtf, above, set it back to
normal; but left in all the other stuff that Word97 added. Then relaunched.
This time it didn't change the .rtf key.

So, based on what you said, together with my going ahead to take a closer
look: it seems to be that Word does the hostile takeovers only when it
is being first run, installed, updated, that sort of thing. Therefore,
yes, clean up after Word, reset your associations, only at those times.

After that, all we have left to worry about are all the other ill-behaved
programs out there. 8-o


. . .

On a different note, want to mention how convenient it was to run this test
using EpsilonSquared's Installwatch. The registry snapshots took less than
twenty seconds.

And I find highly usable its interface, for viewing reports on such things.
There the benefit of using a registry logger, like Installwatch, instead of
a dedicated uninstaller, like TUN.

The prog gives me the original state of any registry keys with changed
values, so I can merge what I want right back to that state. And also gives
me the "after" state of the keys, as a .reg file, in case I later decide
those are changes that I want.

The one part of the prog that is weak, for purposes of this kind of
restoration, is that the removal of newly added keys requires using an
external program, to insert the minus (-) operator through the .reg file.
Still ideal, this prog, to see the before and after states of certain keys.

Kewl. Thanks for the results of your testing. I learned a lot.

I can vouch for your results re Word. Once I delete 2 registry keys
for Word, it never boths me again.

Cheers!

 

[fitwell]

[snip]

p.s., do you know how to get rid of the splash screen? Granted it
stays up only a fraction of a second, but I really _hate_ splash
screens as a principle.

I dislike splash screens, too. For disabling it, there is nothing in the
options. No magic launch parameter in the readme, either. So I think we're
out of luck on this point.

Darn, oh well. Fortunately, it doesn't last as long as some do.

[snip]

I've planned on setting up one of the text editors that lets you customize
its syntax highlighters, to have itcolorize after the quote characters (>).
I see that Crypt Edit has a few syntax highlighters, yet honestly I've not

Oh, didn't know anything about this. It would be neat if one could
set lines that start with ">" to have the ">" symbol and rest of line
in blue, too. Will look into this.

poked around with them. Is this what you're using? And with Agent, how do
you mean, "save in RTF"? I'm most interested in trying whatever you managed

Well, as you probably do, too, you can save posts, right? Well, I no
longer save as text files, I save as RTF files so that I can make them
look like Agent displays the messages.

And since CryptEdit supports URLs, have the completely look and feel
of an Agent message but it's a file saved on my hdd in RTF format.

here. But I'm lost...what were the steps?

You lost me, too. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Did what I typed above
help?

Cheers and thanks much!

 

[fitwell]

??? Gee. On my system, when MSIE 5.5 displays txt files, it is not wrapping

Bother. I wish I knew exactly why I'm okay in 5.5 now. I did a
wipe/reinstall, as I mentioned above, and now it's fine.

them. Also, didn't you mention having posted in some other group, about the
situation? Did people there seem to accept the non-wrapping as a given, or

No, they were no help at all. But I find that group is generally
unhelpful. They have a certain mindset and tend not to deviate form
it; their way is the way you have to do things and that's that.
(EXCEPT the one or two people there who _are_ genuinely helpful, of
course.) If you want the name of the group, I'll gladly email it to
you, though.

did they seem to view it as dependent on system config? Are you certain that
the txt files you're viwing with MSIE now, that they don't happen to be ones
with hard-breaks? Given your certain, etc, then it would be me, like you
earlier, who has a bug, or is missing a setting...

No, they're all the same files that before that had no word wrap and
now they do. Go figure! Re hard breaks, they're standard files from
IT Text Archiver; it defaults to txt file format.

When you start with an indexed html file to access them, MSIE opens
them internally and not externally via notepad or other. I'd never
run into this problem before indexing with DIR2HTML.

Again, though, after last week's OS wipe/reinstall, I no longer have
that problem. I honestly don't know why (????!!!!). Yup, just
checked and everything displaying fine still.

Can anyone contribute any theories as to what could be causing the no
word wrap??

 

[Dos-Man]

Can anyone contribute any theories as to what could be causing the no
word wrap??

Generally speaking, setting Word Wrap to on or off using a text
editor, word processor, or text viewer, etc. has no effect on the file
you are editing.
So setting it on, doesn't cause the program to prompt you to save when
you exit. The next program doesn't know you set word wrap on or off.
It keeps
using it's own internal setting that you set it at (or a default
setting if none exists.)

So copying the textual contents of a browser window and pasting into
an editor or word processor does not cause the text to be wrapped,
because
the new program is wrapping or not according to its own internal
setting.

dos-man

 

[John Fitzsimons]

Well, as you probably do, too, you can save posts, right? Well, I no
longer save as text files, I save as RTF files so that I can make them
look like Agent displays the messages.

< snip >

Quick query. You use "cut and paste" on the Agent posts ? Or do you do
things some other way ?

 

[fitwell]

< snip >

Quick query. You use "cut and paste" on the Agent posts ? Or do you do
things some other way ?

No, just save via FILE > SAVE MESSAGES AS and save to RTF format.
Then what I'd do in WordPad is add blue to the lines prefixed with
">". If you're in Agent, the above few lines above will be in blue.
That's all. I don't do anything more complicated than that.

I don't save all that many Agent messages, however. I usu. act upon
the advice in the posts themselves. But every once in a while, the
information is necessary for future use.

Hope this is clearer (?). I get the feeling that what I have said was
misunderstood. Nothing fancy, just saving individual posts as RTF
files on hdd.

Cheers!

 

[fitwell]

Generally speaking, setting Word Wrap to on or off using a text
editor, word processor, or text viewer, etc. has no effect on the file
you are editing.
So setting it on, doesn't cause the program to prompt you to save when
you exit. The next program doesn't know you set word wrap on or off.
It keeps
using it's own internal setting that you set it at (or a default
setting if none exists.)

So copying the textual contents of a browser window and pasting into
an editor or word processor does not cause the text to be wrapped,
because
the new program is wrapping or not according to its own internal
setting.

dos-man

Did you step in in the middle of this thread? <g> Or did I miss
something?

We're talking about text files that are opened by MSIE and no other
app. At one point, MSIE 5.5 for both Susan and myself had no word
wrap. As everyone is aware, this means that an entire message shows
up as one continuous line going off along the eastern horizon line ad
infinitum, it seems <g>! Needless to say, impossible to read.

I reformatted/reinstalled and upgraded MSIE to 5.5 a few days ago -
all as per normal procedure for me. All of a sudden, word wrap in txt
files opened by MSIE okay! Go figure! Same situation as last week,
but new install yet now I _do_ have word wrap.

I can't say if this would have ever happened before because the
scenario is a very new one. In case you're not aware, I found a
folder/directory indexer recently that is very awesome! For the first
time ever, have been able to systematically index all folders over my
hdd that contain research. Since most of the information was
extracted from the net via IE Text Archiver which defaults to TXT
extension, that is why MSIE is the app in question.

It would be nice to know what would fix this as if it ever happens
again, I may not have ability at that time to immediately wipe the
hdd.

Cheers!

 

[John Fitzsimons]

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 09:30:03 +1100, John Fitzsimons

No, just save via FILE > SAVE MESSAGES AS and save to RTF format.

< snip >

"Save to RTF" ? I don't see any option to do that. All I see is to
save as type "all files" and "text". No RTF anywhere. Where is that
setting ?

The only other file format option I see is UNIX.

Regards, John.

 

[fitwell]

< snip >

"Save to RTF" ? I don't see any option to do that. All I see is to
save as type "all files" and "text". No RTF anywhere. Where is that
setting ?

The only other file format option I see is UNIX.

Regards, John.

Ahh, that's where the problem lies. Here's the scoop: you can save
files to a TXT or RTF extension you want. I imagine a few other
formats might work, too, but those are only 2 I personally use.

Then open the file. The app you use for either format normally will
launch for you and open the file. Re-save while you're in that app.
It's such an old trick of mine from so long ago, didn't even realize.
Very, very sorry about that.

So that's how I "save to RTF", though it's a manual thing done on my
part.

Sorry for confusion.

 

[Dos-Man]

Did you step in in the middle of this thread? <g> Or did I miss
something?

Yes, I did, but you asked if anyone could help, so I am trying to do just that.

We're talking about text files that are opened by MSIE and no other
app. At one point, MSIE 5.5 for both Susan and myself had no word
wrap. As everyone is aware, this means that an entire message shows
up as one continuous line going off along the eastern horizon line ad
infinitum, it seems <g>! Needless to say, impossible to read.

I have that problem at times. I tried to copy an example C program
from the developer's Network window the other night, I ended up with
1 long line of C code and no CRs. I wasn't about to sort through that mess.
I just abandoned it. I don't always have that problem, though.

It would be nice to know what would fix this as if it ever happens
again, I may not have ability at that time to immediately wipe the
hdd.

Cheers!

I would also like to fix or at least understand this problem so I don't anymore
repeats of the situation I described earlier.

I found this in a search:

"Hi Onebone:

In Internet Explorer I have not seen a toggle for word wrap. I think it
is integrated through word pad which on my Windows 98 system is found by
right clicking on desktop and selecting from the new menu "text
document".

Look for word wrap as an option under File, Edit, View, Options or any
other general heading at the top of the new text document. Often I find
it under Edit.

I had this problem of which you speak and word wrap was the needed
switch. Text pad is so intimate with the system as to specify the general
default choice, I think."

 

[Dos-Man]

some windows settngs can be changed by other applications. It then
affects
all applications. I'm not sure if this is a bug or designed behavior.

I'll give you an example. My launch pad is set up to not dereference
short
cut links. This allows me to treat a shortcut to a disk drive as a
file, rather than having the cmdlg32 control treat the shortcut as a
drive.
When my application closes, this behavior persists until I reboot. It
even
happens in other applications.

dos-man

 

[fitwell]

Yes, I did, but you asked if anyone could help, so I am trying to do just that.


I have that problem at times. I tried to copy an example C program
from the developer's Network window the other night, I ended up with
1 long line of C code and no CRs. I wasn't about to sort through that mess.
I just abandoned it. I don't always have that problem, though.


I would also like to fix or at least understand this problem so I don't anymore
repeats of the situation I described earlier.

I found this in a search:

"Hi Onebone:

In Internet Explorer I have not seen a toggle for word wrap. I think it
is integrated through word pad which on my Windows 98 system is found by
right clicking on desktop and selecting from the new menu "text
document".

Look for word wrap as an option under File, Edit, View, Options or any
other general heading at the top of the new text document. Often I find
it under Edit.

I had this problem of which you speak and word wrap was the needed
switch. Text pad is so intimate with the system as to specify the general
default choice, I think."

Then I guess I'm _still_ missing something. IE is reading the TEXT
file, not an external app like Notepad or Metapad. How will the
settings in the app _itself_ affect how _MSIE_ reads the file? That's
what I'd like to know.

Thanks.

 

[fitwell]

some windows settngs can be changed by other applications. It then
affects
all applications. I'm not sure if this is a bug or designed behavior.

I'll give you an example. My launch pad is set up to not dereference
short
cut links. This allows me to treat a shortcut to a disk drive as a
file, rather than having the cmdlg32 control treat the shortcut as a
drive.
When my application closes, this behavior persists until I reboot. It
even
happens in other applications.

Weird. But it persisted throughout last installation and now it is
not a problem. Doesn't seem to me that this is the problem with no
word wrap _in_this_instance. Otherwise, I'd still be having the
problem. At least, that's the way it seems to me.

I think this is something I'll take up elsewhere once and for all.
I'll report back if I get news.

Cheers!

 

[omega]

Ahh, that's where the problem lies. Here's the scoop: you can save
files to a TXT or RTF extension you want. I imagine a few other
formats might work, too, but those are only 2 I personally use.

Then open the file. The app you use for either format normally will
launch for you and open the file. Re-save while you're in that app.
It's such an old trick of mine from so long ago, didn't even realize.
Very, very sorry about that.

So that's how I "save to RTF", though it's a manual thing done on my
part.

Sorry for confusion.

So at the point where the files are leaving Agent, they're still text
internally. You have the .rtf so Crypt Edit can pick them up, and auto-
convert them to rich text format.

I made a comment earlier in this thread about noticing some some syntax
highlighters bundled with Crypt Edit. I took a look, and now think it
was due to a mistake on my part. Back when the early beta of the author's
Poly Edit came out, I'd installed it, not knowing it was payware. Upon
finding that I out and uninstalling, I think I might have given the few
syntax files to Crypt Edit. Only now, much later finding, they don't work
with it.

Remains on my list to look over which text of the text editors would be good
to occasionally read main/news posts with, where you tell it to colorize the
quote (>) and similar.

 

[omega]

??? Gee. On my system, when MSIE 5.5 displays txt files, it is not wrapping

[...]
Again, though, after last week's OS wipe/reinstall, I no longer have
that problem. I honestly don't know why (????!!!!). Yup, just
checked and everything displaying fine still.

Can anyone contribute any theories as to what could be causing the no
word wrap??

I have been so stumped on this! I did a very thorough study of every little
detail on a Regmon log I took, ,of the accesses that occur the instant MSIE
displays a text file. I even pulled out the registry entries, with Resource
Hacker, from MSHTML.DLL, related to MSIE filetype handling, to a text note,
to study there. All with no fruition!

Then I booted into my near-virgin w98 partition. I assumed I would see
wrapping in MSIE there, as you did after your format/reinstall. Surprise,
get this. No wrap there, also. I've done almost nothing in that partition
since its install, have not touched the MSIE (5.0) installation. So, I
wonder, what is normal? The wrap or no wrap? You hit upon some really odd
fluke, somehow?

I am out of ways to try to guess on the mystery. So either I get desperate
and try to inquire in an IE group - at least about which is the normal case -
even if they don't know what leads to the state of wrap or no-wrap in MSIE.
Or else, I turn to the older tact: "try to not think about pink elephants."

 

[fitwell]

So at the point where the files are leaving Agent, they're still text
internally. You have the .rtf so Crypt Edit can pick them up, and auto-
convert them to rich text format.

Yes, although it doesn't autoconvert, Crypt Edit will open it because
it's RTF, but the format is just a disguised text file. When I first
open, I just do a FILE > SAVE AS and choose RTF in the file type. If
you don't do that, it'll just remain a text file and, at least in
WordPad, you can't edit as you could rich text. Sorry about
confusion. Sometimes we've been doing something for so long that we
do it without conscious thought at all and I should have been clearer
from the beginning.

I made a comment earlier in this thread about noticing some some syntax
highlighters bundled with Crypt Edit. I took a look, and now think it
was due to a mistake on my part. Back when the early beta of the author's
Poly Edit came out, I'd installed it, not knowing it was payware. Upon
finding that I out and uninstalling, I think I might have given the few
syntax files to Crypt Edit. Only now, much later finding, they don't work
with it.

Ah, that would have been a nice feature. Still, I'm used to doing
what I've been doing all along. There is an amount of manual work we
can't seem to get away from doing at any given time with any given
app. To select and highlight a few lines to make blue isn't a big
deal. I don't save enough Agent files for it to be a problem so far,
thankfully.

Remains on my list to look over which text of the text editors would be good
to occasionally read main/news posts with, where you tell it to colorize the
quote (>) and similar.

That would be a nice feature, wouldn't it, to have some sort of
automation for that? Good luck!

 

[omega]

Weird. But it persisted throughout last installation and now it is
not a problem. Doesn't seem to me that this is the problem with no
word wrap _in_this_instance. Otherwise, I'd still be having the
problem. At least, that's the way it seems to me.

I think this is something I'll take up elsewhere once and for all.
I'll report back if I get news.

Please do. Perhaps start by getting them to answer whether they see wrap
or no-wrap on text in MSIE. What affects it one way or another, that will
be a harder question. It darn sure is not an interface option button, as we
know. Why it would be different on one system/install, from another, I am
totally out of possible ideas. As said, I tried to review every MSIE reg
entry that couuld even possibly remotely have connection, and did not get
anything in the attempt.