francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu (04/17/91)
Professional writers: are you tired of word processors that don't do all the stuff that a professional needs, because they were written by people that were hopelessly clueless on the subject? Are you struggling with a program that doesn't quite fit your needs? Then let me know what you want! I'm planning to put together a word processor specifically aimed at professional writers. However, since I freely admit that the likelihood of my achieving this goal on my own is pretty low, I'd be perfectly happy to share the results of this survey with anybody who wants them. I'll probably post to comp.editors. I'd also appreciate hearing negative feedback, and stuff fuzzier than features (interface problems, for example). The idea for this project came from Jerry Pournelle's column: he's always talking about how nothing except Write (and not always even then) is just what he wants. I decided to try to fill the niche (and make the data available to others, who may have a better shot at succeeding :-). -- /============================================================================\ | Francis Stracke | My opinions are my own. I don't steal them.| | Department of Mathematics |=============================================| | University of Chicago | What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9? | | francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu | --Ultimate Question | \============================================================================/
tmoody@sjuphil.uucp (T. Moody) (04/18/91)
In article <FRANCIS.91Apr16204241@daisy.zaphod.uchicago.edu> francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu writes: > >Professional writers: are you tired of word processors that don't do >all the stuff that a professional needs, because they were written by >people that were hopelessly clueless on the subject? Are you >struggling with a program that doesn't quite fit your needs? Then let >me know what you want! The commercial product that claims to be the word processor for professionals is XyWrite. It *is* a good tool, in my opinion. Something to think about is the fact that writers are increasingly expected to submit diskettes instead of stacks of paper, thus cutting the costs of re-keying. I recently finished a book manuscript for Prentice Hall, and they made it very clear that they wanted a plain ASCII file. Most commercial word processors seem to try to be miniature publishing programs. It seems to me that an *editor* designed specifically for writers would be a good thing. Here are some ideas: -- A writer's editor should be able to swap large files to disk when necessary, so that multiple chapters of a large work can be loaded simultaneously, for cutting and pasting, and cross-checking. -- It should support regular expressions. -- It should be compact and fast; many writers do not own state-of-the-art equipment. -- Command bindings should be modifiable, but I'd suggest a default set that is hierarchical. Perhaps alt-F initiates all file commands, alt-B to start all block commands, and so forth. This is roughly the WordStar approach, although I don't care for their specific choices. -- Movement by textual units, such as sentences and paragraphs, should be possible. -- It would be interesting to be able to mark multiple blocks, perhaps with numbers or letters assigned to them, and to be able to manipulate them individually or conjointly. (E.g., swap blocks 3 and 5, that sort of thing). -- It must have a full undo capability. -- It should support automatic paragraph reformatting, with customizable definition of a paragraph. -- It should be able to switch between storing paragraphs as single lines or multiple lines, without losing the reformatting capability. -- The user should be able to decide how much auxiliary crap appears on-screen, such as ruler lines, function key templates, etc. -- For that matter, leave the function keys alone. Let the user decide what, if anything, they are to be used for. -- It should support fence matching, for writing in LaTeX or SGML, or Scribe. -- Automatic text substitution (there must be another term for this) is good. In XyWrite, for example, you can set the spelling checker to substitute things as you type, so that 'tt', for example, is automatically expanded to "Turing Test", or whatever. Nice feature which, judiciously used, can really speed up writing. Well, there are a few ideas for you. I hope you succeed with this. -- Todd Moody * tmoody@sjuphil.sju.edu "In what furnace was thy brain?" -- William Blake
palmer@nntp-server.caltech.edu (David Palmer) (04/18/91)
For writers, a word processor should include 1) Infinite undo, even across sessions 2) a scrap stack, consisting of the the last, say, 100k that you have cut or modified 3) Automatic checkpointing 4) backup file creation on a second medium 5) The ability to recover as much as possible from corrupted files Do you sense a sort of trend to these features? It should be impossible to lose text unless you throw all of your disks down a garbage disposal. 6) Annotation mode. Go into this when you want to write (or speak, digitizers are cheap, at least for the Mac) a note to yourself. (usually I just change to an outline font to make my notes stand out) Then have the ability to jump from note to note (maybe as part of the search command) -- David Palmer palmer@gap.cco.caltech.edu ...rutgers!cit-vax!gap.cco.caltech.edu!palmer "Operator, get me the number for 911" --Homer Simpson
sorensen@csuvax1.csu.murdoch.edu.au (Peter Sorensen) (04/18/91)
palmer@nntp-server.caltech.edu (David Palmer) writes: >For writers, a word processor should include >Do you sense a sort of trend to these features? It should be impossible >to lose text unless you throw all of your disks down a garbage >disposal. Surely This would be a terrible limitation for people plagued by children and ex-lovers while they are working. The garbage disposal is the most likely (most often) place your disks will end up. -- Peter Sorensen sorensen@csuvax1.murdoch.edu.au Murdoch University South Street Murdoch, W.A. 6150, Australia.
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (04/18/91)
Oddly enough, a lot of the features you want are in "vi"... which was used for on-line documentation with a separate text-processing step as well as program editing. For example, type ":abbr tt Turing Test" then insert "can vi pass the tt?"... you'll get "can vi pass the Turing Test?". (vi as a word processor for professional writers. wottaconcept) -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' peter@ferranti.com +1 713 274 5180. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (04/19/91)
palmer@nntp-server.caltech.edu (David Palmer) writes: > For writers, a word processor should include [...] > 6) Annotation mode. Go into this when you want to write (or speak, > digitizers are cheap, at least for the Mac) a note to yourself. > (usually I just change to an outline font to make my notes stand out) > Then have the ability to jump from note to note (maybe as part of the > search command) I ran into an interesting product on the Amiga that does this, called Thinker. It is a true hypertext product, and you can casually turn any set of words into an index to a note just by enclosing them in "<>", then make a note indexed by that set of words, and have it pop forward whenever you mouse click on the index phrase. I think a person could get very enamored with creating large works in a hypertext environment, especially the kind that require lots of research notes to make them work. The Thinker package has a second, single word index style that lets you attach the same note to _all_ occurances of the word, just by attaching it one place. This especially would be useful for being able to pop to the research annotation from anywhere in the document it might become useful. I've only played with this a little; I promised to put up a review in the Amiga newsgroups, but time keeps slipping by, so I'm not quite sure if this particular implementation is more than a toy, but it seemed to follow your (unquoted) robustness criteria at least somewhat, and of course, if you can change material to a nearly invisible indexed item, there's not much reason to ever actually delete anything anyway, so a change of style of work might change your vulnerability to lost text. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
sik@grosz.esd.sgi.com (Seth Katz) (04/19/91)
I'm a writer. Why do I need this thread in rec.arts.fine? Anyone see the JP Witkin show in SF or the Independent Group show in Berkeley? Great stuff. =s --- "I've got a 7 year old owner of a Madonna tape with a song about how much fun it is to be treated like a naughty girl(?!), and a 3 year old who thinks she can teach moral behavior to ducks." ma@hal.com
wachtel@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel) (04/19/91)
palmer@nntp-server.caltech.edu (David Palmer) writes: >Do you sense a sort of trend to these features? It should be impossible >to lose text unless you throw all of your disks down a garbage >disposal. On the other hand, it would be very useful to have a feature which deletes everything twice a day, except for things you think about from time to time, no? :) -- Tom Wachtel (wachtel@canon.co.uk)
turner@lance.tis.llnl.gov (Michael Turner) (04/20/91)
In article <1991Apr18.183110.29423@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >palmer@nntp-server.caltech.edu (David Palmer) writes: > >> For writers, a word processor should include >[...] >> 6) Annotation mode. Go into this when you want to write (or speak, >> digitizers are cheap, at least for the Mac) a note to yourself. >> (usually I just change to an outline font to make my notes stand out) >> Then have the ability to jump from note to note (maybe as part of the >> search command) > >[....] >I think a person could get very enamored with creating large works in >a hypertext environment, especially the kind that require lots of research >notes to make them work. This brings up a possible point of controversy (he sez, casting his hook far out into the rapids): undoubtedly, many people will become so enamored, but is there an audience for reading hypertext works? Proponents are quick to point out how hypertextual flat text is: it has parenthetic comments (such as this cutely self-referential one), footnotes on the same page, footnotes at the ends of chapters and books, annotated bibliographies, quotes, indices, interpage references, tables of contents, figures and tables, and so on. I think for neutral kinds of reference material, they have a point. But how about the decidedly non-neutral process of making a point or telling a story? Rhetoric and narrative are indispensable for keeping your attention on what you're writing or reading. Does hypertext help or distract in this context? Or does it make any difference? My position: a rhetorical work that bristles with references works best when it tells a story or makes a point-by-point, linear argument. Densely-matted collections of references wouldn't ever suffice. Of course, when I try to convince the hypertext promoters I know of this, they tend to digress, distract, change the subject, free-associate, forget what they were saying, forget what *I* was saying, and avoid finishing sentences. --- Michael Turner turner@tis.llnl.gov
djheydt@garnet.berkeley.edu (04/21/91)
In article <_FTARF9@xds13.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >Oddly enough, a lot of the features you want are in "vi"... which was used >for on-line documentation with a separate text-processing step as well as >program editing. For example, type ":abbr tt Turing Test" then insert >"can vi pass the tt?"... you'll get "can vi pass the Turing Test?". > >(vi as a word processor for professional writers. wottaconcept) >-- You betcha. Vi is what I have on my machine; vi is what I want. The "baby duck syndrome" comes into this too---vi is what I learned on. But vi *still* has everything I want except it would be nice if I could have windows and have two texts simultaneously visible so I could read from and write into one from the other more easily. Maybe someday Suns will get real cheap and I can get one. At work, however, I have to use Word on a Macintosh. Yuchh. *I HATE MICE* Does anybody know about a program I've heard of called Easy Access-- designed, so I'm told, for people with mobility problems in their hands--which completely eliminates the use of the Mouse on the Macintosh? All the Mac-related groups, stores, etc. I've called to inquire about the subject have been profoundly unable to believe (a) that such a package exists; (b) that anybody could possibly *want* not to use a mouse. None so blind as those that will not see . . . . Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin Dorothy J. Heydt Province of the Mists djheydt@garnet.berkeley.edu Principality of the Mists University of California, Kingdom of the West Berkeley (EH&S doesn't care what I post, and anyway this is MY account.)
mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) (04/21/91)
In article <1991Apr21.051427.14547@agate.berkeley.edu> djheydt@garnet.berkeley.edu () writes: > >The "baby duck syndrome" comes into this too---vi is what I learned >on. But vi *still* has everything I want except it would be nice >if I could have windows and have two texts simultaneously visible >so I could read from and write into one from the other more >easily. Maybe someday Suns will get real cheap and I can get one. Although I don't particularly like vi, and I prefer Macintosh word processing to anything available on the PC, I should point out that all my writing on Usenet done using vi in a terminal window. The Mac features I need are all there, since they're part of the interface. Need two texts open at the same time? I either use the buffered text in my terminal window (if I need reference to what has gone before), or I cut and paste text to a DA text editor, such as Sigma Edit. >Does anybody know about a program I've heard of called Easy Access-- >designed, so I'm told, for people with mobility problems in their >hands--which completely eliminates the use of the Mouse on the >Macintosh? Easy Access is part of current Macintosh system software, and has been for quite some time. Whether it has the features you want, however, is something I can't answer. The reason the Mac groups and stores you ask haven't been able to help you is that you're inquiring about Easy Access as if it were an independent software package. There also is at least one version of emacs available for the Mac, but I haven't seen it in quite some time. >None so blind as those that will not see . . . . Perhaps. But I can manipulate text with a mouse faster than anyone can with cursor keys. --Mike -- Mike Godwin, |"Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that mnemonic@eff.org | there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more (617) 864-0665 | affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a EFF, Cambridge, MA | Parisian intellectual behind his/her turgid text?"
Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM (04/21/91)
>>>>> On 21 Apr 91 05:14:27 GMT, djheydt@garnet.berkeley.edu said:
djheydt> on. But vi *still* has everything I want except it would be nice
djheydt> if I could have windows and have two texts simultaneously visible
djheydt> so I could read from and write into one from the other more
djheydt> easily.
I'd use GNU Emacs' "VIP" vi emulation then... [I know GNU Emacs runs on UNIX
and VMS at least. Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.*, comp.emacs] (GNU Emacs
doesn't insist you have a mouse either.)
djheydt> Does anybody know about a program I've heard of called Easy Access--
djheydt> designed, so I'm told, for people with mobility problems in their
djheydt> hands
I'm gathering the same disability information, and will send you what
I have so far.
--
Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708 979 6364rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) (04/22/91)
If y'all are just going to engage in the usual arguments about which
is your favorite editor, would you please edit your Newsgroups: line?
This thread may have been marginally relevant to rec.arts.books,
.fine, .sf-lovers, .poems, bit.listserv.literary and alt.prose when it
was still about what writers need in a word processor (though I doubt
it)--but now that it's degenerated to one of the longest smoldering
peat fires on the net, it's time to get it out of the literary groups.
When something is cross-posted as widely as this is, the original
author should set Followup-To:, but since he didn't do us the
courtesy, could the rest of you? Thanks.
--
Rod Johnson * rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu * (313) 650 2315
"Poetry ends like a rope" --Jack Spicerken@hertz.njit.edu (ken ng cccc) (04/22/91)
In article <FRANCIS.91Apr16204241@daisy.zaphod.uchicago.edu> francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu writes:
:I'd also appreciate hearing negative feedback, and stuff fuzzier than
:features (interface problems, for example).
I would say that some of the things I would want are functionality,
consistency, customizing, and performance (gee, doesn't everyone?).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Functionality: for starters, the ability to make symbolic references to
page numbers, sections, figures, heading sections, anything. A word
processor that does not have symbolic references just isn't useable
for anything that is more than 2 pages long. Another part of functionality
is to make the interface more high level. Look at SGML or MicroSoft
Word 'style sheets' for examples. These provide ways of making it easy
to provide a standardized set of parameters for things like indenting,
fonts, paging, etc. It was truely a pain in the ass several years ago to go
through every paragraph in a report and take off the right justification
because the instructor found he didn't like right justification. SGML
markups would help make the conversion a lot easier.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Consistency: MicroSoft Word used to be my favorite editor to pick on
because it had so much wrong in its interface design. Most of the
following examples of problems have been fixed, but a few still remain:
You could use the arrow keys on the text screen but you had to use
the space bar on the menus.
You most of the time had to use the space bar to go through the various
options, but sometimes you HAD to use the tab key.
When you load a file, you could hit f1 to get a list of the files, but
it still does not let you program a file extension (at least not that I
have found). (The default is fine as long as you want all word files with
'.DOC' as a suffix, but I use '.WRD' to seperate word files from real doc
files.)
Certain fields will let you enter characters where only numbers are permitted.
There is no error detect, the program just barfs its guts. Furthermore
blanks in some fields are legal. Here we have a consistency problem, you
must use blanks to goto the next field, but sometimes the blanks instead
go into the field you are currently in!
You can now use arrow keys to go through menu items, sometimes, but to
choose the items on the particular item (for example format-paragraph-
justification) you MUST use the space bar to choose, arrow keys don't
work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Customizing: here is one place where Xedit shows its teeth, its got SO
MANY bloody customizing facilities that I doubt anyone knows what they
all do. BUT: I think it is impossible to truely anticipate ANYTHING
the user may want. Instead provide a REAL macro language with the
capability to do anything the user can do, as well as stuff arb data
to the screen. When I say REAL macro language, I mean one where one
can put if/then/else statements in (vi's :map doesn't cut it). In that
way, the user can provide missing/custom facilities that you may not have
anticipated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, in my opinion, no text processor around fulfils all the above requirements.
Granted, I have not tried all the text processors in the world :-). The
environment where I do the best work currently is IBM's VM XEDIT and
their SCRIPT/GML package. In spite of having to work with an ancient
3270 screen, it allows me to get the work done faster there than any
other package I have tried to date.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
:then) is just what he wants. I decided to try to fill the niche (and
:make the data available to others, who may have a better shot at
:succeeding :-).
Gonna publish the results of all this discussion?
Kenneth Ng
"No problem, this is how you make it" -- R. Barclay, ST: TNGdatri@convex.com (Anthony A. Datri) (04/23/91)
>Functionality: for starters, the ability to make symbolic references to >page numbers, sections, figures, heading sections, anything. Yow -- sounds like Scribe. >Consistency: MicroSoft Word used to be my favorite editor to pick on With Scribe, you can use the editor of your choice. > Instead provide a REAL macro language with the >capability to do anything the user can do, as well as stuff arb data >to the screen. When I say REAL macro language, I mean one where one >can put if/then/else statements in (vi's :map doesn't cut it). In that >way, the user can provide missing/custom facilities that you may not have >anticipated. Wow -- Scribe again. My point isn't to hype Scribe, but to point out that "WYSIWYG" isn't all that it's cracked up to be. -- -- datri@convex.com