word processors
Forum: User Feedback
Topic: word processors
started by: John
Posted by John on Jan. 24 2005,07:14
Okay, here are the choices.Ted-gtk
Pathetic Writer
flwriter
Out of the three I am leaning towards flwriter. It has less features than Pathetic Writer, and it doesn't look as sexy, but it seems a lot less buggy.
Cast your votes, and please give me your reasoning.
Here are the reasons why I am leaning towards flwriter:
It doesn't crash when I change font size
Has a working copy and paste.
Can export to RTF, can also import from RTF with small a addon.
Can be used as a wysiwyg xhtml editor as well as a simple word processor.
Spell Check.
It really is fast and light.
Please try all three apps if you can before you vote.
Posted by rossjman1 on Jan. 24 2005,20:27
Is this for a new version of DSL?
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Jan. 24 2005,21:41
| Quote (rossjman1 @ Jan. 24 2005,14:27) |
| Is this for a new version of DSL? |
Arr.. yer comperhension skills be farr exceedin' that of this old sea man.
Definately not Ted, PW is better than that old hulk.
But, PW, she is a leaky, half worm eaten ship.
FLwriter is not bad at all. Though it is a little light on the sex appeal, if ye know what I be meanin' there matey.
Let's try Flwriter.
Scite! Scite! Scite!
-J.P.
Posted by Bidi on Jan. 24 2005,22:31
Pathetic is definetly the worst of the 3, in my opinion, just for the fact that it crashes like a 5 year old on bumper cars.Don't really like Ted, just because...
So I voted for flwriter.
Posted by wetterau on Jan. 24 2005,23:45
Warning: long winded. DSL is excellent--a basic system usable on a wide range of hardware and easily enhanced to satisfy individual preferences. Word processors have two tasks: text entry/editing and document preparation. Text editing (writing, programming) is verbal and symbolic; document preparation is visual. It is hard to make a single interface that works optimally for both tasks. A GUI that allows quick access to margin adjustments, font changes, bulleted lists, image inclusion, headers and footers, etc. is going to be cluttered with choices irrelevant to a writer or programmer working on a project. A keyboard interface that is fast, powerful, and visually clean will be much harder to use for visual work.
For light text editing, Beaver works well. For professional text editing, Vim (or the full GVim with documentation (thanks, mikShaw)) is the best there is, in my view. For medium duty document preparation, Abiword works and is improving. For heavy duty document work, ooWriter is excellent. The .cli packaging of ooWriter is terrific. Most people who have a lot of document preparation to do and who must interact continuously with Microsoft Word/Office users will put up with oo's long opening time. Both Abiword and ooWriter have the usual mouse oriented entry/editing routines, not as good as Vim/GVim, but good enough for those who are not primarily writing or programming.
The choice for a light duty word processor is hard. Pathetic Writer is useless in its present state. Ted is fast and has the advantage of writing .rtf files that can be read as is by Windows/Word users. The other direction doesn't work as well because Word users must save their document as .rtf in order for Ted to be able to read it. Ted needs antiword or another .doc to .rtf converter to be really useful in these situations. Ted is almost too good for a light word processor. When you start needing all of its capabilities, you might just as well use ooWriter which has just about everything you could want.
I haven't used flwriter, but the interface is appealing. If it isn't crash prone and if it works for international users who have their own fonts, right to left entry, etc., I'd vote for it. Most likely, anyone who has to interact with Microsoft document formats is going to use ooWriter anyway. If I could have only one small word processor, I'd probably choose Ted. Given Abiword and ooWriter in reserve, I'd choose flwriter (if it's stable).
All that said, I use GVim for writing and ooWriter for document preparation. When I need top of the line presentation, I use a Windows box and the Adobe tools, PageMaker, Indesign, and Photoshop.
Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 25 2005,06:33
I am not casting a vote yet because I haven't used the 3 choices heavily enough to make an informed choice.Can someone throw together an flwriter.dsl extension for tryouts? I gave away my old,old versions of DSL so I don't have a version handy to play with.
I like the look and interface of the pw + siag suite, but frequent crashes are more important problems than UI.
I wonder if there is a reason why the pw installation inside DSL crashes so much. I guess my point is that this is proven software that has been actively developed for years and I would guess that major bugs would have been fixed by now.
My suspicion is that there is a problem with either libraries or fonts that is causing the application to crash but I am not sure. I suppose in the end, the specific reason for failure is irrelevent because if it cannot be fixed by someone then it should be replaced.
My final thought is this:
Regardless of choosing TED, pw or flwriter, we should continue to include the "Antiword" conversion program inside DSL so that people can view MSWord documents without needing a larger program like Abiword or Open Office to act as a file viewer.
Even better, a simple GUI wrapper for the command line program would be great for the people who dislike the command prompt.
Also, the gv poscript viewer that is used for the "Print Preview" function in pw and siag is also a must-have and can also be used as a standalone application.
But I digress...
Posted by davide on Jan. 25 2005,08:44
flwriter is frankly not very sex-appealing.It looks like an editor ofthe pre-MSword age. It may be light, but lightness must not be the only thing that matters when it comes to choice.
Also, I also experienced some crashes when using dsl embedded, but I thought it was just for that, for being embedded and therefore limitated. know I know it's buggy. So what i'm saying is..if we must change..let's get back to ted. It has more features.
just my 0,02$
Posted by John on Jan. 25 2005,10:23
Ted-gtk has it share of bugs too, for instance, it copy and paste didn't work properly. I've tried PW on a lot of different Linux platform and the bugs are not DSL specific.
Posted by davide on Jan. 25 2005,11:02
I've found this word processor.seems interesting. anyone has ever given it a try?
< word Processor >
Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 25 2005,12:27
| Quote |
| LedIt! is free to individuals to use as they like, but you may not freely redistribute LedIt! without specific license from Sophist Solutions, Inc. |
I doubt this would be fitting for DSL.
Posted by Delboy on Jan. 25 2005,13:23
I'll keep it quick.PW is pants. Both .dsl extension and integrated. Crashes repeatedly with loss of data. Struggled to open .rtfs which Ted found much easier. The totally non-functioning cut/copy and paste in PW is a showstopper for someone with a notebook just with a touchpad. Yes the gui is nicer, no it is not nice to use.
The PW problems must surely be a DSL compatbility issue as the SIAG officesuite has been a standard fixture in smaller distros for years it seems. They can't all be struggling with PW!
Ted works best on my .rtf converted .doc files from work, the table function is real bonus, the lack of undo a pain.
What spoils Ted is a cut/copy/paste bug whereby several copies of your edited text gets copied instead of once.
The Xd640 site forum acknowledges that FLwriter latest version is a lot buggier than the old one. If a separate file converter program has to be used, why bother?.
Ledit has multi-level undo which none of the other three have I think. If it is reliable, lets try it for a while.
I suggest:- delete integrated PW, add Ledit instead, (keep Siag spreadsheet which is stable and reliable - unlike abs), Keep Ted as a separate .dsl.
The ideal solution would be to trim away some of the less critical features in Abiword and have an integrated 'Lite' version of it. If something has to go then Firefox which I never use. The full Opera .dsl is the business.
Posted by clivesay on Jan. 25 2005,13:51
If LEdit is free software, why can't John just ask for permission to include in DSL if it is small enough? It would be great advertisement to draw attention to their other products. Just a thought.
Chris
Posted by John on Jan. 25 2005,16:57
Ledit is not free, it has a restrictive license which prohibits redistribution. Really, it is a shame because it is a nice little word processor.As for the latest flwriter bing more buggy than previous releases, I've compiled it from source and at least my build seems relatively stable.
Posted by Delboy on Jan. 26 2005,00:53
Ledit - It is a shame. Iv'e just tried this out on my Win98 machine and it works really well: Cut&paste, undo formatting, etc. tables creation. It opens highly formatted documents including tables saved as .rtf in both Word and Abiword easily. I would definitely take this over Ted, FL, PW anyday.
Posted by max-ebb on Jan. 29 2005,01:27
pathetic makes honor to its name as it is totally useless.actually I'm surprised it is still there in the latest DSL.
The GUI is nice but functionality is very poor.
ted is more dependable and it's still the one I prefer.
max
Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 29 2005,03:41
FYI,They just released a new version of Ted today. Sounds like it contains some nice improvements.
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Jan. 30 2005,06:55
really?I had thought Ted was not in Development. Had not been updated in a long time!
-J.P.
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Jan. 30 2005,07:48
Yes, lots of fixes.Perhaps we can get a .dsl of it at least. I still think Flwriter is very good for DSL base.
-J.P.
Posted by John on Feb. 02 2005,08:32
I compiled the latest Ted with GTK. Unfortunately, it has migrated to GTK2, and it still has the copy and paste bug.
Posted by petergunn on Feb. 02 2005,16:38
If we are going with FlWriter can we start dynamically linking FLTK apps like lua-fltk and Flwriter to libfltk.so? That would be handy for people like me who write FLTK apps and want to save space :-)
Posted by gunnix on Feb. 04 2005,13:30
yea, and dillo will port to fltk as well. So maybe fltk would be a good option .
Posted by clivesay on Feb. 06 2005,12:49
Some members of the community are learning lua. Is it possible that we could tweak flwriter to include additional features?Chris
Posted by flying tuxman on Feb. 07 2005,19:47
on my laptop I cant copy/paste from dillo/mozilla/ted into FL while that works on TED.on FL the spellcheck does not work either.
Posted by Tom.T on Feb. 08 2005,02:48
Spellcheck does work in flwriter, there is a spell button on the right and then you right click on the text to start the process.