Xref: utzoo rec.arts.sf-lovers:58238 rec.arts.fine:273 comp.editors:3014 comp.text:8274 rec.arts.books:20911 rec.arts.poems:11531 bit.listserv.literary:571 alt.prose:984 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!dsinc!bagate!sjuphil!tmoody From: tmoody@sjuphil.uucp (T. Moody) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.fine,comp.editors,comp.text,rec.arts.books,rec.arts.poems,bit.listserv.literary,alt.prose Subject: Re: What do writers want from a word processor? Message-ID: <1991Apr17.175001.8402@sjuphil.uucp> Date: 17 Apr 91 17:50:01 GMT References: Reply-To: tmoody@sjuphil.UUCP (T. Moody) Organization: Saint Joseph's University Lines: 74 In article 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