Re: Any lessons to be learned from WriteRoom?

[Bennett Helm]

On Jan 7, 2008, at 4:59 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

The article in NY Times spawned a discussion on ./, see this link
        http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/06/1731247&from=rss
One interesting post of possible interest to use was the following  
about 'WriteRoom':

        I'm Jesse Grosjean, the guy who wrote WriteRoom
                http://hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom

        You are not the first to say that WriteRoom == Bad copy of VIM,
        <snip>

        .. but I also think that you are not really understanding
        WriteRoom's purpose.

        <snip>

        Instead, it's just meant to provide distraction free writing.

        <snip>

        * No distractions. Full screen. Hidden menu bar. Hidden scroll
          bar. Nothing but text.
        * In full screen mode text doesn't wrap over the entire screen.
          Instead your text is formated in a readable column in the  
center
          of the screen.
        * Few important writers statistics (word count) pop up at bottom
          of screen, but hidden by default.
        * Lots of control over the look (colors, cursors, and fonts and
          paragraph formatting, even in plain text mode)
        * "Normal" app, user doesn't have to know about command line.

Maybe some ideas for us.

OK -- I'll take the bait again. WriteRoom is a very simple text  
editor. It's capable of some rich text formatting, but no styles, not  
even footnotes, so nothing for us to learn there. So what's  
interesting for us is this interface. Scroll bar can be set to hide  
automatically when the mouse pointer is not over it, and stats can be  
set to appear at the bottom of the screen. Moving the mouse to the  
top brings up the menu bar. Otherwise, it's just plain text on the  
screen, with a plain (configurable) color backdrop. Of course, the  
text can't fill the whole screen width, since the lines would then be  
too long to read comfortably. So the text width can be modified in  
preferences, and its position on the screen -- at the left, center,  
or right -- can be selected, too. Finally, <esc> functions as a  
hotkey to toggle between fullscreen and windowed modes.

There are times when I find this a useful feature: it can help me  
focus on writing. (Anders has said the same thing.) However, since  
the text occupies only about 1/2 the screen width, there's lots of  
real estate that goes unused. I'd think that space could be used for  
docks -- toolbars, TOC, etc. -- if the user wanted.

Bennett