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