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Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

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Whiskers wrote:

> On 2014-09-05, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>> http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
>>
>>    Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger MacBride Allen,
>>    Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David Gerrold, Terence M. Green,
>>    James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul
>>    Levinson, George R. R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer
>>    Roberson, and Edo van Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our
>>    writing tool of choice.
>>
>>    Still, most of us have endured years of mindless criticism of our
>>    decision, usually from WordPerfect users, and especially from
>>    WordPerfect users who have never tried anything but that program. I've
>>    used WordStar, WordPerfect, Word, MultiMate, Sprint, XyWrite, and just
>>    about every other MS-DOS and Windows word-processing package, and
>>    WordStar is by far my favorite choice for creative composition at the
>>    keyboard.
>>
>>    That's the key point: aiding creative composition. To understand how
>>    WordStar does that better than other programs, let me start with a
>>    little history.
>>
>>    ...
> 
> WYSIWYG "Word Processors" tend to distract the user from the essential
> task (getting the words recorded) because of all the 'formatting' and
> 'style' stuff provided.  Each new version seems to pile on even more
> features which have nothing to do with recording words, and everything
> to do with manipulating the appearance of the printed document - which
> is irrelevant while the word-generating part of the creative process is
> being undertaken, and for some writers is "not my job" but something for
> the editor, type-setter, compositor, designer, or some other expert.
> 
> The earliest text-interface word processors were incapable of imitating
> the appearance of a printed document so even if they had tools for
> inserting that sort of thing into the document, if you weren't
> interested then they never got in your way.  These days, we'd probably
> class those text interface word processors as "text editors" - and there
> are plenty of those around, not least the venerable vi and emacs.
> 
Which brings to mind a favorite full screen editor, JDarkRoom.  If you 
haven't played with it, you might care to check it out at:  
<http://www.codealchemists.com/jdarkroom/>  You'll probably want to set 
"force.full.screen=true" in ~/.jdarkroom/jdarkroom.properties.

As in WordStar and jstar, CTRL-J will get you help.

-- 
mm

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WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-09-05 09:57 +0000
  Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> - 2014-09-05 16:41 +0300
    Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-09-05 10:18 -0400
    Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-09-05 15:45 +0100
      Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-09-05 14:45 -0400
        Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-09-06 01:38 +0000
  Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Whiskers <catwheezel@operamail.com> - 2014-09-06 17:18 +0000
    Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Michael Murphy <fake@nospam.invalid> - 2014-09-06 17:54 -0400
  Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-09-07 10:12 +0000
    Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-09-11 18:38 +0100

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