Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Tray on Tuesday 15/Apr/2008, @11:43

> Who needs a text editor but isn't a programmer or system admin? Who regularly
> edits text files which do not have some form of syntax or grammar designed for
> software to process?

People who don't want to wait a minute and a half for OpenOffice to come up (OK, KWord starts faster, but it is still not as fast as KWrite and it has this annoying template selector). I'm a student, and I take notes in class in GEdit: I don't need to insert graphics or do any kind of fancy formatting. Just quick notes that I can save in a text file and skim through later.

> Most of the non-programming text I write is done via embedded editors in my
> mail client, web browser, IRC client etc.

Has it never happened that you wrote this wonderful reply inside a web browser text field (ie. for the KDE DOT) and by the time you clicked Submit the Internet connection went down? And when you clicked Back the text box was empty?

Anyway, for the programmers and sysadmins there's always Kate which will remain full-featured, so why force regular users to swim through this ocean of irrelevant code-style options in KWrite?

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Leo S on Tuesday 15/Apr/2008, @12:39

I have never seen any non-geek use a text editor. Everyone fires up Word when they want to write a document, and their email client when they want to write an email.

>> I'm a student, and I take notes in class in GEdit

Nothing in kwrite will get in your way there. Start kwrite, write your text, then save the file and close kwrite. You will never see the options in the menus, so why are you bothered by them?

>> so why force regular users to swim through this ocean of irrelevant code-style options in KWrite?

Nobody has to swim through anything. If you're writing a text file, you don't even need to click on the menu bar, and you will be happily oblivious to all of the options available in Kwrite.

Perhaps the only criticism I have of kwrite is that there is no easy way to change the default font.

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Tray on Tuesday 15/Apr/2008, @13:29

> I have never seen any non-geek use a text editor.

Oh come one! I know plenty of Windows people who use Notepad to remove HTML-formatting from text copied from web sites. Otherwise, highlighting/copying a section from a web page and pasting directly into Word ends up carrying tables, pictures, and other junk that messes up and bloats the Word document. OpenOffice and KWord also copy over rich text features, so a simple text editor is a very useful intermediator and cleanser of unwanted text formatting.

> If you're writing a text file, you don't even need to click on
> the menu bar, and you will be happily oblivious to all of the
> options available in Kwrite.

There are plenty of rudimentary features like search, replace, print, spell check, find help, etc that require accessing menus and that are crowded out by programming-specific settings. Not to mention trying to figure out how to turn off scripting features like tick marks.

I'm frankly kind of surprised by the self-centeredness of some programmers who don't want to let the vast majority of computer users in this world have a app that's optimized for their needs. You can tweak the code style knobs in Kate to your heart's desire -- let the rest of us have a lean, mean KWrite for everyday use!

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Morty on Tuesday 15/Apr/2008, @14:09

>There are plenty of rudimentary features like search, replace, print, spell
>check, find help, etc that require accessing menus and that are crowded out by
>programming-specific settings.

Let see. Search and replace, that's in the edit menu. Nope, nothing programming specific there. Print then, in the file menu and still noting programming related. I skip forward a moment to the help menu, and surprisingly nothing programmingrelated there either.

Back to the one I skipped, spell check, it's in the tools menu. There actually are something programming related here. Of 20 entries, 8 are related to programming. Thats 40%, not exactly what I'd call crowding out.

Other than this you have two entries programming related, tree if you count line numbering a programming feature. The remaining menu items bookmarks and settings has none.

So I think it's safe to say that accessing the menus does not crowd you in programming related features.

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Tom on Tuesday 15/Apr/2008, @13:40

You my friend are out of touch with reality. I know lots of people who use Notepad for simple text edits and note taking .( Makes sense .. doesnt it? )

Having those advanced features in a simple editor is just insane. That is what Kate should be for.

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Matthew Woehlke on Tuesday 15/Apr/2008, @17:29

> I have never seen any non-geek use a text editor.

Well, I'm a geek, so I may not qualify, but I keep plenty of non-code stuff in plaintext files. In fact, my other screen is occupied with "stuff.txt", which is basically a collection of random notes (I've similar files on various other machines).

That said, I love KWrite because it's fast, and it's powerful but the features don't get in the way like they can in a full "document" editor (e.g. KWord), which makes it *feel* very lean even though it really isn't (but only in a good way :-)).

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by A KDE advocate on Tuesday 15/Apr/2008, @15:33

Hey, why would someone use a text editor for notes while there is such a mind-blowing mighty world-domination like KDE's basKet? http://basket.kde.org/

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Matthew Woehlke on Tuesday 15/Apr/2008, @17:37

Well, that's obvious; because plaintext is very nearly the lowest common denominator of computer file formats and is useful on just about anything :-). (And if you forget devices with no basic text editor and the odd EBCDIC-speaking machine, you can pretty well remove the word "nearly" from that sentence.)

I should probably try basKet some day :-), but much of my jotting is still done on the Windows machine I have to have for various reasons.

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by A KDE advocate on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @02:28

There are export functions included (HTML in 1.x) and I think it would be pretty easily to add a text export. A who said basKet can't be used on Windows machines? ;) It can import text-files, though.

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Chaoswind on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @00:44

> Hey, why would someone use a text editor for notes while there is such a
> mind-blowing mighty world-domination like KDE's basKet?

Because, Basekt sucks. It's not easy, it's dosn't scale anywhere, it's to heavy and complicated. IMHO it's a protocase for a good idea, which is detroyd by simple usability sin's. Yes, it's useful, but that's plaintext-files also, and they are also independent from the application and platform, and more flexibel for things like scripting.

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by A KDE advocate on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @02:32

In my opinion, basKet is easy to use and not at all complicated. If you have specific improvements in mind, why don't you at least file bugs or talk to the development mailling list?

There exists import and export functions (for non-world-dominated platforms) and it certainly could be improved as well.

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Chaoswind on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @08:56

> In my opinion, basKet is easy to use and not at all complicated.

Every opinion is based on knowledge and preferences ;)

> If you have specific improvements in mind, why don't you at least file bugs or
> talk to the development mailling list?

While baskets development ist dead, afaik. Also, there was an project to improve the usability already, which will (of course) not be realized.

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Morty on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @13:07

Don't look dead too me.

http://basket.kde.org/news.php
http://basket.kde.org/svnaccess.php

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Re: Model KWrite after GEdit, keep Kate for geeks
by Chaoswind on Thursday 17/Apr/2008, @08:53

> http://basket.kde.org/news.php

Nice, it's reanimated, again, in only seven short months.
Well, we'll see how useful the kde4-version will be.

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