3 ms·

Aldus Pagemaker? Wow. Even back then that was pretty fancy for University work. I keep all my notes in markdown: Daily journal entries and templates, schedules

Aldus Pagemaker? Wow. Even back then that was pretty fancy for University work. I keep all my notes in markdown: Daily journal entries and templates, schedules, collections of code snippets; even a book which is just about ready to publish. I find that I rarely use any of the conversion tools, but they are nice when needed. Overall I'm really glad that text editing keeps evolving and find it a sort of foundation of computer use with which you can't go wrong.

WilliamDhalgren 9y ago
curious: what kind of txt editor(s) would make sense for non-code writing, say a novel, say w markdown or something similar? Especially if the person writing is non-technical so stuff like emacs, vim, atom don't seem like a great fit? I'm thinking something non-obtrusive and with limited options, so that UI is not getting in the way of writing, but with very litte learning curve? And, given the example of GeorgeRRMartin, perhaps something WordStar-like would fit the bill? If so, are there good free editors in the style of WordStar? I have this friend, and I've seen the mess of unintended font changes, sizes, styles, bulleted lists, indentation changes. and all kinds of horrible stuff in his manuscripts when I had to repair some of that damage because it was getting unusable - think he'd appreciate a more focused alternative..
- themodelplumber 9y ago
  I use Geany and really like it. Customizable. Even easy to e.g. type something in, press tab, and it inserts the output of your shell script or program. I use that to put the day's weather in my journal.
- pikzen 9y ago
  For serious book writing, with proper chaptering and everything, I would probably use GitBooks. For anything else, even though it is not open source, Typora is to me the best visual markdown editor. It even makes me tolerate it being an Electron app, so it's pretty good. https://www.gitbook.com/ https://www.gitbook.com/ https://typora.io/ https://typora.io/
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  I know it's extreme, but Notepad. Literally and unironically; write in markdown, and it should work.
  - WalterGR 9y ago
    No. If for absolutely no other reason, through Windows 7 at least, Notepad allows you to undo only the last thing you've done. That's a perfect, one ingredient recipe for inevitably losing work.
    - themodelplumber 9y ago
      Notepad++, PSPad, AkelPad, Notepad2, and SciTE are all free & good replacements for stock Notepad.
SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
I keep my notes in LaTeX. It's like Markdown, but with math.
krrrh 9y ago
> Aldus Pagemaker? It was strange to use a desktop publishing tool to write papers, but I fell in love with its story editor[1], which looked like a plain text editor with a left column that indicated the applied style for that paragraph or heading. I would do all my writing in the story editor for a distraction-free experience, before I got handy with text editors. I guess it was obvious even then that I would gravitate toward plaintext markup. [1] InDesign ended up incorporating the story editor concept from Pagemaker: https://rockymountaintraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/InDesign_ss_018.jpg https://rockymountaintraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02...

WilliamDhalgren 9y ago

curious: what kind of txt editor(s) would make sense for non-code writing, say a novel, say w markdown or something similar? Especially if the person writing is non-technical so stuff like emacs, vim, atom don't seem like a great fit? I'm thinking something non-obtrusive and with limited options, so that UI is not getting in the way of writing, but with very litte learning curve? And, given the example of GeorgeRRMartin, perhaps something WordStar-like would fit the bill? If so, are there good free editors in the style of WordStar? I have this friend, and I've seen the mess of unintended font changes, sizes, styles, bulleted lists, indentation changes. and all kinds of horrible stuff in his manuscripts when I had to repair some of that damage because it was getting unusable - think he'd appreciate a more focused alternative..

themodelplumber 9y ago
I use Geany and really like it. Customizable. Even easy to e.g. type something in, press tab, and it inserts the output of your shell script or program. I use that to put the day's weather in my journal.
pikzen 9y ago
For serious book writing, with proper chaptering and everything, I would probably use GitBooks. For anything else, even though it is not open source, Typora is to me the best visual markdown editor. It even makes me tolerate it being an Electron app, so it's pretty good. https://www.gitbook.com/ https://www.gitbook.com/ https://typora.io/ https://typora.io/
yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
I know it's extreme, but Notepad. Literally and unironically; write in markdown, and it should work.
- WalterGR 9y ago
  No. If for absolutely no other reason, through Windows 7 at least, Notepad allows you to undo only the last thing you've done. That's a perfect, one ingredient recipe for inevitably losing work.
  - themodelplumber 9y ago
    Notepad++, PSPad, AkelPad, Notepad2, and SciTE are all free & good replacements for stock Notepad.

SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago

I keep my notes in LaTeX. It's like Markdown, but with math.

krrrh 9y ago

> Aldus Pagemaker? It was strange to use a desktop publishing tool to write papers, but I fell in love with its story editor[1], which looked like a plain text editor with a left column that indicated the applied style for that paragraph or heading. I would do all my writing in the story editor for a distraction-free experience, before I got handy with text editors. I guess it was obvious even then that I would gravitate toward plaintext markup. [1] InDesign ended up incorporating the story editor concept from Pagemaker: https://rockymountaintraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/InDesign_ss_018.jpg https://rockymountaintraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02...