New HFCL word processor and other improvements - Part 4

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kcarmody
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New HFCL word processor and other improvements - Part 4

Post by kcarmody »

The MiniWriter interface is actually based on a JPG of the whole ribbon, with active portions added as invisible labels. The JPG appears to be have been developed with some non-HMG tool. MiniWriter does not have a title bar or sysmenu and cannot be moved or resized. Therefore it does not seem to be a practical tool for word processing.

I found that it was possible to use HMG tools more and get a much more programmable interface. I also attempted to make it a practical alternative to WordPad. This resulted in a new HFCL application, which I call WordWriter and am proposing to go into SAMPLES\HFCL\WordWriter\. WordWriter has almost the same options as MiniWriter, but it uses real tabs, has a title bar, can be moved and resized, and stores its settings in the registry. On the back end, it uses the same code as WordScribe. Like WordScribe, it can open a file from the command line, which means Windows can associate it with an RTF or TXT file type.

Below is the WordWriter ribbon interface.
WordWriterScreen.png
WordWriterScreen.png (68.81 KiB) Viewed 3667 times
Below is the View tab of WordWriter.
WordWriterScreenViewTab.png
WordWriterScreenViewTab.png (41.62 KiB) Viewed 3667 times
Continued in part 5
EduardoLuis
Posts: 682
Joined: Tue Jun 04, 2013 6:33 pm
Location: Argentina

Re: New HFCL word processor and other improvements - Part 4

Post by EduardoLuis »

Hi Karmody:

As i am the author of Miniwriter, and some of your commets are far away of the true, i must clarify why i develope that app.
Miniwriter is another of the hundreds of simil word-pad app.- It's not a real word processor, because it's unnecesary to try develope another to challenge with real ones like OpenOffice.-
Miniwriter war develope to show that with HMG anyone can develope app with it's personal and distinctive images, screens, emulations, etc., so the only limit it developer imagination.
HMG provides powerfull tools to create, show, animate, images, as BosTaurus.-
In my case, i use for longtime ago, other ones, but that it's nos uncompatible with the eart or philosofy of HMG.-
Miniwriter as you said, uses lots of graphics not develope with HMG, but they represent what i want to show: HMG not neccesary is limited to a classical old fashion screens for our app.-
About why i don't include a sysmenu, is because i want end user can't modify the size or closing app by any way different than pushing the apropiate quit graphic (located on the upper right corner).-
Miniwriter really have's a title bar where is shown the name of the rft file you are working.-
As miniwriter lets end user work with up to 6 rtf files open simultaneously, when you chose any of them title bar changes.-
About changing the screen size i think that is absolutly inconvenient, because if you expand richeditbox you loose the perspective of how will look the document; i adjust the size of richeditbox and at the same time the size of the appe screen to the size of the sheet you get on printer or printview.- Nothing becomes accidentally, the tag is: what you see is what you get.-
Finally, Miniwriter is what i want to do, just that.- Perhaps it's not as perfect as somo others app, but i did it performing my rules, what means HMG lets make what you think.-
With regards
Eduardo.
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kcarmody
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Re: New HFCL word processor and other improvements - Part 4

Post by kcarmody »

EduardoLuis wrote:Hi Karmody:

As i am the author of Miniwriter, and some of your commets are far away of the true, i must clarify why i develope that app.
Miniwriter is another of the hundreds of simil word-pad app.- It's not a real word processor, because it's unnecesary to try develope another to challenge with real ones like OpenOffice.-
Miniwriter war develope to show that with HMG anyone can develope app with it's personal and distinctive images, screens, emulations, etc., so the only limit it developer imagination.
HMG provides powerfull tools to create, show, animate, images, as BosTaurus.-
In my case, i use for longtime ago, other ones, but that it's nos uncompatible with the eart or philosofy of HMG.-
Miniwriter as you said, uses lots of graphics not develope with HMG, but they represent what i want to show: HMG not neccesary is limited to a classical old fashion screens for our app.-
About why i don't include a sysmenu, is because i want end user can't modify the size or closing app by any way different than pushing the apropiate quit graphic (located on the upper right corner).-
Miniwriter really have's a title bar where is shown the name of the rft file you are working.-
As miniwriter lets end user work with up to 6 rtf files open simultaneously, when you chose any of them title bar changes.-
About changing the screen size i think that is absolutly inconvenient, because if you expand richeditbox you loose the perspective of how will look the document; i adjust the size of richeditbox and at the same time the size of the appe screen to the size of the sheet you get on printer or printview.- Nothing becomes accidentally, the tag is: what you see is what you get.-
Finally, Miniwriter is what i want to do, just that.- Perhaps it's not as perfect as somo others app, but i did it performing my rules, what means HMG lets make what you think.-
With regards
Eduardo.
Thank you for your comments, Eduardo. I did not mean to say that you did anything wrong with MiniWriter. Just the opposite -- it showed me that it is possible to develop a ribbon interface program with HMG!

I just pushed your work into a different direction. I did this because I want to create an HMG application that is as close to WordPad as possible. That is why WordWriter allows moving and resizing, has a View tab, and other such changes.

You are right that there is not much use for this alone. But I have a good reason for this.

I plan to use such an application as a starting point for a word processor for non-Western scripts. I have already developed one such application, AksharaPad (http://kevincarmody.com/software/aksharapad.html), for typing the Devanagari script of India. This program is written in HMG and is based on the new HFCL application WordScribe, which is also similar WordPad but uses the old toolbar interface.

I plan to develop an alternate interface for AksharaPad, using WordWriter, which is based on MiniWriter. This will have a ribbon interface, or as close to it as we can get while still using pure HMG.

So I thank you for your pioneering work in MiniWriter!

Kevin
EduardoLuis
Posts: 682
Joined: Tue Jun 04, 2013 6:33 pm
Location: Argentina

Re: New HFCL word processor and other improvements - Part 4

Post by EduardoLuis »

Hi Kevin:

No problem.-
With regards
Eduardo
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