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WriteRoom | Hog Bay Software – WordPerfect déjà-vu

WriteRoom | Hog Bay Software

While browsing the weblog of Emme, I stumbled upon the minimalistic word processor WriteRoom.

From the description on the website:

For Mac users who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world. WriteRoom is a full-screen, distraction-free writing environment. Unlike the cluttered word processors you’re used to, WriteRoom is just about you and your text. Requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

And it’s available for Windows as well. I think it’s a bit pricey at $24,95, and maybe it’s too minimalistic, but it sort of makes you miss WordPerfect 5.

Here’s an idea – I’d like a minimalistic word-processor like that, but it should understand wiki markup, parse it dynamically and have the ability to sync with wiki sites.

You know I fell partly responsible for the killing of WordPerfect. I remember clearly the first time I saw WordPerfect, it was version 3.3 and the company wasn’t called WordPerfect Corp. yet, but Satellite Software.

The uncluttered screen, showing only a line and column indicator, at that point in time the fashion was so called Lotus style menus, cascaded menus on the bottom, was so fresh, and I loved it, especially since you only had a screen that showed 80 characters and 25 lines.

But no, I wanted easy access to the advanced functions, and I loved WYSIWYG. But WYSIWYG has only brought us complicated UIs and mandatory education, in order to learn something as simple as writing on a computer, and since we’re no longer crating content, primarily for printing, we could do away with the paper metaphor when writing on a computer, at least if it’s creative writing.

But seriously, WordPerfect 5 running on a modern Mac, is complete overkill.

WordPerfect 5 ran PERFECTLY from one floppy under DOS 2.11 on the great sub-notebook Compaq/LTE in…1989!
So much for rapid progress…

ps. Hey…The One Laptop Per Child looks like the Compaq/LTE.

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