My favorite text editor

[Gomer_X]

i hope that satisfies your printing needs , if not then someone will help you in the mailing list

It looks like this would help with plain text. I don't think it would convert my HTML markup to printable form, though.

I do quite a bit of journaling in text files, but rarely print, so when I do I don't need a very complicated solution.

Lynx/links have "dump" options (or similar) that parse the HTML and output plain text on STDOUT. That works pretty well.

[Gomer_X]

I've done a few things in LaTeX, and they've always looked great. I'd like to find a few more templates or document types or whatever you call it, but just using the article style alone yields great results. The letter format is also quite good. Anyone else here a LaTeX fan?

I may consider learning it. I seem to be pretty good at markup languages.

DocBook/XML is supposed to solve all these problems by being a master format that is easily convertable to other formats (flat and chunked HTML, PDF and PostScript). I find it way too complicated for daily use, though. Writing HTML is easier (to me) than using a word processor. DocBook is horribly verbose.

Another idea I had is to write wiki markup in MoinMoin and have it convert to DocBook for me (I have a few MoinMoin wikis on the home network). Problem is that takes Vim out of the loop, which would be pretty hard to live with.

[mowestusa]

DocBook/XML is supposed to solve all these problems by being a master format that is easily convertable to other formats (flat and chunked HTML, PDF and PostScript). I find it way too complicated for daily use, though. Writing HTML is easier (to me) than using a word processor. DocBook is horribly verbose.

Another idea I had is to write wiki markup in MoinMoin and have it convert to DocBook for me (I have a few MoinMoin wikis on the home network). Problem is that takes Vim out of the loop, which would be pretty hard to live with.

Gomer, your complaint about DocBook is exactly why the author wrote the program asciidoc that I mentioned. He likes to write documentation, but found that having to code the xml DocBook format was consuming more time than producing the content. He found himself always looking up the proper codes and putting in the verbose markup into his documents. So he created readable markup that could be easily added to the plain text document. The document is still very readable, but after you run it through the textprocessor asciidoc you get the properly marked up docbook document that can be converted easily to all the formats you mentioned above.

Your idea of the wiki markup is one that I had too. I believe if you look up something called Restructured Text you might find a solution that will allow you to use VIM, use a wiki markup system (which I believe is very similar to MoinMoin), run it through the Restructured Text processor, and then you would have a nicely formated and coded document. Since you already know the wiki markup there would be very little to get you up and running.

I personally believe you have a great solution with the straight HTML, but I find your complaint about DocBook interesting because it was the itch that caused the author to write the program asciidoc. I also admit that the Restructured Text option looks like a great option as well (Simple markup, conversion in to printable formats, and ability to use VIM and save in a plain text document).

We really have some powerful tools to deal with plain text in the Linux world, which will keep us from ever having to worry about vendor lock-in, unmaintained binary formats, and lack of options. It is great to hear your use of plain text as a journaling tool.

[Vogateer]

Also a fun little thing one can try is to use FUSE to mount a moin moin wiki. I've only tried mediawikifs with FUSE, and I'll tell you what, reading and writing isn't speedy (it's awfully slow), but I feel a lot better using Vim to do the editing.

[Chess]

Thanks for this very interesting discussion -- it's something that I have been struggling with at home as well. I too am a Vim lover and for years have kept everything exclusively in plain text. I have tried some of the markup stuff you all have mentioned but working with those tools can be a trying experience. I have been meaning to try asciidoc but never got around to it -- thanks for the reminder, mowestusa!

[snarkout]

I think some folks in this thread are missing the difference between "text editor" and "word processor." As much as I love vim, I'll never be writing 10 page proposals in it. Conversely, I'll never fire up OO.o Writer (or even kate for that matter) to hack a config or bang out a few lines of code.

[Vogateer]

Really? I didn't notice anybody missing the point. When I write a simple letter—I know the LaTeX code for doing so—I find it much easier and quicker to do so using LaTeX than I do using OO.o. Proper formatting such as em dashes and such are much easier using LaTeX, too. Vim is just great for moving around and editing text, GVim is even better if you want to get the mouse involved. Eben Moglen and many on his team can write horribly complicated legal documents in LaTeX, so I'm sure you can manage just about any document using LaTeX.

The main difference I see is in the ideology. OO.o is for WYSIWYG, while LaTeX is WYSIWYM. Formatting versus structure. Just a different way of approaching it.

[mowestusa]

I think some folks in this thread are missing the difference between "text editor" and "word processor." As much as I love vim, I'll never be writing 10 page proposals in it. Conversely, I'll never fire up OO.o Writer (or even kate for that matter) to hack a config or bang out a few lines of code.

Actually, in a lot of ways it is not a matter of the "end product" you want to produce, a proposal or a config file. It is more a matter of "how" do you want to produce your "end product." LaTeX can produce a printable PDF which has a type setting beauty no Word Processor could match. Raw HTML coding gives you complete control over the look of your website verses simply saving an Open Office document as HTML. Asciidoc gives you the power of writing simple plain text documents that can be converted into a multi-page HTML document in a standard documentation format used by tons of projects, or a CSS formated XHTML page for a static website, or a book that will be printed from a PDF file. One simple plain text document now has the power to easily become things that Open Office or Word would struggle to produce on the same level or with the same simplicity.

A Word Processor used with its GUI tools or a Text Editor used with a text processing tool or a mark up language is simply the "how" you get something done. Don't limit the "end products" that each of the tools can produce. I haven't thrown out my Word Processor yet. There are certain documents I still use a Word Processor to produce, but that is because I'm limited in my knowledge and understanding. I just haven't learned all the ins and outs of LaTeX or even all the ins and outs of asciidoc yet. The more I learn the more I find myself producing documents in VIM. I'm not doing this because VIM + a mark up language or text processor always produces a better result than a Word Processor. Sometimes I just enjoy the "how" I get the job done more in VIM than in Open Office.

Perhaps an example might illustrate the difference as more a matter of "how" than "end product." Let's take a trip down memory lane. Some early Word Processors for DOS would feel more like text editors to computer users today. Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS was considered a Word Processor, but "how" it produced documents was far different than the WYSIWYG graphical Word Processors of today. Does anyone else remember looking at your dot matrix printout (which took at least 5 minutes to roll off a 2-3 page paper) and finding a layout error like a wrong font face or the wrong font size? Then you would have to go back into Wordperfect 5.1 and use the old "Reveal Codes" command so that you could see all of the layout commands that were "hidden" in the body of the text. Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS produced letters, 10 page proposals, and was even used for the occasional batch file or ini file. What it produced, the "end product," did not matter. The "how" of Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS was certainly different than the "how" of Open Office or the "how" of MS Office today.

Sometimes a new "how" to do something is not better, just different. One reason I find myself turning more to VIM and plain text tools comes from a side benefit. I'm not a programmer. I'm not a system administrator. I'm a writer. You might think that someone like me should just use a Word Processor and leave text editors to the programmers and system administrators that need such tools for quick edits or hard core programing. I love the simplicity of writing in a text editor because it does not constantly interrupt my flow of writing with squiggly red lines or squiggly green lines. It doesn't have a WYSIWYG system that constantly points out in real time my paragraph formating mistakes, my differently tabbed indents, or tempt me with endless page formating options, and font options. In a text editor I just write, and let the markup language or asciidoc take care of all of the formating decisions. For me the "how" of a text editor helps an easily distracted writer focus on my content instead of worrying about the presentation. A beautifully presented document will never make up for poor, disjointed content.

[Chess]

txt2tags also looks very interesting. I have found several articles by people who say they write books using vim and txt2tags.

http://txt2tags.sourceforge.net/

There are some vim plugins as well.

[snarkout]

Really? I didn't notice anybody missing the point. When I write a simple letter—I know the LaTeX code for doing so—I find it much easier and quicker to do so using LaTeX than I do using OO.o. Proper formatting such as em dashes and such are much easier using LaTeX, too. Vim is just great for moving around and editing text, GVim is even better if you want to get the mouse involved. Eben Moglen and many on his team can write horribly complicated legal documents in LaTeX, so I'm sure you can manage just about any document using LaTeX.

The main difference I see is in the ideology. OO.o is for WYSIWYG, while LaTeX is WYSIWYM. Formatting versus structure. Just a different way of approaching it.

I guess what I meant is that this was started as a poll and discussion about text editors and has morphend into a discussion about whether vim, *tex or OO.o is a better choice for [insert whatever text related function].

[Vogateer]

Oh yeah, I think it's my fault for taking that tangent. I've simply never been happy with any word processor I've used, and am quite fond of VIM and what little I know of LaTeX. I probably shouldn't have hijacked the topic, but at the very least I'm glad it didn't turn into a VIM vs. EMACS thread.

[Gomer_X]

I guess what I meant is that this was started as a poll and discussion about text editors and has morphend into a discussion about whether vim, *tex or OO.o is a better choice for [insert whatever text related function].

I think you're limiting the scope of what a text editor is. I steered the discussion that way because I use Vim to do everything, including word processing. For me, editing in Vim or emacs is so much more powerful, it expands the definition of what a text editor should be used for.

[Vogateer]

Yeah, I started off thinking of Vim as just a great way to do config files and such, but quickly found that I was missing all those text editing features when I was using any word processor. There may be a few times when I feel the mouse is helpful—scrolling with the mouse wheel does feel more natural to me for just scanning through text and it moves the text in a more fluid way that's easier for me to follow—which is why GVim is so great. Even for something as simple as selecting text, using visual mode and doing a quick search or using any of the moving keys to select the text I want is pretty much always quicker than using a mouse. And I don't even use any of the advanced features.

I do feel like using Vim has ruined the chance that I'll ever attempt to use a Dvorak layout keyboard, though.

[drag]

I am a recent convert from Vim to Emacs.

I'll tell you why:

1. For the life of me I can't remember all the little Vim-isms
2. Being kicked into 'visual mode' when trying to copy text out of command-line vim..
3. I donno. I am bizzare.


I always hated Emacs before because the ctrl-key combo is just insane. It realy is. It's a great way to ruin your wrists.

So I recently discovered 'Viper' mode for emacs.
And also server-mode.

I suggest that people take a look at it. This way I get to keep the vi-style key editing, plus the ability to type out commands and have auto completion of commands and a whole lot of other features.

Especially server-mode is very cool.

[allix]

I am a recent convert from Vim to Emacs.

I'll tell you why:

1. For the life of me I can't remember all the little Vim-isms
2. Being kicked into 'visual mode' when trying to copy text out of command-line vim..
3. I donno. I am bizzare.


I always hated Emacs before because the ctrl-key combo is just insane. It realy is. It's a great way to ruin your wrists.

So I recently discovered 'Viper' mode for emacs.
And also server-mode.

I suggest that people take a look at it. This way I get to keep the vi-style key editing, plus the ability to type out commands and have auto completion of commands and a whole lot of other features.

Especially server-mode is very cool.

I have had a go at gnu emacs , its just kinda cumbersome , i have not to be fair given a lot of chance to like it, i might try the Viper mode that you talk of and see what i think.
Some things that emacs does i think are good like emacs-lisp but overall its not enough to make me want to use it fulltime.