OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => General Support and Discussion => Zaurus General Forums => Archived Forums => Software => Topic started by: yzord on May 18, 2004, 06:18:36 pm
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Hello all,
You might remember my rants about how bad Hancom Word is (which I wont go into again, much to your relief), so I\'m glad to pass on that Softmaker (http://www.softmaker.com) is about to beta Textmaker, their comprehensive Word Processor on the Zaurus.
This is the thread I started in their forum many moons ago:
http://www.softmaker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=81 (http://www.softmaker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=81)
If you wish to be on the beta program, you can PM Martin on that forum. This definitely makes my day!
Hopefully they sell it like they sell their PocketPC version (when you buy the PocketPC version, they also give you version to use on your Windows box!). Awesome!
Yz
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I\'ve done it.
EVERYONE, PLEASE GIVE 5 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME AND DO AS THE MAN SAYS! ;-)
WE NEED THIS!! TIME FOR COMMUNITY ACTION!!
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Me too
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I was thrilled when I heard that Softmaker are making Textmaker for the Z. I hope it\'s just a matter of time before Planmaker (their Spreadsheet) is available as well. I signed up for the Beta program before my 860 arrived.
I\'ve been using Textmaker on my Pocket PC since it was released and it is the only full featured word processor for handheld devices.
With Ko/Pi, StageOne and now Textmaker, things are looking great for nice apps for the Zaurus.
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things are looking great for nice apps for the Zaurus.
A good mail program is still needed!
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I\'m in too. This is exactly what we need, more high quality software.
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I PMed them too. I gave up on TM 4 linux as it had trouble spellchecking some of my docs (too slow even with dictionary on English). Emailed them but somehow missed the support forum. Reading old posts, never saw a support forum where the company was so responsive. Too bad they appear too smart to buy the Kompany or partner with Sharp.
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Do not forget that at the very end you have to pay for TM. Which is ok if you desperately need a textprocessing app on the Zaurus.
Another idea I have for you is to port KDE KWord to the zaurus and use zautrixs microkde.
That would be really a great help for the community.
Ulf
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Ulf1, I think most of us know that Textmaker is not free. However, I\'m happy to pay for a program that works as advertised and is well supported - as opposed to a port that may not ever exist for the Z. I\'d love to use KWord if it ever gets ported, but short of doing it yourself (which for most, including me, is impossible), how many developers can afford to take the time to do it with this small of a community? Let alone make sure it works properly?
As well, I dont know how a good commercial app is not a great help for the community (as opposed to a free word processor). Everyone who has used Hancom Office for anything non-trivial knows its weaknesses (many), but how many people have attempted to port a full-functioning word processor to the Z in the 4 or so years this platform has been out? I know of only one, and it\'s for the PdaXrom (Abiword), and that was mainly because it was easier to port over the X/Arm.
Commercial != bad for the community.
Yz
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this s a good day fot the zaurus. and I think people should be more supportive of paid apps if they really are good. I will put my money in for such a good text processor with spell check and all that.
thanks yzord for the news and the links earlier.
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The beta ipk is out now, but only for those in the Zaurus beta test group.
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Wow, it\'s big!
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Wow, it\'s big!
Textmaker is pretty big on the PocketPC as well and I always had trouble getting it to start on my Axim X5. Only a few people seemed to have this problem, it seemed to be related to what other apps were installed fighting for the precious resources. Once started it was great.
My beta version is being downloaded now. I\'m really looking forward to seeing how it works out. The support team at Softmaker are always really responsive and I\'m sure the bugs will be quickly resolved.
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The funny thing is it\'s all relative. It\'s about the largest program I\'ve ever downloaded for a handheld device. And yet, it\'s less than 1/100th the size of MS Office.
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Having used a Z for ~1.5 years now, yes it seems big. When I used to use the PocketPC, 6mb is actually no big deal.
However, all that aside, when you boot that baby up, you\'ll see why it uses that much space (thesaurus, spellcheck, a HUGE amount of options and supported feature, etc).
You wont be disappointed.
(This is why I wanted Textmaker on the Z, and why I kept bugging them to do it in email and webforum! )
Yz
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Just had a quick play. Still very much Beta... but very impressive.
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I\'m excited about the possibility of having a REAL wordprocessor for the Z. Does anyone know the timetable for the release of the Zaurus version?
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OT: is there a free version of wordprocessor on Z?
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Yes, it\'s called Hancom word! Okay, being a little cheeky there. The only other free \"proper\" (ie. not an extended text editor) word processor is Abiword, but you\'ll have to run Xqt or flash to PdaXrom to use it (obviously, you\'d need a C7x0 to get it working right, as Abiword is a 640x480 app).
Oh, and as to timetable, none of us on the beta team no as of yet, however, at the pace of updates and bugfixes as well as the current state of the program (pretty dang solid), I would assume it isnt going to be too far off. If you do heavy/serious wordprocessing, it\'s definitely worth the price (and you might get a license to use it on an desktop linux as well, if they follow the same sale model).
Yz
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Not too sure of it being pretty dang solid, I\'m doing the beta, but would not buy it. There seems to be a scrolling/speed problem on my 860 but I can\'t find a cause or replicate the problem consistantly.
So far, I haven\'t seen anything better than Hancom word, for MY needs, AbiWord (as with all \'desktop\' Linux apps) takes too long to load on the Z.
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As far as I\'m concerned, it\'s pretty dang solid for a beta that just came out _less than a month_ ago. Speed is certainly a concern, but try loading a ]50k document into Hancom Word and see how quick it bogs down to even slower than TM, and I\'m not even getting into the horrendous round-tripping problems HW has. I\'d expect more speed optimization after the bugs have been ironed out.
Personally, I feel that HW is more like a fancy text editor than a real word processor, IMO - it\'s great if your needs are for very light text-editing. Unfortunately, for any serious writing (ie. word processing), I feel it\'s fairly useless. But, as always, these are my opinions, and I\'m glad Textmaker is out to offer me a choice.
Yz
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Hi Yz
I do a lot of wordprocessing, but mainly for writing personal stuff under 10 A4 pages, I have never had the issues that others have. But for those who want a \'bigger\' wordprocessor, TextMaker is a better choice than AbiWord for sure. But I am to be convinced, if we beta testers are going to get a gratis copy then I\'ll switch of course, otherwise no. But I agree with you completely, the fact it is an option is good for all.
I wonder if it runs on OPIE or pdaXrom though? It could be a killer app for those users.
Siag Office shows us how bad an office suite can be!
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Maybe I am a dope, but I would be interested in a cutdown port of OpenOffice for Zaurus. Particularly if they could follow the lead of the Mozilla team and make it modular. I don\'t want a bunch of hassle moving documents between my Z, my home PC and my work PC (which is XP/Office).
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No, that isn\'t going to happen :-) I think that would be too much of a re-write for a poor Z porter, but if you want to get me a team of programmers and some money to pay them, I\'ll get right on with it today ;-)
Your best bet is to wait for and buy TextMaker