OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => General Support and Discussion => Zaurus General Forums => Archived Forums => Software => Topic started by: wmadan on November 22, 2004, 10:19:43 pm
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This isn't a poll, but I'd like feedback on whether to buy it or not.
I have a SL-C860. That means I can use Abiword in pdaXrom if I want. But I like the responsiveness of the Cacko 1.21 rom. But, the major trade off is the lack of a good word processing program.
I did some beta testing for Textmaker. I think it is a good first attempt, but there are some things I don't like about it, such as the overly large menus, icons, etc. I also think it is a little sluggish, too. It seems slower than Abiword in pdaXrom.
Bill
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I'm using the beta too.
Actually you can adjust the icon size under "Extra" --> "Preferences".
The thing I don't like in the current beta version is it simply doesn't allow me to save a file! This really forces one to buy it or to give it up altogether... Just my 2 cents.
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It is on my Christmas list . I hope I get it (if not I will have to buy it ). I am also interested in people's experience with it.
V-Man
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The thing I don't like in the current beta version is it simply doesn't allow me to save a file! This really forces one to buy it or to give it up altogether... Just my 2 cents.
You can save but only in the TextMaker format *.tmd.
kedge
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You can save but only in the TextMaker format *.tmd.
kedge
Yes, but it'll be pointless to save my work as .tmd if I don't buy the desktop version of TM . This makes me feel rolling back to the old days struggling with Office files in palm...
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I found that the menus speed up noticeably if I change the "Dialog Style" from Linux to "Windows 98." Kind of strange.
The icons on the "toolbar" are large and clunky, but it seems like a really nice word processor for the Sharp ROM.
EDIT-> Oh, when you change the icon size to small, you have to close and reopen Textmaker. It looks much better this way.
I'm afraid I've always been quick to shell out cash for hardware, and slow for software. We have so much good open source software available. This one might get my cash though. It really adds to the functionality of my Z.
Of course, I really ought to donate to a few developers who are on this board first.
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I am sorry, if I am a bit behind - is the Zaurus version out for sale already ?
I have been using the beta so long (till actually the beta expired)
My impressions.
1) Initially the menus at the bootom threw me off - but thats ok to adjust to.
2) Yes, long menys which takes up the whole screen and lots of stylus dragging.
3) Slow to start - slower than Hancom office Word
4) Slow to scroll on large (3 - 4 page) word document. Hancom scrolled much faster
5) But definitely better - much better word doc translation than Hancom - it shows up just as the original word doc shows up with tables , layouts etc
6) Having spell check is a definite plus
I have also been using Textmaker on my linux desktop and its great, but on a PDA the speed is sluggish.
If the price is within my reach, I will still buy it - just for the sake of word doc compatibility (Hancom doesnt work out that good).
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I am running Textmaker on the 6000, which perhaps explains the difference in my experience and some others above in the thread if they have 5x00's.
After a few tweaks to the initial settings (mostly mentioned earlier in the thread), everything works quickly and reliably. The program loads fast. With small icons set, the menus are unobtrusive and snappy. There are plenty of options for viewing depending on your needs at the moment and eyesight. I've loaded 150+ page Word docs with lots of formatting, headings, tables, and graphics. It takes thirty seconds or so to load, but after that moving around in the document approaches desktop speed. Abiword on my C860 with pdaXrom RC5 died trying to load this document and was always sluggish moving around in documents. It sometimes crashed when it hit formatting that it couldn't handle. The only thing that Textmaker couldn't handle so far was a MSWord graphic format specially for organization charts. To my mind, that shows what's wrong with MSWord, not Textmaker. Textmaker handled it gracefully, inserting a placeholder and a note instead of crashing.
I haven't spent much time with Textmaker yet, but at the moment this program is looking fabulous.
One caution: Textmaker support never answered my emails when my order was delayed. However, when I logged onto the forum at their site, I got assistance quickly. I've seen some others that apparently had a similar experience.
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I sprang for this recently and am very impressed so far. The only glitches I have seen is that on a long document with section numbering, a few of the sections were numbered diffrently than Word 2000 and the support for pictures is problematic. I'm still not sure exactly which embedded graphics will work and which won't.
Featurewise though it is head and shoulders above HancomWord and makes my 860 actually usable as a word processor. The GUI is a bit odd, not sure what they are using, but it works reasonably well.
The icons are either a bit too big (in normal size) or a bit too small in small size for the landscape mode but that is a minor quibble. 49.95 is the most I've spent on Zaurus software, but in this case I think it will be worth it.
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Ultimately even I bought it. Having used Textmaker on my Linux desktop, I had have a good word processor for my C750 too and Textmaker fills that slot very well.
I tweaked the menus, and now the menus dont seem too big either.
But scrolling speeds on largiosh documents seem slower than Hancom - but that really is not a big negetive, since on the other hand Hancom didnt show up all entities on a word document (like a text box on the right rige of a paragrapg etc).
I think Textmaker is a good buy - worth the extra money you pay for a PDA version. Actually if you have bought a desktop version, Softmaker will give a special upgrade price on the PDA version too.
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I was a beta tester of Textmaker & I purchased a copy so I could continue to use it, far better than Hancom Word in almost every respect. Particularly the ability to open multiple documents at the same time & it's much easier to save documents to a specific folder.
Main problem is that you can't set TextMaker to work as the default, when you open a Word document from the Zaurus file handler. You can set it as the default with a bit of tweaking but Textmaker only opens a blank document.
Mike
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I just got an e-mail from SoftMaker, the TextMaker developers, that said the following:
"We have just released revision 405 of TextMaker for Zaurus, bringing it on par with TextMaker on other platforms.
The most important change in this release is that it lets you easily use high resolution on 480*640 pixels devices like the SL-C series and the SL-6000.
All TextMaker for Zaurus owners have already been informed about this service pack and how to download it for free.
We have also updated the trial version of TextMaker for Zaurus to revision 405 - this is the perfect time to give TextMaker on your Zaurus a spin!"
The even better news is that the price of the application has dropped to $30/euros for the week (instead of $50/euros). That topic (with URLs to the discounts) is here (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=10948).
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This isn't a poll, but I'd like feedback on whether to buy it or not.
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It is the best wordprocessor I ever seen on a PDA. After I saw how textmaker prints (you need to have the LPRng package installed) I bought it soon.
The printing results are awesome.
regards,
Silvio
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After the price drop I also bought TextMaker, but there appears to be some problems when installing TextMaker on my Zaurus 760. If I run the installation from the GUI, it tells me that "something went wrong", which is not very informative... If I install from a shell (ipkg install TextMaker_2002.ipk), unpacking goes fine, but I get a segmentation fault in the next step (I don't recall the name, something like "configuration").
TextMaker appears to have been installed anyway, but I am a little worried that the installation is not complete, leading to problems later on.
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I got the same install problem on my tkc v1 5500 then you cannt uninstall. Good job I backed up before I installed Id be a bit miffed at loosing about 8MB of space on a trial app.
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That is a great sale they have going on Textmaker now; too bad I bought it earlier.
It really is a great product. One document that Abiword running on pdaXrom could not open Textmaker had no problem opening.
The main beef I have is the icon sizing, but I have gotten used to using the keyboard for most menu options now. The menu sizing is perfect with the smaller icon setup. It's just the window icons that are too small for my 40-something vision.
Bill
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The most important change in this release is that it lets you easily use high resolution on 480*640 pixels devices like the SL-C series and the SL-6000.
Am I missing something? What is the actual difference in *reality* from before? It seemed to be hi-res before the fix.
Bill
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The most important change in this release is that it lets you easily use high resolution on 480*640 pixels devices like the SL-C series and the SL-6000.
Am I missing something? What is the actual difference in *reality* from before? It seemed to be hi-res before the fix.
Bill
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I'm thinking -- though I can't say for sure, as I haven't received my confirmation of payment yet -- that this might mean the app no longer goes from grossly oversized in "large icon" mode to miniscule in "small icon" mode on the SL-6000. Once I'm sent the download link, I'll report back with what, if anything, I find.
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Nope, the big oversized icons and menus are the default in version 405 on my SL-C860, so that's not the Hi-res fix they are mentioning.
Bill
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Nope, the big oversized icons and menus are the default in version 405 on my SL-C860, so that's not the Hi-res fix they are mentioning.
Bill
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I haven't been able to check anything because v405 has some install glitches. ipkg reports "errors" installing it, but the app seems to work okay. Unfortunately it doesn't uninstall via ipkg -- had to delete files manually. Really annoying. I'm staying away from it for now and will only put it back on permanently until SoftMaker fixes the install bugs.
Thanks for letting us know, wmadan.
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The most important change in this release is that it lets you easily use high resolution on 480*640 pixels devices like the SL-C series and the SL-6000.
Am I missing something? What is the actual difference in *reality* from before? It seemed to be hi-res before the fix.
Bill
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i was asking myself the same question as textmaker was running perfectly on my c3000 and emailed textmaker. the response was:
"wenn bereits alles in der hohen Auflösung perfekt lief brauchen Sie den Patch
nicht zu installieren. Der Patch ist für Geräte gedacht, bei denen die
HighRes-Funktion nicht richtig funktioniert hat."
which means that if everything already works the patch is not necessary.