[RndTbl] WordTsar – A Wordstar clone

[eh at eduardhiebert.com]

For serious editing some of the reasons why I still use Wordstar

Although I was introduced to Wordstar over 40 years ago, for serious 
drafting or editing I still use it to this day as it is so superior to 
anything I have seen from several proprietary programs like Window's 
Word to LibreOffice.

And the size of the program or any of its files only take a small 
fraction to load compared to any other, though I can not speak to the 
one possible exception Adam made mention of.

In a moment I will outline a few very efficient text editing features 
not available in any of the so-called bells and whistle programs but 
even for serious programing Wordstar can be a very handy tool as with 
but two or three keystrokes a text file can be stripped to a no nonsense 
ASCII file.  As it make visible on the screen and in a file, both the 
carriage return and carriage increment, imported files that are missing 
either (such as Foxy Tab in FF when copying the title and urls of multi 
open tabs) such a file easily corrected for use in any higher priced 
wordprocssing or spreadsheet, without the learning curve those programs 
demand even for basic uses.

In ASCII mode Wordstar also has a true column mode copy/erase/insert 
function.

Now for some text editing pluses.

At any place in a document (up to 10, more with a little ingenuity) with 
but two keystrokes an anchor can be placed  which with but another two 
keystrokes can be returned to patch in text of nearly unlimited length 
from another area in the file.

The wordspeller, especially in live quasi batch mode can correct an 
entire file in but a tiny fraction of other programs by simply with one 
keystroke entering the number associated with every offered suggestion 
or adding the word to your dictionary file, or making your correction on 
the fly, or moving on to the next word flagged.  For every word flagged 
one at a time the screen also shows the word in context, with but 
hitting Escape you can edit to your hearts content and then continue 
spell-check.

Because its a keyboard based program with but two keystrokes either the 
begin or end of an unlimited length section  can be highlighted and then 
with but a further two keystrokes, deleted, copied to another place in 
the file and/or saved to any new file or appended to an existing file!

With but two keystrokes you can transpose any two words, or from the 
cursor with three keystrokes delete to the character just entered as the 
third keystroke which can be any length away.  The system will warn you 
if the undo memory is not big enough to undo the deletion.

And better still, the learning curve is a tiny fraction of all other 
programs seen AND the exceptionally functional help screens are also 
available with but a keystroke or two.

While I personally have no need of a new text editor, for the serious 
editor, the one who initiated this thread (my system lost the email) and 
Gerald, you are to be applauded for reintroducing the future of no 
nonsense superior text editing capacity.

One caveat though, this is for text editing, formatting is another 
matter but as said before exporting as pure ASCII text to any other 
program is a synch, including as well in CSV format!

Eduard

PS  I first came across Wordstar some four decades ago via Osborne's CPM 
system including at some time migrating to a MsDos version which I still 
use today in a Windows environment via an emulator, either DosBox or 
Virtual Box. Incidentally, maybe with more knowhow but for me, a few 
other MsDos programs work in one or the other but not both.

> On Wed, May 10, 2023 at 8:55 AM Gerald Brandt <gbr at majentis.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Coded by a single person here in Winnipeg. Me. It's a fun project.
>> 
>> Gerald
>> On 2023-05-10 08:31, Adam Thompson wrote:
>> 
>>> http://wordtsar.ca/ - WordStar for the 21st Century!