Back to the text file?

Posted by Derek Cornish
Dec 9, 2006 at 01:22 AM

Steve -

> but I hope Tom Davis also provides the option to capture and store information as plain text.

Me, too. On an aside, unlike many people I find the Zoot interface positively elegant with its lack of huge, clumsy, unhelpful icons, and clear simple three-pane text-based display. I have it tricked out in a fetching combination of autumnal colours (suitable to my time of life) that are always a pleasure to encounter.

I wouldn’t want to go cold turkey in respect of graphical data, of course, but I often feel that I waste a lot of time either d/l data in graphics-enhanced forms that I don’t really need, or in using graphics-oriented programs that store data in unhelpful ways - proprietary, encrypted, etc. (I exclude non-graphics ones like Brainstorm that store data in text format, or those like PocketThinker that use opml.)

What I am thinking about in no very coherent way - it’s the end of the week, after all - are the relative benefits of keeping in closer contact with basic text. Among other things it might involve working in plain text via wikitext, LaTeX, and other text+markup approaches as opposed to WYSIWYG. It might also involve routinely converting any essential file formats that aren’t plain text into plain text - like the way html tags are stripped out of files, or pdf files into ordinary text files - so that could be handled by programs like Zoot. After all, most of the time I just want the “text”.

I’m not sure how much mileage - if any - there is in this notion, but for those working mainly with unvarnished text - i.e. writing as opposed to anything involving presentational considerations - it might reduce the need for so many programs, and the ensuing CRIMP that often spirals out of control as a consequence.

Of course, OTOH, this may just be an invitation to CRIMPING pastures new - see, for example, the mouth-watering http://www.latexeditor.org/screenshots.htm

Derek