[DM-MUG] Meeting Reminder - October 26th

[John Kisner]

SubEthaEdit was shown at a DMMUG meeting sometime in the last year or  
so.  I was actually a bit horrified by the idea of tinkering with a  
document in what is essentially a "chat" environment, but I'm sure  
for certain kinds of projects it does have its place.

I think there are important differences between "text editors" and  
"word processors".  The focus of the meeting will be on the latter,  
with TextEdit used as an example of the former for the sake of quick  
comparison.  Simple editing can be done with either type of program,  
but for a finished document that looks as good as it reads we can do  
much better.

John

On Oct 18, 2006, at 10:50 PM, Jon Thompson wrote:

> Make sure you add SubEthaEdit.  Great, Great, groupware.
> -- 
> Jon Thompson
> jthompson at greatapetrust.org
> 515.360.1351
>
> Insights through collaborations with apes
> Great Ape Trust of Iowa
> www.greatapetrust.org
>
>
>
> On 2006, Oct 18, at 8:47 PM, John Kisner wrote:
>
>> On Oct 17, 2006, at 1:00 PM, Matthew W. wrote:
>>
>>> Why:
>>> Beyond Word: John Kisner
>>> Hobnob with us and talk Mac shop, and eat cookies!
>>
>> I've begun to outline the presentation.  Ironically, I'm doing  
>> this on Keynote instead of a word processor.
>>
>> I'll cover a range of products that, depending on how you look at  
>> it, either build on TextEdit (the utility that comes on the Mac),  
>> or that trim the bloat from MS Word.  Here is the current lineup  
>> (in vague order of "feature strength"):
>>
>> TextEdit
>> Mariner Write
>> Nisus Writer Express
>> Pages
>> Mellel
>> AbiWord
>> MS Word
>> NeoOffice
>> RagTime Solo
>>
>> The goal won't be to crown the "best" application, but to  
>> highlight the strengths of each.  Topics will include:
>>
>> 1. An increasingly important distinction is whether the programs  
>> take full advantage of the OSX technology.  For instance, I  
>> believe the "aqua" technology is what makes fonts look better on  
>> the screen in some of the programs.  I want my screen to look as  
>> good as the printed page.
>>
>> 2. There are two common forms of document exchange right now: PDF  
>> and MS Word files.  For actual collaboration, the ability to  
>> exchange files in a common format is crucial (often MS Word), but  
>> to simply pass along a finished document you can now use pretty  
>> much any software, however obscure.
>>
>> 3. Some of these programs are memory hogs.  We've come a long way  
>> since WriteNow, which came on a 400KB floppy.  This is mostly an  
>> issue for those using machines with 256 megs of ram (or less), but  
>> is also important if you routinely have 3-6 apps open at a time.
>>
>> 4. Most of us have occasional need to make invitations or flyers.   
>> Sometimes a document is more readable if the text is split into 2  
>> or more columns.  We'll also see how they function as simple page  
>> layout software.
>>
>> 5. Cost is an important issue, as is frequency of upgrades (free  
>> and for a fee).
>>
>> 6. Etc.
>>
>> By the way, AppleWorks no longer ships on the new Macs, and hasn't  
>> been updated in years.  Like it or not, that trusty old standby is  
>> running on borrowed time.  Come to next week's meeting to see the  
>> future of word processing on a Mac.
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