Focuswriter 1.5 yet another stuff for a writer.

[takenp]

====
I compiled the latest (1.5.5) Focuswriter that is quite good and adjustable. It is for writing words into sentences. Check it out!

focuswriter-1.5.5-i686.pet (2.5Mb)

[Puppus Dogfellow]

this is very impressive so far--tabbed (autohidden by default but part of a highly customizable) interface, ability to save as txt, rtf, odt, doc, or docx, and only 3mb. it also doesn't seem (my installs are not pristine) to need qt loaded to work in precise or unicorn--thanks/mirrored.

i can't get it to work with slacko64 (despite 32 bit libs loaded)--is it supposed to?

regardless, very nice and thanks again.

[Puppus Dogfellow]

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 410#902410
Post subject: re alternatives and their features/shortcomings

have you tried focuswriter? i've only just begun testing (precise and unicornpup), but so far it's proven quick and reliable. i didn't need any dependencies in unicornpup or precise, and the linked pet is only two and half megabytes.

Not for me. I need some of that supposed 'clutter' -- font support, and formatting and layout stuff -- because I'm both literary and visual. Confusing, I know... before you ask, basically my mother is very literary (she has been both librarian and lawyer) and my father very, er, picture-oriented (he's a professional graphic artist) -- so, thanks to genetics, I got a bunch of both. I'm only just starting to develop my literary side seriously, though...

...which means I'm still very persnickety about typefaces and having things like italics and centering text and horizontal rules and such. I know I'm weird. I think it's the good kind, though

well, should you ever need it, it can do "things like italics and centering text and horizontal rules and such." bold and justification and things like indentation are fairly straight forward (and a desire for them doesn't strike me as particularly odd), but it seems line spacing requires you to pick single as the line spacing for your Theme (more or less your electric typewriter, complete with inconvenient-to-swap steel ball) if you also want the option to use double or triple. the program appears to lock you into many of your choices, or at least makes it a bit more difficult than one would expect to change them. i tried copying the font from one theme into a document using another theme (font and spacing get changed/preserved with the theme--maybe the way to change the latter is there and i can't find the command?), and the active document converted rather than displayed it. you get to choose opacity level on something more or less irrelevant (the image on your virtual paper and the image on the surface on which it sits), but you need to load a new theme to change the font you'll be using and, apparently, the line spacing; on-line (through an upload) or otherwise fuller word processors may also choose to not honor the font choice you made in focuswriter (i just checked in libreoffice5.1, and it gave two documents the same serif font despite one having been made with monospace and the other with sans), though direct copy-pasting should work the same as it appears to for just about everything else.

as to missing the clutter and menus and tool bars--beyond hitting alt+f to access the file menu, i'm not sure how to toggle the top set visible. tabs are easily navigable with shortcut keys, but i don't see any way of similarly conjuring their appearance (ctrl+tab/0-9 and alt+ctrl+tab switch between the tabs on the lower bar with no visual fanfare or the option for any, somewhat strange given how much effort seems to have gone into giving users the ability to customize the interface).

anyway, that's my review and how-to of this virtual typewriter/word processor. stuck without libreoffice, i'd use focuswriter over abiword and live with the weirdness so i don't have to live with the crashes (the older version purported by some to be somewhat stable is the same version that crashed on me often enough that i'm put off by anything so branded). development on it appears to be active, but you're right, it does have some major weaknesses. overall, though, i think it's a decent alternative for those having bad luck with libre.

hth.

edit: i was using the Session feature to change between Themes and save the test documents, but i don't think the results would have been any different had i just saved documents directly under two different themes set from within the same session.

hasn't crashed yet. the line spacing thing is odd but livable. it takes little time to get used to the interface, but i think you should have the option to leave the toolbars and menus visible/the existing method should be made more obvious.

[Moat]

... it also doesn't seem (my installs are not pristine) to need qt loaded to work in precise ...

My Precise is not pristine, either, and I'm getting;

Code: Select all

focuswriter: error while loading shared libraries: libQtNetwork.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

No biggie - just thought I'd give it a quick look. Wondering how big it might end up being with the minimal required Qt libs included. Abiword replacement contender?

Bob

[Puppus Dogfellow]

... it also doesn't seem (my installs are not pristine) to need qt loaded to work in precise ...

My Precise is not pristine, either, and I'm getting;

Code: Select all

focuswriter: error while loading shared libraries: libQtNetwork.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

No biggie - just thought I'd give it a quick look. Wondering how big it might end up being with the minimal required Qt libs included. Abiword replacement contender?

Bob

Abiword replacement was what i was thinking as well, Bob. i don't have qt loaded on my unicorn spin or my precise spin, but i did add a qt lib when i added recoll, libQt3Support.so.4.pet. i have it bundled with the following recoll package if you want to test: recoll1.13 and deps.tar.xz (thanks to muggins for the qtlib and most of what's in the folder).

edit: here's the Qt bit on its lonesome: libQt3Support.so.4.pet, but i now see that at a minimum i must've also installed the contained 4mb qt4-4.3.2.pet (which i've now upped to my repo: qt4-4.3.2.pet). doubt the other stuff in the folder helped out, but it works for me without the full qt on two not so pristine installations.

hth

[Puppus Dogfellow]

xenialpup doesn't acknowledge the pet or its installation--doesn't give an error message from the terminal, shows in ppm as (possibly) a blank slot, doesn't run when called. haven't tried it with qt installed, but it's the same pet as i tried on precise and unicornpup (both can run it without full qt loaded--have the same libs and other related pets installed in xenial).

this much larger wine-dependent version works in slacko64. haven't tried it in xenialpup.

[Puppus Dogfellow]

focuswriter-1.5.5_xen.pet

focuswriter-1.5.5_xen.sfs

libqt4-dbus_4.8.1-0ubuntu4.6_i386.pet
libqt4-network_4.8.1-0ubuntu4.6_i386.pet
libqt4-xml_4.8.1-0ubuntu4.6_i386.pet
libqtcore4_4.8.1-0ubuntu4.6_i386.pet
libqtgui4_4.8.1-0ubuntu4.6_i386.pet


added the above to the o.p.'s pet and i now have 1.5.5 working in xenial_7.0.1 32bit. may work in other pups that weren't able to get the original going.

[takenp]

Good job!

[LazY Puppy]

Downloaded the .sfs version, which didn't start in tahr 6.0.2.

After having a look into the .sfs file I found directory /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu where i386-linux-gnu needs to be a symbolic link pointing to its parent directory (which is /usr/lib). The libs needs to go to /usr/lib.

Since symbolic link /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu is already existing inside the puppy main sfs, you just don't need that symbolic link inside of the .sfs - as long as the libs are placed in /usr/lib.

Don't know how this looks inside of the .pet version. If it's equal to the .sfs version, I could cause problems when overwriting the internal symbolic link of i386-linux-gnu by the true directory i386-linux-gnu at .pet installation.

[Puppus Dogfellow]

smaller pet works well (in two days of somewhat limited testing) in tahr64 605 once the 32bit lib compatibility pack is loaded (and ldconfig run). will eventually test in 32bit. have recoll 117 installed, which may've taken care of some deps, so it may not run ootb in a new tahr 605 installation (64bit or otherwise), but the original 2.5 mb pet seems enough.

xen version appears to fine in xenialpup 704 (don't remember if i tried the smaller one first or not --it was put together for 701).