Word processors for Haiku?

Software
1

Hi, all.

I’ve just tried running Haiku in VirtualBox and I must say I am really impressed. There are two things that I found really cool: this is strictly a desktop OS (which means, there aren’t really any unnecessary pieces or drivers for server or embedded hardware, which makes system bulkier - being universal is not always a good thing) and it is really integrated. And it’s incredibly fast, even in the VM. Oh, and one more thing - I really like the interface, since I prefer flat themes rather than all those glossy 3d bells and whistles. I simply adore the old style of Haiku and its software. To sum up, I am really looking forward to try Haiku in real life as soon as it matures to R1 and gets the laptop-specific functionality (power-saving, wireless, bluetooth, etc.). But there is one more thing.

I think, for many users the main thing about switching to a new OS is whether they will be able to get the apps they need. For me, there are two main apps: a web browser and a word processor. AFAIK, the project of getting a native WebKit-browser is in progress, so it’s just a matter of time. But what about word processors?

What I’m looking for is something ideologically close to WordPad. Or, better, the Psion’s Word (that was included in the EPOC32 OS for these legendary machines). That is, a distractionless word processor that doesn’t get in your way. It needs to support all the basic formatting (footnotes, tables, TOC, paragraph styling, etc) and some writer-specific functionality - but it shouldn’t be as big and bloated as OO Writer or MS Word. I rarely need to do something with a document that I couldn’t do with a piece of paper in the real life. And I need it to have support for MS Word-editable formats (at least RTF).

I know there is AbiWord for Haiku, but it actually sucks even under Linux. And I know there is LyX, but it’s way too powerful for my needs. I work as a journalist and I study at the university, which means that I have to write a lot - so productivity is more important than functionality. Still I have to write academic papers - this is where I have to follow the standards for covers, footnotes, bibliography, etc. - but still I think something bloated is not needed to do that, the formatting is still pretty simple. Besides, the reason I don’t want to use ported software is that I like the interface paradigm of Haiku/BeOS apps, so I would prefer something native.

So, does anybody think there is anything like that? I was looking for something like this for Linux for very long, so if Haiku has it, that would be a killer-feature to me =)

2

StyledEdit (included in Haiku) is more than just a text editor - it will do fonts and colours. There is another editor out there called ElvenEditor that will read and write SE files. The strange thing, though, is that while there is a RTF translator in Haiku alpha1, StyledEdit does not seem to have an Export to RTF function. I do remember there being such a version, right at the end of the BeOS era. Anyone?

With the “Print to PDF” Printer driver you can export to PDF, if that is any consolation.

The #1 Word Processor back in the BeOS days was Gobe Productive. You can get a trial version on Haikuware. But it requires a code to get rid of the trial period restrictions, and Gobe hasn’t been selling those codes for over ten years. Maybe there is a BeOS underground movement where you can get that code. In which case I haven’t been invited to join. If you can get hold of a Zeta disk, the Gobe Productive on that is said to work. (If you don’t know what Zeta was, don’t worry about it).

Way back there also was Beatware Write-It. A work of art. Right now it is pure unobtanium and I haven’t heard of it working on Haiku.

Of course, you could try Google Docs or one of its competitors. Let us know if that works out.

UPDATE: Gobe Productive can still be bought from Purplus:
http://store.purplus.net/gopr20forbe.html
You could then use the 2.01 updater on haikuware
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/productivity/office-suites/gobe-productive-201-updater

3

I don’t know whether I’m allowed to say/offer this, but, I have a FREE version of Gobe office, it came on one of those free disks in a computer mag about 10 years ago. I have it running on my Haiku works well. Am I allowed to offer it?

4

To be on the safe side, I would say to contact ilembitov here: http://www.haiku-os.org/user/7938/contact.

5

@dened
I assume you mean for download? Gobe is a commercial product and you likely have a demo version. I would say no to be safe but you should check the license on the CD.

You could share a demo (trial) version but not the full version of Gobe. There already is a demo version of Gobe Productive 2.0 available. People should acquire the full version of Gobe legally.

6

Speaking of Gobe, is Gobe Office/Productive still alive and frequently updated? It’s a very obscure program anyway for most of us outside the BeOS scene.

7

If it helps there is definite hope of getting an updated Gobe Productive for Haiku. I can’t go into much detail, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

Of course with that said there might still be a definite market for a nice, simple, open-source Haiku word processor and maybe eventually a small office suite with nice integration like Gobe Productive. I think such an effort would be much better than trying to port foreign beasts like OpenOffice.

Finally once I get the browser out there (if anyone cares I’m the main developer working on that) we will also have a better way to run Google Docs and other online apps. Though in the long run I’m sure everyone would prefer a local app (all the buzz and hoopla around “cloud computing” notwithstanding.)

8

Perhaps it would be a bad idea now that I just found out Gobe software is nominally geared towards Windows. I think the only plausible way of introducing a good word processor for Haiku is to make a new one from scratch after Haiku becomes well established. I would prefer the Haiku dev team to have better and more direct control of future applications.

Bazaar-oriented development (like in Linux) is too cumbersome, unproductive, and lacks solid long-term plans. [that’s how I see it recently]

9

Well Gobe Productive is still very much a BeOS app and in fact the various “ports” only happened because a BeOS compatibility layer was written so Productive could work on Windows and Linux. The core code is still BeOS code.

Otherwise I do agree with your assessment that SOME bazaar-oriented development doesn’t go so well. But I think Haiku serves as a counter-example, and shows that open-source development does not have to be like Linux.

Now with that said I don’t know if we would want to somehow exert control over future applications. We can define guidelines, we can produce good example applications, we can choose what gets included in a Haiku release, and Haiku software sites can control what gets put on them, but otherwise I don’t think we have much (or should have any more) control.

Another nice thing about Haiku is that I think it will foster a much better commercial software ecosystem than Linux. People are probably more likely to produce better applications if they can get paid for them (rather than just scratching their own itch or doing stuff for recognition.) Firefox is probably a lot better because Mozilla can pay people to work on it (because of their revenue from Google.) Linux has improved a lot because people are paid to work on it. Not that people can’t produce good software purely as volunteers (Haiku again serves as an example), but money always helps :slight_smile:

  • Ryan Leavengood, Haiku developer
10

“Of course with that said there might still be a definite market for a nice, simple, open-source Haiku word processor and maybe eventually a small office suite with nice integration like Gobe Productive. I think such an effort would be much better than trying to port foreign beasts like OpenOffice.”

+1

11

OpenOffice for Haiku would be a monstrosity. The whole BeOS and now Haiku ethos is for small, fast apps that do one thing and do it well IMHO. Gobe Productive was already skirting the outer edges of that. An enhanced StyledEdit with footnote and graphics support would go a long way.

However, support for the OO file formats would be welcome. ODF is becoming the new RTF.

12

I think an ODF reader/editor would be essential for Haiku, even if this editor wouldn’t be OpenOffice itself.

About your special needs Ilembitov, couldn’t you consider using the txt2tags format?
http://txt2tags.sf.net/

I find LaTeX too complicated too, while the txt2tags syntax is non obtrusive, for example you mark headers by surrounding the title with == equal sign ==, bold texts are using stars, underligned texts are using underscore and so on. With its easy design, and requiring only python (which skips with Haiku), it’s really perfect for quickly taking notes and formatting them. The default version doesn’t support footnotes, but with its powerful macro system, it’s easy to implement one. I’ve made this which may suits all your needs (and yes, TOC and tabs are possible too):

http://anamnese.online.fr/site2/txt2tex/samples/sample_en.html

I haven’t tried to install latex yet on Haiku, but you can still compose your text, export it to html and print it using the pdf printer. And eventually get a better output with the automatic LaTeX conversion, when you have access to another computer with LaTeX:

http://anamnese.online.fr/site2/txt2tex/samples/sample_en.pdf

Actually I compose most of my documents using this system, and the source document being textual, it’s not a problem to open my files on Haiku. Here is a sample of the source for the 2 previous documents:

http://anamnese.online.fr/site2/txt2tex/samples/sample_en.t2t

13

Quite true. I might be crazy to talk like this but I prefer the Haiku team to have total control of their mainstream applications (multimedia or office works).

It’s because successful operating systems like Windows or Apple have one common characteristic: a lot of their major important applications are total-controlled by the same group that manages the operating system.

Apple OSX = Safari, iTunes
Windows = Windows Media Player, Microsoft Office

[I apologize in advance if I offend someone, especially the developers]

14

I’m with you, interested. In fact, Apple controls a whole lot more than what you mentioned. Between them, iWorks and iLife cover perhaps 80% of what the average computer user want to do with a computer. Throw in Safari, Mail etc and you can go a long way with just Apple software and a bitmap graphics editor. OK, and maybe Bento, though it is a bit pricey.

But there is nothing to stop someone from thinking that he can write a better [whatever] than Apple. Safari may come for free with OSX, but there are half a dozen other browsers that have a following on the Mac platform, and even more obscure ones.

And in the end, that is what it comes down to. No secret APIs, no sneaky ways to throttle the performance of competitors [cough … Microsoft…cough]. I’m hoping that Haiku can achieve that, without dropping into the total chaos that is Linux. We are already seeing people bringing out Haiku distros, but the official release can act as a reference platform. If it doesn’t run on the official release, it’s not a Haiku app, that sort of thing.

Leavengood:“If it helps there is definite hope of getting an updated Gobe Productive for Haiku.”

With Haiku’s license, in fact they could bring out GobeOS! How cool would that be?

15

Well, the point is really that we have to move away from this whole idea of an office suite that locks you in (and this also applies to Gobe!) Rather, one should get the best word processor they can find and the best spreadsheet they can find and mix and match everything.

16

[quote=leavengood]Well Gobe Productive is still very much a BeOS app and in fact the various “ports” only happened because a BeOS compatibility layer was written so Productive could work on Windows and Linux. The core code is still BeOS code.

  • Ryan Leavengood, Haiku developer[/quote]

Ryan, your comment worths the wait for a year long, see my post in July 08 quoted here: (http://www.haiku-os.org/community/forum/wine_on_haiku)

`I hate to add yet another expectation rather than one concrete good news, but have you guys heard of the return of GoBe Productive in its ver. 3.04 for Windows? (http://www.gobe.com/home.html, with download for trial). The Windows ver. is impressive in its lightness, speed, close integration, reasonable richness in features to meet practical needs, and compatibility with MS Office.
And it is interesting to know if GoBe Productive for Win is based on GP2 for BeOS, or a totally new work from scratch free of any BeOS relevance.
Readers of this thread may find Mr Jorge Mare’s letter to Haiku fans in Jan gives more details :

http://www.freelists.org/archives/openbeos/01-2008/msg00012.html’

In my limited experience with both Gobe Productive 3.04 for Win and OpenOffice v.3x, I found GP3.04 actually has better compatibility with MS Office, and even faster in performance. This alone can be a huge magnet to attract MS Office users and ensure the success of a Haiku office suite.

The importance of an office suite to a desktop OS needs no more emphasis, and together both benifit from synergy effect.

17

Well, I must say among all humane readable markup languages I love txt2tags the best. Actually, most of lightweight markup languages have two types of origin: there are ones that were intended to be a documentation tool with support for conversion to manpages/etc; and those intended to be an easier way to get HTML (like Markdown or most wiki-oriented flavours). Txt2tags is better in this regard, but there are still features it really ought to have: text alignment (when I’ve last seen it, it didn’t have a straightforward way to get center position of text and stuff like this), RTF support (afaik, there is no way to get that - or ODF, although both were planned a long time ago), footnotes and some features that it won’t ever get (because it goes against its original vision) but are needed for my work: the ability to define intervals and the ability to manage the page layout. I hate to say that, but although I hate the WYSIWYG approach, in this regard only an advanced solution like lout, troff or LaTeX is required. Unlike the western tradition, in Russia the cover page of an academic paper is actually a separate page that only has the author information, and there are strict requirements as to where should all the entries appear - you can’t do that in txt2tags.
Bu thanks anyways, I still use it when I am working on something I don’t have to send to anyone.

18

Well, I must say among all humane readable markup languages I love txt2tags the best. Actually, most of lightweight markup languages have two types of origin: there are ones that were intended to be a documentation tool with support for conversion to manpages/etc; and those intended to be an easier way to get HTML (like Markdown or most wiki-oriented flavours). Txt2tags is better in this regard, but there are still features it really ought to have: text alignment (when I’ve last seen it, it didn’t have a straightforward way to get center position of text and stuff like this), RTF support (afaik, there is no way to get that - or ODF, although both were planned a long time ago), footnotes and some features that it won’t ever get (because it goes against its original vision) but are needed for my work: the ability to define intervals and the ability to manage the page layout. I hate to say that, but although I hate the WYSIWYG approach, in this regard only an advanced solution like lout, troff or LaTeX is required. Unlike the western tradition, in Russia the cover page of an academic paper is actually a separate page that only has the author information, and there are strict requirements as to where should all the entries appear - you can’t do that in txt2tags.
Bu thanks anyways, I still use it when I am working on something I don’t have to send to anyone.

19

StyledEdit isn’t really what I need, but it’s pretty nice and straightforward, so I could actually use it in my work (but not at the university, where I need more formatting features) as soon as it gets RTF output support. Second, I wish it supported more shortcuts, so that I could use bold/italic/underline, choose text alignment without using any menus. Other than that, that’s a nice tool.

20

Please log an enhancement about adding more shortcuts to StyledEdit, as I at least agree that might be handy. In fact I’m sort of surprised there aren’t shortcuts for bold, italic, etc. They should be pretty easy to add, just copying the standard shortcuts used on most systems (Alt-B, Alt-I, Alt-U.)