A “duplex” textwriter with multiple wysiwygs

A “duplex” textwriter is one that is in two pieces. EWriter reflects a writer’s viewpoint so the two pieces will be two sightings of what the writer is producing. Word processors usually show the writer the “typeset” result during writing. This is what would print if Print were clicked right then. Text editors, on the other hand, usually, show the typescript. This is pretty much what a typewriter would print. The former is called wysiwyg, what you see is what you get.

EWriter, as a textwriter, makes both views immediately available. As you type, you see your typescript on screen. While you type 7-bit plain text or 8-bit augmented text there will be no “typeset” text such as a word processor shows in its wysiwyg window. The formatting functions do not exist. The typesetting could not be done. However, when you move into ewriting with html’d, xhtml’d, and xml’d (with extended punctuation) text, there is a definite “typeset” wysiwyg to look at. This can be viewed in any “browser” window. EWriter could contain a browser window.

Anybody who’s written html’d text knows that not all browsers will typeset it the same way, though for most purposes the differences won’t affect ordinary communication much. The decision for eWriter, however, was to leave out the browser window. On the Tools menu there is a Browsers item.

This brings up a selection box. You can have all your available browsers in the list. Select a browser and click OK. This brings up a second input box. If you have an .htm or .html file in the active writing window, it is the default and you click OK. Or you may type in a path\filename.

Once you have the browser opened, you can switch between it and eWriter from the task bar. You can even tile the two on the desktop.

No toolbar or speed buttons?
Keyboard oriented, with the mouse as a roving key


gf 6/25/2001