ZEN AND THE ART OF THE WORD PROCESSOR

Hecatoncheires

un jour je serai de retour près de toi
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DONATING MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
OR: HOW TO STOP LOSING YOUR POSTS LIKE A TIT



If I had a pound for every occasion I’ve witnessed someone bitch and moan that their browser crashed/the site went down/updates kicked in/a cat sat on their laptop and they lost the post they were typing up, I would be a rich motherfucker indeed.

And being rich might ease some of the frustrations that come from reading these complaints and wondering just why people keep making the same bloody mistake, time and time again. Yes, Iwaku does have the ability to save the progress of posts saved in the browser text editor. This is handy, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you’re one site crash/browser shutdown away from losing what you’ve potentially spent ages writing. Compounding matters is the fact that there’s a really fucking easy way to avoid this issue entirely.

You might have heard of them. They’re called “word processors”.

Barry Shitpeas (aka. You) said:
B-B-BUT GRUMPY WURD PROCESSORS R EXPENSIVE AND I AM THE IMPOVERISHED STOP MOCKIN ME FOR BEIN POOR D;D;D;D;D;

NOT SO, STRAWMAN/VISUALISATION OF HOW I SEE MOST IWAKU MEMBERS. Whilst there certainly are plenty of premium word processors and editors out there that you need to shell out cash-moneys in order to acquire, there’s plenty of open source, completely free alternatives out there. In this wee post, I’m gonna line some of these out for you so you can start actually keeping ahold of your posts and stop losing them because you are a fucking numpty.

OpenOffice
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This would be the one I use the vast majority of the time for typing documents and writing stuff up: I jumped on the OpenOffice bandwagon way back in my undergraduate when I decided I didn’t want to pay Microsoft more money for another fucking Word update, and I’ve not looked back since. An open source development by a team called Apache, OpenOffice comes with a full suite of free office software to match the stuff you’d expect to buy from Microsoft at a high price (or a monthly subscription, or however the fuck they’re trying to fleece people now).

It’s not as pretty and shiny as Microsoft Word, granted, and there will be some features missing/not as easy to access as a system you might be more used to. But if you’re needing a place to type up posts before posting them so you don’t lose it, it doesn’t come much better than this. If you’re one of those utter fucking freaks interesting people who use the Rich Text Editor, even better: you’ll be able to copy and paste your shit from OpenOffice right in there.

LibreOffice
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Originally an offshoot of OpenOffice, LibreOffice has grown arms and legs to become another big name when it comes to open source word processors. Like the program it originally forked from, Libre comes with the full office suite including word processing, presentations and spreadsheet editing. Of the two, this is probably the more aesthetically pleasing piece of software, and it comes packed with a lot of really handy and cunning features if that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for. I can’t speak from personal experience, but I know loads of folk who use Libre as their main word processor and have nothing but praise for it.

Google Docs
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Aka: what I’m writing this post with right now.

Barry Shitpeas (aka. You) said:
B-B-BUT GRUMPY U JUS SPENT THE HOLE START UF THIS POST SHITTIN ON US 4 USIN BROWSER BASED TEXT EDITORS D;D;D;D;D;

I totally did, and I totally stand by that shit. Google Docs is a far safer choice for processing your words online because of how regularly it backs up your posts onto Google Drive. It also comes with the added bonus of allowing you to write your posts basically anywhere. Start one on your PC at home, keep working on it on your phone during a commute, then finish it up on your lunchbreak at work. It doesn’t come with nearly as many features as the previous two processors mentioned, but for typing up your posts you don’t really need them. ALL HAIL OUR GOOGLE OVERLORDS.

AbiWord
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Whilst we’re talking lean, cut-down word processors I’d be loathe not to mention this bad boy.

AbiWord is probably older than a whole bunch of you gobshites, given that it’s been developed over 18 years. It’s simple, it’s punchy, it does what it says on the tin and not much else. But if you’re looking for something lean and lightweight to type your stuff up on, do consider giving this program a shot.

BONUS ROUND: OmmWriter
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THIS ONE ISN’T FREE BUT I’M TALKING ABOUT IT ANYWAYS COS IT’S FUCKING COOL.

Getting knuckled down and focused on writing stuff up can be difficult. I think we all accept that: in an age where information, entertainment and stimulation is available literally at the click of a button it can be really tough to push distractions aside and work on posts (or other forms of writing). I could go off on a whole tangent about how distractions are probably harming your RP/literary output (cos fuck knows they harm mine), but instead of subjecting you to that I’ll just offer this fun little piece of software that helps to cut distractions and keep you on track.

OmmWriter is built on simplicity and engagement. It fills your whole screen and prevents you from easily tabbing away to Facebook/Reddit/4chan/Buzzfeed (if you are scum)/whatever your internet poison is. Slap on some headphones and it intones some nice, easy listening music to keep your head focused on the task at hand. What’s more, OmmWriter comes at a really, really low price if you want it to, as the devs have given it a ‘name your price’ pricing model. If you find it hard to stay concentrated when writing, you really might want to consider looking this software up.



That’s your lot, proles. If you’re one of those people who finds themselves losing posts to the void that is your browser, here’s a simple and free solution to your woes. The programs listed above are largely Windows-based so if any based Linux users/filthy Mac users have any suggestions of their own, feel free to share them too.

Now get the fuck off my property.
 
I like notepad.exe
 
I've always kept copies of my posts in OpenOffice ((I was in the same exact boat as you; was an undergraduate, didn't care for buying yet another copy of Microsoft word for my new computer)) whenever I write forum posts, but I write the actual thing on the forums.

Occasionally I lose some 30 minutes of writing, but I spam the 'preview' button so often while I write that I've found it saves me more trouble to just write on the forums and save occasionally rather than write on OpenOffice and copy over to the forums all the time.

Also, Notepad++ is better than just plain Notepad when it comes to writing, though OpenOffice is still better than Notepad++ for my tastes, especially considering Notepad++ is more for like coding.

I also stay absolutely far away from Google Docs due to their terms of service. The last time I read it, their legal jargon seemed to mean "Anything you post using our service that isn't already copyrighted, we can do whatever we want whenever we want." Not that they would care about my stupid settings or my stupid whatever-I-post on it, but the principle of it bothers me. Regardless, all words to live by to NOT have posts stolen by misfortune.

Plus I'm sort of terrified of someone learning of my setting's intricacies and then telling me not to use/roleplay/etc my own setting because they stole it. I don't care if someone takes my setting, I'd actually take that as a compliment/honor. I do care if they keep it from me.
 
I use notepad++ because of it safe every single alphabet even if I don't save it at all. There is no grammar checking and blah but that is for Grammarly on chrome to fix :P It is light and also useful for my other things (random non-formatted words, YAML, and other coding stuffs).
 
ALRIGHTY PEOPLE LET ME EDUCATE ON A THING CALLED SUBLIME TEXT.

You want a simple program that doesn't take a lot of space. This thing is that. What it won't do? Write your shit for you or connect between devices.

But what it will do? That shit is BOMB.

TABS.
That's right, it has multiple tabs. You can take notes, work on different things, and hell, keep a hit list!

SIMPLE SPELLCHECK
Nothing to write home about, but once you enable it, it'll help catch you on whatever words like to bite you in the ass the most often.

START WHERE YOU LEFT OFF
That's right, close it, and it opens your shit back for you once you're ready. You don't even have to save, but you should, just in case. Using this program for a year and it's only borked itself out once on this thing. Damn good record, in my book!

MULTIPLE SELECTIONS
Ctrl+click does a magical thing in this program. You can put a cursor in multiple places. This is a huge boon for coding, making lists, and even just for simple find-and-replace functions (ctrl+f works too!)

SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
For certain coding languages, but is cool.

AUTO-CLOSING PUNCTUATION AND CODING CRAP
It'll close your brackets, your parentheses, your single and double quotes, and other stuff I don't know the name for! You can also override that by just typing the close yourself OR by deleting the closer. You do you.

DARK BACKGROUND
That's right. If you don't like white backgrounds, the default is an epic dark grey. Hell yes.

There's probably even more awesome bullshit in this program but I'm pretty damn content where I'm at exploring it, and know that learning more is just a quick search away. B]
 
ALRIGHTY PEOPLE LET ME EDUCATE ON A THING CALLED SUBLIME TEXT.

You want a simple program that doesn't take a lot of space. This thing is that. What it won't do? Write your shit for you or connect between devices.

But what it will do? That shit is BOMB.

TABS.
That's right, it has multiple tabs. You can take notes, work on different things, and hell, keep a hit list!

SIMPLE SPELLCHECK
Nothing to write home about, but once you enable it, it'll help catch you on whatever words like to bite you in the ass the most often.

START WHERE YOU LEFT OFF
That's right, close it, and it opens your shit back for you once you're ready. You don't even have to save, but you should, just in case. Using this program for a year and it's only borked itself out once on this thing. Damn good record, in my book!

MULTIPLE SELECTIONS
Ctrl+click does a magical thing in this program. You can put a cursor in multiple places. This is a huge boon for coding, making lists, and even just for simple find-and-replace functions (ctrl+f works too!)

SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING
For certain coding languages, but is cool.

AUTO-CLOSING PUNCTUATION AND CODING CRAP
It'll close your brackets, your parentheses, your single and double quotes, and other stuff I don't know the name for! You can also override that by just typing the close yourself OR by deleting the closer. You do you.

DARK BACKGROUND
That's right. If you don't like white backgrounds, the default is an epic dark grey. Hell yes.

There's probably even more awesome bullshit in this program but I'm pretty damn content where I'm at exploring it, and know that learning more is just a quick search away. B]
I strongly suggest Sublime Text as well c: It's a very light program and honestly the best features are the dark background, the tabs, the auto-save, and omg did I mention the tabs?! you also have a little preview on the right where you can see how much you've written and for faster scrolling. Honestly it's just the fucking best. I don't have spellcheck enabled on it, but that has forced me to be more careful and learn how to spell words I otherwise always had wrong xD
 
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Reactions: The Mood is Write
This. Every single rper in the world should know about this.

I hail the Google overlord myself, and this have been a lifesaver in frustrations.

Now, I get off my soapbox and get off your fucking property, sir. Goodbye.

PS: Nice Adachi avi, bruh!