Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 keesan AT iamjlamb.com wrote:
>
> I have never found a console linux wordprocessor.  There are rumors that
> WP51 console is included in the for-pay Linux WP51 package but not the one
> that you can download for free.  The gui wordprocessors are all designed
> around mice but some have better keyboard navigation than others.
> Flwriter is better than Ted in this respect.
>
There's nothing like WP5.1 for Linux, unfortunately.  I cut my
document-creating teeth on that one, and would be delighted to know of
something under Linux with its capabilities as a console app.
Unfortunately, it seems that, by the time Linux got around to developing
powerful wordprocessors (I mean the kind that do advanced formatting like
footnotes and the like), everything was moving toward gui frontends.
Would be nice to see some of these "backported" to the console, no?  The
only WP I know of for Linux is version 8 and later: I'm just sure nothing
earlier by them works on anything but M$.  Version 8 is still around for
free download, but it's quite a monstrosity of a thing and functions only
under X: sounds like it's serious overkill for what you need.  You might
look into Joe, though.  I read something about it the other day, that it's
highly configurable (key mapping) and seems to be non-mouse oriented.
Don't know if it can save in .rtf or not. Yet another option would be
Tex/Latex, but that involves learning that typesetting language: once you
learn the language, you can process your text on any editor.  Then you run
it through the Tex/Latex processor to get final results (e.g., a .ps file)
or to print.  It's pretty inolved.  I had aspirations of learning this at
some point, but I decided it was simply beyond me.

Let us know if you find something that suits.

James