Full Word Processor?

[Daniel R]

We think this is a good time to voice another view that is often dismissed: a full word processor in Accordance.

 

Why go between Pages (or Mellel or Word or whatever) and Accordance? With a few more options, User Tools could make outside word processors unnecessary for studying, making sermons, and even writing research papers.

 

Are we alone in this?

 

D&T

[R. Mansfield]

We think this is a good time to voice another view that is often dismissed: a full word processor in Accordance.

 

Why go between Pages (or Mellel or Word or whatever) and Accordance? With a few more options, User Tools could make outside word processors unnecessary for studying, making sermons, and even writing research papers.

 

Are we alone in this?

 

D&T

 

You're probably not alone, but it's a tall order. You're basically asking Oak Tree to create two programs if asking for a full word processor to be included in Accordance.

 

I doubt that's going to happen, but I would like to see more formatting features (in preference order):

 

1. Indents
   
2. Numbered and bulleted lists
   
3. Tables
   
4. Images
   

[William Cross]

Why not just allow you to copy formated text to and from Accordance and function like the most basic Mac Editors do like Text Edit. Checking spelling as you type and highlighting text within a User Tool or Note. Couldn't Accordance just tie into these basic OS operations?

 

You're probably not alone, but it's a tall order. You're basically asking Oak Tree to create two programs if asking for a full word processor to be included in Accordance.

 

I doubt that's going to happen, but I would like to see more formatting features (in preference order):

 

1. Indents
   
2. Numbered and bulleted lists
   
3. Tables
   
4. Images
   

[RobM]

We think this is a good time to voice another view that is often dismissed: a full word processor in Accordance.

 

Why go between Pages (or Mellel or Word or whatever) and Accordance? With a few more options, User Tools could make outside word processors unnecessary for studying, making sermons, and even writing research papers.

 

I'm already doing all my research data collection in Accordance User Tools (also User Notes for certain tasks that are doing verse by verse detailed analysis). It is somewhat of a "rough'n ready" kind of organization, but now being able to tab over (which is great to have!) enables me to create non-auto formatted outlines and then I use the hierarchy markers so that my outline is reflected in the browser. That said, I would very much like to be able to do the things R. Mansfield listed:

 

Indents

Numbered and bulleted lists

Tables

Images

 

Though I think Tables are a little higher on my list than it is on his. Also, I might add the option to know where the page divisions in the User Tool would be if I printed them out both before I printed or before I go through and do a print preview.

 

I don't think a full processor in Accordance is practical. In a previous forum conversation about this, one of the Accordance people (Helen, I think) said they didn't want to "reinvent the wheel." I totally agree. Personally, I see Accordance and its user file formats being used as methods of compiling and organizing data, which, in turn, is consistent with what the program actually does, viz., presenting data to the finger tips of the user. I am certainly one to promote the use of Accordance at every step of the research process, but not the formal writing of the paper. Besides, it would take a HUGE amount of time to make something possible that is already possible (and refined) elsewhere. I would also worry about how it might effect the stability of the program. There are some word processors that get all choked up sometimes and need to be restarted. I would hate to have that ball of wax brought into very stable Accordance environment. If there were problems, it would cost the team even more time, effort, and stress to work the kinks out. Personally, I would rather the Accordance team spend time developing more modules and coming up with cool new features for search options/performance and the search interface.

[Kris]

I don't think a full processor in Accordance is practical. In a previous forum conversation about this, one of the Accordance people (Helen, I think) said they didn't want to "reinvent the wheel." I totally agree. Personally, I see Accordance and its user file formats being used as methods of compiling and organizing data, which, in turn, is consistent with what the program actually does, viz., presenting data to the finger tips of the user. I am certainly one to promote the use of Accordance at every step of the research process, but not the formal writing of the paper. Besides, it would take a HUGE amount of time to make something possible that is already possible (and refined) elsewhere. ...

 

I fully agree with what Rob says here.

 

Currently, I am able to do most of my work without a problem switching between apps; the challenge is the time it takes to transition and to do some reformatting. I'm not a programmer, but -- if this is remotely possible -- I would think this is the best solution: somehow have another application run as a pane within Accordance. I think TextEdit would be the obvious first choice; everyone has it, it has a minimal interface, it can export as RTF, and it's stable. The downside of it for many of us is that it doesn't handle tables (which I may be wrong about) and I doubt it does citations automatically; other than those two things, it covers most of our word processing needs today, including handling images. I assume that Apple would have to create some kind of update to allow TextEdit to be used within another application. But if not TextEdit, then why not discuss with independent developers who create word processors that fall somewhere between TextEdit and Word/Pages, and who are more likely to respond to requests/questions than Apple? Bean is one that comes to mind, plus it exports well and is free.

[JSGilliom]

I fully agree with what Rob says here.

 

Currently, I am able to do most of my work without a problem switching between apps; the challenge is the time it takes to transition and to do some reformatting. I'm not a programmer, but -- if this is remotely possible -- I would think this is the best solution: somehow have another application run as a pane within Accordance. I think TextEdit would be the obvious first choice; everyone has it, it has a minimal interface, it can export as RTF, and it's stable. The downside of it for many of us is that it doesn't handle tables (which I may be wrong about) and I doubt it does citations automatically; other than those two things, it covers most of our word processing needs today, including handling images. I assume that Apple would have to create some kind of update to allow TextEdit to be used within another application. But if not TextEdit, then why not discuss with independent developers who create word processors that fall somewhere between TextEdit and Word/Pages, and who are more likely to respond to requests/questions than Apple? Bean is one that comes to mind, plus it exports well and is free.

 

I would love it if Accordance User Notes and User Tools could accept and display "RTFD". I currently use a little application that I could not live without called CopyPaste Pro . It has Bean "built into" it. If User Notes and User Tools could accept RTFD, then we could use several of the features requested in this thread via Bean. But alas, perhaps this still means that the Accordance team would have to reinvent the wheel to go this route … and I would not want them to spend their precious time reinventing the wheel.

[Robert N]

A Full Word Processor would be nice. If it isn't possible perhaps one that is at least RTF compliant. I wonder if there isn't some free code out there already so it wouldn't be reinventing the wheel (examples of this are OpenOffice and NeoOffice; I believe these are derived from relatively free s/w). Even it we could just paste RTF into the User Tools etc.. and have it display RTF correctly I believe this would be very useful.

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

I wonder if there isn't some free code out there already so it wouldn't be reinventing the wheel (examples of this are OpenOffice and NeoOffice; I believe these are derived from relatively free s/w).

 

As someone pretty involved in the NeoOffice project (on the support side only, not development), I know enough to know that trying to include OpenOffice.org's code, or NeoOffice's variation of it would not be an option for Accordance. The OpenOffice.org code is huge, and trying to separate out the text manipulation sections would be a nightmare, if it's even possible at all.

 

Lorinda

[Joe Weaks]

As for me and my house, I want my Word Processor to be really good at what it does, and my Bible search (and note taking?) app to be really good at what it does. So, I for one will push against much of this desire. That said, improving the HTML importing would be great as would expanding some formatting (indents and lists).