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Author Topic: Looking for list of read-only editors  (Read 13825 times)

Paul Keith

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Looking for list of read-only editors
« on: December 24, 2009, 04:14 PM »
After discovering Txt Reader, I was wondering what other read-only text editors there are.

Maybe it's a casual user thing but I prefer something of a dedicated desktop reader as an alternative to E-book readers but I haven't found any perfect fit.

Adobe Lite comes closest to being my ideal reader because of it's use of the page up/page down settings, clearer rendition, page transitions via fullscreen and remember last opened page of pdf file but I might as well make this topic.

So far the commons one I know are: (didn't bothering specifying format handled since that is just as annoying although I'd rather have an all-in-one format reader)
 
 Opera
   *control background color and fonts
   *+ and - zoom
   *light enough to handle lots of tabs so you're not fearful of leaving it open when it is restoring from a previous session unlike Chrome or Firefox

 Txt Reader
  *bookmark
  *control bg color and fonts
  *left/right button
  *right click options (added this because I realize how other programs like FBReader don't support this)

 MS Word 2007 +
  *arrows
  *two pane

 Adobe Lite
  *page up/page down
  *transitions
  *restore from last page when opened

 Stanza Desktop - bad experience when I last tried it but it was still very early on. Don't really prefer the handheld e-book reader look and feel when on a desktop.
 *minimalist lay-out
 
 ubookLite - confusing to a beginner lay-out
  *supports lots of e-book formats
  *right click options

 FBreader
  *book catalog search + download

 Tom's etext reader
  *book catalog for Gutenberg (received an error when I tried it)
  *two page book theme by default
  *bookmark
  *"separate ui" text editor
  *recent files

 Ybook
  *search and history
  *4 settings for text color + RGB editor (I didn't really get this)
  *Border resizing
  *Font size and choice in menu bar (hideable)
  *1 and 2 shortcut keys to control twin view or single view
  *Amazon search box built-in
« Last Edit: January 04, 2010, 07:22 AM by Paul Keith »

Tuxman

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2009, 06:58 PM »
What about less?

Paul Keith

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2009, 07:14 PM »
less?

Tuxman

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2009, 07:17 PM »
Read-only plain text reading.
(BTW, what is a "readonly editor"?)

invenit

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2009, 07:20 PM »
I've read good things about Tom's eTextReader at http://www.fellnersoft.at/eTR.htm for Windows; FBReader in linux http://www.fbreader.org/

Paul Keith

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #5 on: December 25, 2009, 12:45 AM »
Read-only plain text reading.
(BTW, what is a "readonly editor"?)

It's a pedantical argument but I would say, a reader is a bit of a misnomer because of the stereotype that any software that can view a document, is technically a reader.

This holds true for word processors too except they are editors too.

The difficulty lies in the fact that you're as much editing as you are reading almost always when reading.

An annotater or bookmark may not seem like text edits but they are just as much clues to improve your intake of information via reading.

When you set a page to open from somewhere you last read or a pre-defined destination, is that viewing or is that editing?

When you have a program that lists your recent documents and can organize a Table of Contents, is that viewing or editing?

When you have a repository notes mode ala WriteMonkey, is that viewing or editing?

Even when you make it easy to zoom or un-zoom or change the bg color and fonts for readability or minimize the graphics, it's seems like a flawed argument to say it's not editing a read-only file.

I've read good things about Tom's eTextReader at http://www.fellnersoft.at/eTR.htm for Windows; FBReader in linux http://www.fbreader.org/

Thanks. Addded it to the list after trying them out.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2009, 01:01 AM by Paul Keith »

joiwind

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #6 on: December 25, 2009, 04:43 AM »
@ Paul Keith, have you looked at yBook ? Check it out.

f0dder

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #7 on: December 25, 2009, 06:24 AM »
Editing a file means making changes to it - making annotations (even if it's in some external store) is a bit of a gray area, but the rest of your examples don't imply "edit" as far as I'm concerned; you might change the view but you're not changing the model.
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Tuxman

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #8 on: December 25, 2009, 08:35 AM »
When you have a repository notes mode ala WriteMonkey, is that viewing or editing?
An editor is always a viewer, but not the other way.

f0dder

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #9 on: December 25, 2009, 08:44 AM »
When you have a repository notes mode ala WriteMonkey, is that viewing or editing?
An editor is always a viewer, but not the other way.
Not necessarily - you can edit files blindly without viewing. But that is a bit of a pedantic stretch ;)
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Tuxman

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #10 on: December 25, 2009, 08:51 AM »
You can also open a file in a viewer without actually viewing.  8)

f0dder

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #11 on: December 25, 2009, 08:58 AM »
You can also open a file in a viewer without actually viewing.  8)
I was referring to things like SED, not closing my eyes ;)
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Tuxman

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #12 on: December 25, 2009, 09:01 AM »
Ah, alright then.  :D

Paul Keith

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #13 on: December 25, 2009, 02:08 PM »
Editing a file means making changes to it - making annotations (even if it's in some external store) is a bit of a gray area, but the rest of your examples don't imply "edit" as far as I'm concerned; you might change the view but you're not changing the model.

But that's why it's a pedantical argument. As a general answer, I can't just eliminate one option because that certain "gray area" fits someone's model and not someone else's. (I'd thus turn it into a list of readers and as Tuxman paradoxically answered his own question: When you turn an editor into a reader, on average people think "An editor is always a viewer, but not the other way." even if it's not always the case so you end up with a topic that sends the message that I'm looking for a list of editors that supports read-only mode i.e. SCITE)

Bookmarks for example don't change the model also but is an external storage of some kind that alters the overall model to it's user.

Another thing that changes the model are transition animations when viewing PDF Files in Adobe. You change it from the model of a reader into more of a slideshow viewer.

Still another related model is catalogs. You edit a document from a model of a reader into a discoverer ala a RSS Reader.

There's a whole list of models that makes it more of an editor centered on making the viewing more readable than it is about a viewer that doesn't change the model and just the view.

@ Paul Keith, have you looked at yBook ? Check it out.

Thanks. I forgot about this.

Unfortunately, the two download links doesn't seem to be working for me right now so I might re-check it again later.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2009, 02:22 PM by Paul Keith »

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #14 on: December 26, 2009, 02:47 PM »
I was speaking model as in MVC - guess I should just have used the word "data" instead :). Something that changes your data would be an editor; something that doesn't, isn't.
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wraith808

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #15 on: December 26, 2009, 09:37 PM »
Mobipocket (http://www.mobipocket.com) and eReader (http://www.ereader.com/), though I'm not sure if that's what you're trying to get away from...

Paul Keith

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Re: Looking for list of read-only editors
« Reply #16 on: December 27, 2009, 03:09 AM »
I was speaking model as in MVC - guess I should just have used the word "data" instead :). Something that changes your data would be an editor; something that doesn't, isn't.

That's the dream though. (or in my case, my goal for making this list, in order to find a read-only editor that matches that kind of scope.)

In terms of framework, anything like this doesn't really come close.

BUT!

...you see concepts like these slowly inching into casual use in notetakers.

Once a concept mostly used for text inputting slowly becomes something you clip, you bookmark, you rate, you highlight, you annotate

BUT!

...You do that because you want to archive it.

...You do that because you want to rely on search engines or tags to find that snippet.

...You even do that because you're looking for a piece of entry.

Annotations, bookmarks, etc. might not be it but the goal (well my search) is to find something that really separates desktop reading from paper reading but instead of a viewer that makes it easy to read archives, how about an editor that makes archive into interactive books plus the lazy. 

Interactive books as in PrintWhatYouLike Selective TextBlock Deletion/Selective Document Merging.

Interactive books as in Session Managers that don't just bookmark the files but saves the group tab and makes it easy to group and delete the sessions without opening them. (A combination of Opera and Session Manager's features.)

Interactive books that allow you to selectively replace a text via your own custom thesaurus - but no distracting you with other features even basic ones that form a toolbar.

Interactive books showing your own custom MindMap Style Table of Contents + Your Notes via a single right click command.

Scoaring your own notes to find related things you might have jotted down before and showing it in a side panel.

Allowing you to mouse cursor hover preview not only the contents of the text but your own external annotations as opposed to internal ones.

Internal annotations that aren't just annotations but allows you to insert your own entry into a document and have it smart interpret it as a change not to be done in the original document (minus the duplicate document creation) and even having the program be able to smartly store the changed version within the program as a separate entry (without interrupting the program via an external save or creating a duplicate tab/entry of the same entry within the program thus requiring you to think up of a different name for the duplicate or right click duplicate) and one that on a click can show the textual difference via text color difference while at the same time revert it to the same text color if you don't want to see the changes.

Text trimmers that auto-segments any document entries into readable segments of your own choosing so that you can read these entries in manageable chunks and acts like a per-occassion PopUp Wisdom (with the easy option to continue reading if you choose to.)

Text color changes that rates whether your bound to be encountering a section that might be long and you are better off resting your eyes via a custom heuristics that changes the color of the text via severity so that when your eyes are getting tired, you're not going to be trapped in a long winding section of a document you're barely registering out of fatigue.

Even something as simple as an automated notetaker that jot down notes based on a custom heuristic like: These are words you might want to Wikipedia/Google/Clusty/Delicious... or even something as simple as a reader that gives you the ability to auto and quickly change reading templates/font text/font colors based on time of day/holiday/mood or even something that gives pre-set music (or custom music) like OmniWriter does. (at least I assume it does that because I never tried it)

...and that still ignores the whole gamut of improvements that are catalog discovery related.

Yes, all these possible features don't fit the herculean concept that is a controller but unlike the stereotypical view of editors as active (consumption/minor tweaks) -> work/produce (edit/program/hack), the herculean concept of read-only software (once it passes the basic structure) turns into a similar revolution of NotePad into Notepad++, Latex, MS Word, DreamWeaver, PhotoShop...even Wordpad.

Once you pass the basic structure of the goal in which there are enough clones, the next feature set is to elongate the goal into something else. Something more powerful but something that's also a different animal.

In this process, what is normally perceived pedantically as a feature set that doesn't change the data, actually changes the data.

Sounds oxymoronic but it's true.

Notetaking/Programming/Designing/etc. doesn't consider "not changing the model" as editing because the original form isn't the goal (or at least not the end product.)

The goal of reading though is the original form. It is a passive task to consume but to maximize the consumption.

A close analogy to the difference between the two is with regards to cooking and eating.

When you're cooking, chopping something might not be considered editing. Chopping something so that it (combined with other factors) produces a tastier, more attractive, lovelier to eat food is editing though.

With eating however, slicing something is considered editing.

Both are the same motions though. Both are even synonyms in a bird's eye pedantical view (for most people).

...until you focus on the context and realize there's casual chopping/slicing (that can happen to an amateur cook/normal everyday eater) and there's a refined way of chopping that increases in complexity, the better skilled the cook is.

In reading, there's hard reading/there's soft reading/there's reading for fun and there's reading for information among many other vague models.

In that model, controlling the view is not about being a reader. No, everyone who reads or is reading is a reader.

Controlling the view in the context of a reader, is editing. Mostly filtering the information so that it becomes better consumed by the brain or even more fun to reread or to look back into.

...but in the software world, filtering is more associated with search.

...but we're not searching, we want to read.

Similarly a slicer is associated more with slide shows and freeing memory.

A magnifier is associated more with zooming.

A cinema mode/distraction-free is a specific feature that eliminates lots of other features.

A processor is associated with editors but even more specific towards the MS Office program, Word.

Really, the only common association (one that makes one who reads the topic and thinks he knows of a program to suggest) is the word editor and reader.

...and even there it's complicated as you see how most readers in the vein of EReader and MobiPocket are more "E-book Readers" and not treated as E-book viewers. (No offense intended to your suggestion wraith808, they're popular examples and not bad ones but I am trying to expand the scope here.)

P.S. Sorry for still not checking out ybook. Been distracted.

Btw I don't really know what I'm talking about. First time I've even heard of MVC, I'm just mostly guessing here based on your comments and the words associated in the term. (I didn't even read the Wikipedia Link, just based my reply on the image. Sorry.)