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IDEA: Text Editor just for text (stay with me)

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zridling:
This is not really a "snack-limited" idea because it couldn't be done in a weekend, but it is a Long Tail idea. What about a text editor that just focuses on text creation, on putting words to screen, on writing?

Stay with me.

PROBLEM: Users, mostly writers, are dying for a true text editor; that is, an editor built to edit text/words. Many programs already do this, but they also do worlds of other things, e.g., think of UltraEdit and all it does — coding and all that. And there are tons of terrible, weak text editors to go around. There are even a dozen RTF word processors that are also very weak. But writers would kill to have a super fast program that has the file-handling power and customizability of UltraEdit but the speed of EmEditor. They could write their stories, columns, ad copy, text, in it, hit the copy button and drop it into any "container" program that one uses, such as OpenOffice, Word, Quark, whatever.

SOLUTION: Build a text editor that:
__(1) Allows for broad customizability, such as allowing proportional fonts (Courier New doesn't cut it for writing), document tabs, even an internal Explorer, etc... basically a stripped down UltraEdit with an updated interface;
__(2) Handles large files (coders don't see the need in this, but writers need it when working with volume-sized novels or serialized works);
__(3) Might include some text-handling abilities, such as justification (often, however, this type of formatting isn't called for in and text editor and is also lost when copying into the container program).

It's a thought, but if I could code, this is what I would build and I'd market it to writers around the globe. Being a text app, one does not have to worry about formatting and file format changes. If I created a .txt file in 1987, it would still be the same today as it was then, compared to a WordPerfect file, for example.

mouser:
surely there are some freeware text editors that fulfil these requirements.
basically you are just asking for features to be removed from the existing text editors we reviewed.. or am i missing something deeper?

zridling:
Exactly, and for now, UltraEdit more than fits the bill.

mouser:
mark this day in your history books..
i think zaine has created a new movement..
a new underground scene is going to rise up from zaine's original post, dedicated to removing features from software, eliminating menus and buttons from existing programs, splicing stuff out of help files, etc. :)

Scott:
I am too tired and lazy to do more than skim the original post, but as mouser said, doesn't this exist already?  I think I've used a few that fit the bill...  One was TxEdit, which I haven't used in years.  There have to be freeware options as well.

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