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General Software Discussion / Re: What is your preferred font?
« Last post by superboyac on February 27, 2011, 08:26 PM »That IS cool. I like that. Gives it almost a comic book feel to it.
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I finally found a good use for the RayGun font. It looks good as idx/sub subtitles made by AviAddXSubs. After experimentation I found out that my WD HD TV for USB set top box will show the subtitle border if YUV option is checked on Configuration 2 page.Can you show a screenshot? It sounds cool!
Unfortunately I have 1st gen WD player and it does not display colors for external idx/sub subtitles. But at least this scheme stands out even over a white background. With YUV option checked it shows a funky color on the PC which deterred me from trying the setting earlier. But on the WD box it looks like the standard white characters with black border.
I think the RayGun font looks much better than Tahoma or Ariel for subs. It doesn't have the puffy periphery I dislike.-MilesAhead (February 27, 2011, 06:03 PM)
In theory, I like timns' solution. However, Stylus Studio -- even if great -- is at least 99 $... A tad expensive if all you want is to a few xml exports here and there. I also wonder how much energy and learning it would take to learn XML's basics and design nice templates in Stylus. It doesn't seem that hard, but... all that is very relative.Thanks Armando and timns. I went to Stylus Studio's and couldn't really tell what it did (too much corporate jargon nonsense). It sounds it can take xml files, and you can use the program to manipulate it and get it looking good. Then, I'm assuming you can save whatever configuration you did, and keep using it for other exports from each particular program. That's cool! If it can do it, it would be worth the $100, which is not too bad. I know I'd be more than happy to pay for it if it could do that.-Armando (February 26, 2011, 12:34 AM)
What brought me here was mouser's mega review of text editors. I thought, here's a guy who really loves software. I must have read that thing ten times.Yes, yes. All moneymakers want to eventually end up where the financial industry is. Where, instead of selling products (which is a lot of labor and difficult) you charge for services. Services are always cash cows. Because you lock people into long term contracts. it's difficult to get out, but easy to get in. And...the best part...you charge a percentage rather than a set price. So the bigger the scope, the larger the pay, EVEN IF the amount of labor is exactly the same. Real Estate is the same. This is where all the big money makers are. This is what separates the rich from the other people.
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Back to an earlier line of thought, and this observation: one reason some may feel stagnation is the very state of software itself. Desktop software -- including operating systems -- are at an all-time high for maturity, stability, power, and choice. Whatever my text editor doesn't presently do, I can write a script to do within it. There's little room to argue improvement in something like Microsoft Office, for, what does it not do at this point! Same for Windows and for me, Linux. We know the Apple folks are hooked and we also know they have no influence on what Steve Jobs will do next. And I haven't even gotten to cloud software, which morphed into "apps" but are packaged and sold as "services" -- the browser is the focus for today's mass of users.-zridling (February 25, 2011, 12:22 PM)
Can this Bat of yours be customised, plug-in'd or otherwise extended? If so there may be a way to shoehorn in a better editor while retaining all the other fine features of the program.You can write plugins, but very very few people have. One of the best ones is AntiSpamSniper, which I love. Great example of how to properly program something. I doubt you can easily write something to replace the editor without it being klunky. I mean, to the Bat's credit, they offer the plain Windows editor as an option, which I use. But I miss some of the coloring features in Microed if you do that. but I stick to it because the wordwrapping works.-timns (February 25, 2011, 11:50 AM)
It makes you re-think how to write software...True. I actually don't blame Microsoft as much as the developers. The way I see it, we need Microsoft to do their OS the way they do. In fact I think Windows OS is brilliant and don't have a lot of complaints about it. Windows provides an environment where developers can pretty much do anything (unlike Apple). The problem is the developers don't know how to wrangle in that complete freedom. They need to take all that development freedom and present it to the user in an easy way. That' why I get totally turned off by programs that like to use a lot of command line features to do their functions (i.e. The Bat's quick templates). Instead, they should spend a little extra time and create some buttons, windows, and visual elements that turn that programming language into something that is easy to grasp and work with. I mean, how far do we go? If people were comfortable using command line stuff, they'd be comfortable just coding things themselves. So if you truly want to help the average user accomplish a task, you take your expertise (programming) and convert that into something that is general and universal...buttons, icons, etc.
For instance,
- are all those toolbars really necessary?
- are all those fancy buttons really necessary?
- does the customer need this feature? should it be designed in a better way? ...
Windows is going in complete opposite direction than Mac. There are so many technologies and UI interfaces for Windows - MFC, NET, WPF, Silverlight, Flash, RIA, Restful interfaces, browser interface, SOAP, Ajax and probably a dozen more UI toolkits for Windows...
Then look at the way how iPad and Mac OSX apps are developed. Then you say,
WTF were you doing all that time writing software without thinking about the user??-vizacc (February 25, 2011, 10:21 AM)
Otherwise the nonsequiturs in a thread like this are mind-killers.So true.-mouser (February 25, 2011, 09:25 AM)
The Mac image editor is simply elegantYup, that's my new favorite word. I hate sounding like a fanboy, because I am SO not. But when it comes to interface, Apple beats pc software most of the time, and it's not even close. Now, windows users will say "But we can do more, and windows stuff is more powerful" which is true. But from a business perspective, interface is what sells, not powerful features. Powerful features sell to people like us who are hardcore software powerusers, and have a lifetime of experience with computers, but we only represent a very small number of sales. But if you want to sell the maximum number of programs, you HAVE to make sure the interface is easy and is giving people what they want...i.e. what Apple does. Now, if you don't want to sell a lot but just want a powerful program, then you don't need to worry about it, which seems to be the attitude of most pc developers. But if I hear that developers are wondering why their stuff doesn't sell more, all I can do is smirk and think "Look, if you want to sell more, you have to give people what they want. Not what you think they should want."-vizacc (February 24, 2011, 10:36 PM)
This is good. No portable version?Sometimes you can just copy the program directory to your usb stick and it works. but I don't think there's an intentional portable version.-Hyphen (February 25, 2011, 04:45 AM)
The MicroEd editor is famous at making your text break or add annoying spaces in-between. I don't know why they think this is a good feature Sadexactly. They think it's a good feature because the only people they pay attention to are the beta testers on usenet, who are not exactly representative of people who like to make things easy. Also, they just don't seem to care about really developing the software. It seems like the code has remained pretty much the same for years, and very very minimal effort has been put in between versions. I bet the programmers spend a few hours a year here and there doing stuff. All the feature requests go unanswered. The list bugfixes and new features that I have to assume is just the simplest, easiest things to add.
Did anyone think about export to Android or Nokia phone?They will NEVER do this. Waaay too much work for them. they have difficulty adding a checkbox in the options menu, there's no way there going to do something like that. only minor things will be modified.
Take a look at the iPad or iPhone email client. It has much, much fewer features but makes an amazing email client.yup. Surprisingly, Apple tries to give an experience that a NORMAL person will enjoy. The Bat tries to give an experience that will only be enjoyed by those who consider usenet as their preferred forum-type communication. People who get really mad when you top-post. People who get really really really mad if you don't do the proper dash-dash-space-enter delimiter for signatures. That's who the Bat developers listen to. If you want, say, the editor to work well...meaning the place where you write emails and spend 90% of your time while you're in the program...you will be ignored.
Then go back to TheBat and wonder why the developers cannot focus their time on the features everyone wants instead of adding new features without much reasoning or thought and new versions every two or so years...
Some time ago, I decided to get a Mac and lose all those expensive Windows apps.I hear you. A lot of PC developers don't care to make life easy for the end user. They want to add features features and more features, and often ignore the little things that just make life a little easier. I still often wonder what significant improvements/fixes the Bat has done in the last 5 years, and it's not much. They still refuse to have a true forum, they don't fix any of the issues with MicroED that have been there for years. They still don't have ANY documentation for anything. It's funny; they have a Quick Templates feature that is very powerful, and it has its own syntax, it's basically a programming language. Is there any documentation for this language? Nope. You just have to figure it out.
It took a while to migrate 50,000 email messages from a whole load of folders in TheBat, Outlook, ThunderBird and Outlook Express to Mac Mail. I'd say I lost maybe 5,000 emails or maybe 10,000 emails when I used Outlook Express and ThunderBird
Ever since I used MacMail:
- I got a working address-book that syncs with my iPad, iPhone, Google, Yahoo and LAN here. No more Windows Address book problems!
- I never lost a sync or contact for past 6 months
- Email backup: almost automatic...
- There's a script to do remove duplicates, remove attachments, tag folders
- Automatic syncing between iPhone, iPad
- never had to bother with those WinMail.dat or HTML spam or EXE attachments ever
- There's tagging, color tagging,
- Working to-do lists,
- Calendar that syncs with Google, Yahoo.
- automatic filing with intelligence
- brilliant search feature
- IMAP compatibility. I can use Exchange with MacMail too
I especially like Mail, To-do list, Reminders and Calendar API integration system-wide.-vizacc (February 24, 2011, 02:54 AM)
Definitely. I would have gotten it just now, but the printing is still weak, as in all other programs.OOO:I see on his blog that last spring and again this past winter (unfortunately expired Feb 1st, 2011) he offered specials and TodoPaper was available for $9.99. Though not free, looks like a good deal to watch for in the future.
http://widefido.com/products/todopaper/
That program is perfect for what I was looking for. Man, i wish it were free.
If I detailed the characteristic features, do you think we could mimic it here?-superboyac (February 23, 2011, 09:12 AM)-bob99 (February 23, 2011, 12:56 PM)
Emacs Org Mode does something along those lines.emacs is still around? I used that in college for a programming class. I wrote a bowling scoring program.
(Plus - being Emacs - about ten billion additional things most people couldn't care less about.)
Might be worth looking at for ideas.
Non-technical intro article can be found here.-40hz (February 23, 2011, 09:49 AM)
Personally I'd rather take #2 to a meeting than #1 - the formatting is less than optimal, but it doesn't have the "color puke explosion" nastiness of #1Sorry buddy. I don't know if you are speaking hypothetically or what, but if I took that to a meeting and showed it to people, I would be "talked to" afterward. The colors are not for aesthetics. I've colored things like that so they draw the eye to the appropriate places. And I wouldn't show that in a meeting either. I'd use softer earth tones that are more beautiful to look at.
Anyway, sure, if you can export to a sane, well-structured format (XML, CSV, whatever) it's definitely possible to write an auto-formatter. For XML, it might be as simple as defining a stylesheet.-f0dder (February 23, 2011, 10:16 AM)
