Textmaker, WYSIWYG HTML, and device convergence

[bpm]

New user here, feeling like - with Textmaker - two of my dreams have come true.

Dream #1: given the maturity and power of HTML, and its familiarity, universal readability and open-standard status, I've thought for a long time that people should stop inventing new text formats, and make a word processor that uses as much of HTML as necessary to fulfill its goals.

Years back, I tried saving a few Word documents as HTML; the generated source was a mind-numbing explosion of garbage. Later I tinkered with ContentEditable in Opera; the lustre of promise, but not a practical environment. But after a couple of days with Textmaker, I'm not seeing any reason not to use HTML for all my text files. It seems to work perfectly, with no effect on speed or fidelity. Files saved as HTML are actually less bulky than RTF or TMD. The source is easily opened and read in any text editor; neater than RTF, with styles and tags that are largely English. It's totally cross-platform and will never be orphaned, or abused by a corporate owner.

Dream #2: the tiny but capable writing machine: mine have included the Toshiba 1000, Sony Picturebook, Dell Mini 9, and Asus T100 - with worshipful glances at the Psion 5. It's a bit disorienting to write with Textmaker on my phone, with a Bluetooth keyboard - and realize that I’m losing so little in terms of capability that it will seldom be worth carrying more hardware.

I know SoftMaker's niche has been as a sort of MS Office clone, but with a suite already working well on Android, Windows, and Linux, with files portable between them and virtually identical interfaces, they seem to be in a potential leadership position for a cross-platform future. “Textmaker - the cross-platform word processor that speaks the world’s language (HTML), and makes the world your office.”

[Michael Uplawski]

“Textmaker - the cross-platform word processor that speaks the world’s language (HTML), and makes the world your office.”

It is becoming more and more difficult to understand what HTML is. There used to be standards but nowadays, I am not sure any more, nor if the so called “standard” is worth any effort.

There is enough Babylonian confusion with HTML alone. At least, a proprietary document format protects us from mis-interpretations.

maybe_html5.png (1.41 KiB) Viewed 43697 times

Edit: I have been too quick with my response. Yesterday evening, I had overlooked “WYSIWYG”. You are joking! Got it.

[bpm]

Your suggestion, then, is to avoid possible misinterpretation of files (at the level of graphical imperfections, I suppose - text content being safe), by using a format 99% of the world cannot open, and will make no attempt to interpret?

I don't expect Softmaker to leap on the opportunity - but I'm fairly sure that most Android users motivated to look for writing tools (and tech-site writers who review such tools) would be more intrigued by an "HTML word processor" than one which presents itself as using yet another proprietary binary format. Since both storage options are actually provided, it is indeed "only" a marketing point - but marketing is a major part of how market share is won.

[Jossi]

Using HTML as a universal exchange format for word processor documents sounds like a rather quirky idea to me. The de facto exchange formats everybody works with are rtf, doc, docx and pdf, and SoftMaker makes a good job with these.

[Michael Uplawski]

but marketing is a major part of how market share is won.

And broken promises, illusions and hot air make you to lose it.