Opening the program

[LynneMC]

I've just bought and downloaded Softmaker.
When I open Textmaker, it starts a fresh copy of the program. None of my smart text is there, nor is my customisation, nor are the documents I was working on before I closed it.
What am I doing wrong? I've set it to open the documents I was working on at the place where I left off. But it's not doing it. Is this a bug?

[LynneMC]

I've got most of the program working now. There must have been some kind of corruption on install, because I uninstalled, deleted all the folders and reinstalled with a fresh Softmaker folder. Everything seems to be okay, except for one thing.
I'd like Textmaker to open with the document I was last working on, and the other documents on the document bar loaded. Can it do that? At the moment, it's opening a fresh document.
Maybe the document bar isn't saving?

[SuperTech]

Currently, TextMaker is not opening last working file/s, but I have forwarded this feature request to our developers team.

Meanwhile, you can check and open last working file/s but clicking on ribbon command File | Open dropdown.

[tom617]

Hi LynneMC, a tip for opening the last saved file quickly.

On a Mac, pin the TextMaker app to the Dock. Right clicking over the icon shows a listing of recent files saved, the most recent at the bottom. Selecting from there simultaneously launches the app and opens that document.

In Windows 10, pinning the app to the TaskBar most likely does the same (not sure though as I am a Mac user).

[LynneMC]

Thank you! I'd prefer it to open the set of documents I was working on as tabs, but I can live with it as it is. Still miles better than Word!

[tom617]

One way to open a set of documents all at once is to store the files in a single folder, select them in Windows, then right-click, then choose Open. Regarding document tabs, I am not a fan of them. I am keeping my fingers crossed that SoftMaker will program a way to make them optional (in the Mac version).

[LynneMC]

You can always choose not to show the document bar. Then, in effect, the tabs have gone

[tom617]

I have never found a way to remove the bar that contains the document tabs. If that is possible (while retaining other toolbars), can you let me know how? In the free version of Textmaker, the tabs bar does not show, but in the paid version it is locked in as far as I can tell.

[LynneMC]

I didn't realise you couldn't hide it! I use Atlantis Word Processor as my main word processor, but I bought Softmaker because it has Track Changes, and I got Paint Shop Pro with it. You can hide the doc bar in AWP, or move it somewhere else, and it opens with all the docs you had up when you saved, and open at the one you were working on.
And of course Softmaker offers a suite. I was using Libre Office, but there are some formatting problems with LO which you don't get with Softmaker.

[tom617]

Yes, to me document tabs take up valuable space, and I'm hoping SoftMaker will offer a way to turn them off. I open each document in its own program window (a choice via File, Open), so the bar on which a document tab sits is of no real value in this mode. Prior to TextMaker I used Open Office. Unfortunately OO has become so laden with bugs it is no longer feasible for me to use. Constant crashes followed by file recoveries. The only other recommendation I have for SoftMaker is to include a way to have text in documents read aloud by the computer. For people with eyesight problems (as the population ages, this number is growing), having this is enormous. The Mac OS and Windows both have ways to select text and a have the computer read it aloud, so I am thinking adding it to TextMaker is within the realm of possibilities.

[LynneMC]

The only WP I know that includes a text to speech feature is Google Docs, and I'm not sure that's not a Google function rather than one in Docs. In Word, you either use the built-in facility, or buy a program like Dragon, which overlays the program.
As for Open Office - when it was sold to Sun Systems a number of years ago, most of the developers moved to a new project, Libre Office, which, like OO used to be, is open source and free.
Unfortunately, although it's an excellent program, like many open source projects (Gimp comes into this too), it's overly complicated to use, and includes protocols that effectively introduce formatting errors into documents. I was looking for an office suite that improved on that, and Softmaker fills the bill. I had it years ago, but it had a serious fault (corrupting documents, and the backups) which they seem to have dealt with.
If you want to hide the doc bar, have you thought of autohiding the ribbon and then going into full screen mode?

[tom617]

Full-screen mode is a good option and in some cases it's the absolute best for viewing certain kinds of documents. However, when it comes to writing, I've never liked it. I like having my carefully-crafted toolbars at the ready when I'm in writing mode, which is basically 95 percent of the time. This is why I'm hoping we'll someday have an option to turn off the tabs bar. In the way I use TextMaker (each doc in its own program window) the tabs bar is a long gray area of unused space.

[miguel-c]

I've forwarded the hide document tabs idea to the product management.

[tom617]

Thank you!

[Woody44]

I've forwarded the hide document tabs idea to the product management.

Good.

I know it's difficult for younger people to grasp, but not everyone loves to have 75,348 tabs all open at the same time. I don't care if it's my e-mail client, my browser, my word processor, or my spreadsheet -- I almost never have even two tabs active. When that happens, it's only in the browser. If I have two documents open when using a word processor, I have them both open in separate windows, and the reason I do that is so I can have them up side-by-side so I can easily copy and paste between them.

A tab bar to me is a waste of screen space.