Finding a good text editor for the Palm OS is difficult-you either find an editor that cant handle memory cards, one that it not usable, or a full-featured and slow office suite. Peter Thorstenson’s tejpWriter is an editor designed for writing texts-and it does this well!
tejpWriter is based around the Palm DOC format. This means that you ‘load’ a file to RAM, work with it there, save it to the card and then manually ‘unload’ it from RAM.
The editor’s display is customizable, you can choose font, front and background colors:
tejpWriter’s implementation of the toolbar is incredibly smart, we already covered it in the past here. It contains functions like xClip, an unlimited-size clipboard…
A thumbboard makes text entry easy on HiRes+ handhelds:
Find&Replace is no problem for tejpWriter either:
tejpWriter also acts as a ‘viewer’ for specially formatted files. However, I never used that…
On the negative side, tejpWriter requires a considerable amount of thinking when you use it the first time-it indeed is a bit different! The UI still has a few quirks(you need to click text fields, etc)..but the editor works stable and reliable 99% of the time!
We reviewed version 3.0.0(archived here), the programs homepage is:
http://twriter.atspace.com/
Overall, tejpWriter is a great editor for creating reviews and other plaintext files that can live with automatical line wrapping(so DONT use it for creating c files). The program is incredibly fast(it even keeps up with me using my external keyboard in landscape mode) and is opensource and free! If you edit many files, take your time to understand the extra features of the program-the time is well invested!
I know several plain-text editors for PalmOS:
SiEd
CardTXT
TexT
TxtMemo
- and TejpWriter.
SiEd was the best one, but then the Ben Roe stopped developing. CardTXT did’t have as much features as SiEd, but later it hat other features like Memo import / export, HiRes+ , …
Now there is TejpWriter. I couldn’t test it yet but the new features look exciting… Tam, could you tell something about the on-screen thumbbard? There is such an app for Zodiac, but this feature looks better. So can you type fast? Does it work, has it all letters, numbers, etc.?
Alex
I type much faster myself with the thumbboard than with Graffiti, but not as fast as with the external keyboard. It was never meant to substitute the external keyboard, but rather to be a complement. You don’t have to carry your external keyboard with you, and you don’t have to connect it if there isn’t any place to do so. With the thumbboard, you can write anywhere: in the bus, on the train, or on the airplane. Another big advantage is that you can write in complete darkness. I designed it with as few keys as possible, but still with maximum usability. It is possible to type most special characters with combination of two keypresses made within half a second (three keypresses for uppercase). It does, however only have qwerty layout. Maybe I can adapt it to the German and French layouts, but being German or French, you should still be able to use the standard qwerty layout. I hope you will find it useful.
So, do I understand that the thumbboard is built in to this software, or is it a separate piece of software that is downloadable? I have been looking for a thumbboard app to try on my T3.
Thanks!
It is integrated with tejpWriter. It is not a DA or anything like that. Maybe one day when I have a lot of time.
There exist a thumbboard that you can use. It works on T3 an T3 only it seems. I think the name of the app is “Thumboard” with one “b” although I’m not sure.
Now I tested TapeWriter. But I have a problem, when I’m creating a new file and the “New File” dialogue appears, I can’t type a file name. I’m using a TungstenC with built-in keyboard.
Alex
Yes, to making tapboard or thumbboard GLOBAL for all applications and replacement to built keyboard…
I have searched long and hard for a fully usable text editor for Treo 650. This is it! Works with SD card flawlessly, unlike my former favorite QED. Capable of inverting by use of _text_ and _background_ color changes, highly usable font changes, a cursor which can be seen at all times. It is surely an improvement over every competitor, including the highly touted word processing programs.
Thank you for your outstanding work. Will you accept a paypal contribution? You deserve it.
Anson Reynolds
Hi Anson,
please contact thr author of the program, not me!
I just reviewed it, but the author is the one deserving the donation IMHO!
Best regards
Tam Hanna