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One category of Mac OS X software in which there is no shortage of choices is text editors. The big names are the $15.00 Tex Edit Plus and freeware BBEdit Lite (which is no longer being developed), but there are a whole passel of others. A particularly nice one I checked out this week is the Japanese iText 3.0.4E, a "lite" version of the LightWayText text editor/word processor. If you're looking for a freeware replacement for BBEdit light, or just want a good text editor that gives you considerably more than the basics, this one is definitely worth a look.
iText's developer Michiaki Yamashita says that iText will definitely incite recollection of 'the Macintosh mind of the early days' - The original Mac's concept, and he's right. This application does have the look and feel, not to mention the speed of those System 6 and earlier original Macintosh applications like MacWrite.
Another attractive feature of iText is color customization of the user interface. All of the iMac colors from Bondi Blue on (excepting, mercifully, Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian) can be selected from a pull down menu. However, my favorite is the Classic theme (I love the look of Ssytem 6), which looks like this.
There is also a small and handy toolbar that anchors to the bottom of the screen by default when activated.
iText supports styles, decoration lines, the ability to change all paragraph indents or margins, and to paste in PICT images. Also, you can work with big text documents of even more than 32 kilobytes. iText Features
File / Window Operations;
Supports Multi-windows, and Window Shade.
Text Editing;
Character and Paragraph Attributes;
Page Layout / Header and Footer;
+ Alpha functions;
Also available are iTextPro, which has more features than iText, and is almost same as LightWayText except for the advanced features including Macro, Word Services, and Stream Editor.
iText is freeware, but like the erstwhile freeware BBEdit Lite, it benefits mightily from being a scaled down version of a much more powerful application. This is an amazinly capable and polished program for a freebie. Classic version also available.
For more information, visit:
re: FTP in OSX Finder Re: FTP through Finder Memory From Michael Snider Charles, Just a quick thought. You use several browsers, and, being on a dial up connection, I bet you have all their caches and histories on and set large. Try setting the sizes down under 2 mB or so--should still enable quick response to the sites you frequently visit, but may save you lots of memory.
Best,
Hi Michael;
Good idea. I'll try it.
However, this week I've cut myself back to just Mozilla and iCab (plus the little WannaBe text browser), and I'm still hitting the slowdown wall after about a day of uptime.
Charles From Mark Rushton Charles, FTP in the OS X Finder does work, but the syntax must be exact. For example, I can FTP into my Chebucto Community Net account with any standard FTP program (I use InterArchy) by going to: ftp://chebucto.ca and then entering my username & password. But in the Finder, I have to "Connect to Server" and enter: ftp://username:@chebucto.ca//var/csuite/csuite1.0/home/rk/username/ (obviously, substitute your name for "username") My directory then mounts on the desktop like any other volume. Easy!
Ciao,
From Erik Highter Charles (pardon the familiarity)- The reason everything appears write protected is that it is. Any site you try to FTP access through the finder will be that way. My understanding is that it is to enable you to connect to public iDisks and the like to download files. Uploading still requires a client. (I think David Pogue mentions this in Missing Manual v. 2 - yes, try pages 612-613). I've been enjoying your column since I found Appllelinks last fall. I may not always agree with you, but you are always fair and intelligent with your criticism and commentary. Keep up the good work. Sincerely, Erik Highter
Thanks for the tip and the kind words, Erik. The familiarity is fine. :-)
Charles From Michael Snider Charles, Your suspicion, as stated in Odyssey 276--"OS X will gradually eat up all the free RAM, but it will take longer with a GB than with 640 MB"--is flat wrong. Something on your system, and on the systems of some of your correspondents, is causing the problem--and it's not just a RAM problem. I , and several others who have written to you, who use much more memory and CPU intensive software than the relatively simple suite of software you use, do not experience these problems. One of my machines, the iMac, is faster than your iBook but has only 512 mB RAM, and the other is a 600 mhz iBook with only 384 mB and only 8mB of video RAM. Both machines run 24 7, both typically run one to two dozen apps simultaneously, including development software, iTunes, Safari, Mail, Graphic Converter, iMovie (on the iMac), BBEdit, Tex Edit, Z-Write, TextEdit, MacJournal, Hog Bay Notebook, InterArchie, Watson, Radio Userland, Launchbar, LiteSwitch, the odd X11 app, Quicktime Player, Terminal, Calculator, Melody Assistant, AppleWorks, iChat, and 2 dozen or more windows open. Here's a screenshot of Top's output running in a terminal window, followed by utpime --
Content-Disposition: inline;
You see I have 200M free memory, and about 40% free CPU. A few minutes ago, when I was experimenting with Grab, free memory went down to 6M while images were held in RA before saving. (shortcut capture saves immediately to disk), but even then no problems with speed. Radio brings that down to 0% CPU for a second or two every time its web server component broadcasts to my blog, and if I'm actively compiling things slow a little--and even then I don't see a performance hit unless I'm scrolling a Finder column with lots of pics and preview on. Uptime is not quite 2 days, since I installed the sendmail security fix requiring a restart, but long enough to show the problem if I had it. Here's the dock: 19 active apps.
Content-Disposition: inline;
One thing I don't use is Classic, and I don't use any tools to make X work like 9. Something's broken on your installation, Charles. Good luck fixing it. Best Regards, Michael
Hi Michael;
I hope you're right. What I (and others) have been experiencing certainly doesn't seem like the way things should work, although so far tools like Memory Stick and Memory Usage Getter have not revealed any "smoking guns" so to speak.
As you speculate, Classic Mode may be a culprit, but it's non-optional for me until OS X native versions of a couple of key production applications become available. The only OS 9 performance emulation hack I currently have running all the time is WindowShade X, but I tried going without it for a month (including uninstalling its preferences), and things didn't improve.
Charles
The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here: Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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