Cool Mac Gear

CopyWrite is a project management text editor. Word processors are for formatting. CopyWrite is for a writer's project management. CopyWrite's primary focus is simply writing. CopyWrite features a convenient project browser, powerful search and highlight filter, a notes drawer and project exporting.

CopyWrite is designed to help you keep your writing projects neat and organized without getting in your way. When you’re ready to format your finished project, it allows you to export to plain text to the word processor of your choice for formatting.

When you launch CopyWrite, the Project Manager appears. Click “New” and give your project a name, which can be anything you want it to be. Unregistered users of CopyWrite can have up to three projects while registered users are unlimited. If you want to delete a project, just click the project to delete and click the “Delete” button. Once you rproject has a name you can either double-click it or click it once and click the “Open” button to open it.

When you open a project, the window in the center is the document editor window. The drawer on the left is the project browser. The one on the right is the notes drawer. The toolbar at the top of the document editor window contains the most commonly-used functions of CopyWrite. When you open a new project, CopyWrite prompts you to create the first document. You can skip this and come back later, if you wish, but you won't be able to type anything in the main editor until you've got a document open. In addition to giving your document a name, you can also specify a category and status or leave them at their default values.

All of the documents in your project are located in the project browser drawer. When you add documents, they appear here. To keep your project organized, you may sort by either the document name or the customizable category and status fields . At the bottom of this drawer is the "Statistics" button. You can click this for a fast word and page count.

With word processors, keeping track of notes for each document is usually a pain. If you insert notes into your documents randomly, you could miss some when you send it off to be published. If you put them at the top or bottom of your document, you have to scroll back and forth, losing your place. If you keep them in a separate file, you have to switch windows or cut your workspace in half to keep the two side-by-side.

With CopyWrite the Notes drawer (on the right) stays beside your work, no matter where you're at. Each document has its own notes. Open Chapter One and its notes are right there beside it. CopyWrite also remembers your place in each document so switching between them is painless. Unhappily, with both drawers open, CopyWrite is too big to fit the 1024 x 768 screen on my iBook, so I was obliged to narrow the center window in order to make it fit.

CopyWrite has no 'save' command. it automatically saves as you stop typing. CopyWrite also remembers your current position in each document. If you open another document then go back to the first, CopyWrite automatically places the cursor just where it was before.

The search bar in the Document Manager drawer is one of CopyWrite's power features. Often, writers want to quickly locate certain words or phrases that are used throughout their work. Instead of opening various documents and individually searching through them, CopyWrite's interface lets you type a term into the search bar and press return or click the "Search" button. CopyWrite immediately filters the document list, leaving only those that contain your term. When you open a document from the filtered list. CopyWrite has highlighted every instance of your search term. Click "Search" again to un-filter and everything goes back to normal.

Writers also have to change things -- a lot. With word processors, you have to open each document to perform a search and replace. CopyWrite's Replace Text feature gives you a choice between replacing text only in the current document or throughout the entire project - instantly. Like all good search and replace tools, case-sensitivity is optional.

When you've finished your drafting work and are ready to format the final manuscript, CopyWrite allows you to export your project into standard plaintext. From there, you can import or paste the text into any word processor to format it as required. You're given two choices. The first choice allows you to export all documents in your project into a single text file. You can even specify the order in which you'd like them to appear. Just drag the documents into their proper order in the export order dialog and click “Export”. The second export option allows you to put each document into its own separate text file.

When there is a mistake, whether it's something you or your computer did, using CopyWrite's built-in backup feature keeps your project safe. You can use a keyboard shortcut to make an instant backup or have CopyWrite make automatic backups every time your project is closed. Each backup is stored with a timestamp plainly visible in its filename. You could undo a mistake you just made or one you made months before.

CopyWrite is an interesting little application. I reminds me a bit of Marc Zeedar's Z-Write word processor which offers somewhat similar functionality. However, I found that CopyWrite seems to have a slight lag sometimes in accepting keyboard input. Not a big deal, but noticeable. One of the old versions of ClarisWorks used to have a similar hesitation way back when.

However, what I miss most in CopyWrite is text manipulation tools that go beyond the bare bones basics, such as commands to alter case, tools to remove DOS line feeds and carriage returns from text pasted in from email messages, and macro capability. One of the main features that keeps me joined at the hip to Tom Bender's Tex Edit Plus is its integration with AppleScript that has allowed me to add a whole raft of customizable, time-saving macros. This is not a particular criticism of CopyWrite -- few text editors come close to matching TE+'s power and versatility. However it is a suggestion for possible future development of the application. I know it's not intended for formatting text, but I find it hard to live without my text editing tools.

However, a big criticism of CopyWrite is that my other macro standby, TypeIt4Me appears to be not supported. When I try to enter a TypeIt 4Me macro shortcut, what gets pasted in is the current contents of the Clipboard. This is unusual, as I can't recall another text application I've used that TypeIt4Me doesn't work in. There is also no support for OS X's built-in spellchecker, which presumably could be implemented in a Cocoa text application.

Other problems. After minimizing in place a CopyWrite project with Windowshade X and putting my machine to sleep, I found that neither of the drawers would open, and then the application unexpectedly quit. Everything worked fine again upon restarting the program, but this is

As I said, CopyWrite is a very interesting little program. However, it really does need some more development and enhancement before it's ready for serious work. It is one I'll keep watching.

345 - total lockup

From Andrew White

Charles,

Don't know if this is helpful, but I've had several instances of total lock-up recently. I've finally figured out what's happening: When an app crashes and the App is NOT on the startup volume, crash reporter for some reason often has trouble writing the crash log. When I moved the app to the startup volume it crashed 'correctly'.

This is on a Beige G3 rev A upgraded to a G4/500 running 10.2.6. It may or may not be similar to the lock-ups others have experienced.

Andrew White

Hi Andrew;

Could be. As I commented yesterday, this hasn;r happened to me since upgrading to 10.2.6, but that may be coincidental.

Charles

Re: My mistake re: DDR RAM

From etseo

…other non-compatible Classic apps…: Adobe PageMaker 7.1 http://www.adobe.com/products/pagemaker/pagemakerOSX.htm

The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here:
http://www.applelinks.com/news/odyssey/

CM

Charles W. Moore