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WordTsar 0.1.491 Released

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Another big step for the project. We can now print. Imagine that, a word processor that prints!

Due to a bit of a brain fart, I only implement ^OP (print preview) and forgot ^KP (print). It’ll be in the next release. Both will do the exact same thing anyway. There are also a few squiggly corner cases I may have missed with printing, but I’ll catch them next time.

I also changed the main window display a bit, there’s a progress meter in the status bar when formatting the document, and the bold/italic/etc indicators look a bit different.

That’s it. No bug fixes

I’ll do something new here as well, and tell you what I’m working on next. Because I need it, headers and footers will be implemented next.

WordTsar 0.1.345 Released

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This release is a big step for the project. We’ve moved from an in-house Mercurial repo to Sourceforge, so now anyone can look at the code. It’s a bit sloppy in parts. Other changes are:

  • fixed a bug that stopped auto formatting of documents when they are loaded.
  • fixed a screen flicker introduced during ‘format on load’ code.
  • added math in dot command

The addition of math in dot commands means you can do simple things like .rm 8.5-1-1i to set the right margin to 6.5 inches. The math system will also do complex math like  2 * (pi / 4.7) + sqrt(7), but why would you want to?

WordTsar 0.1.73.17 released

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0.1.73.18 released to fix a huge CPU hogging bug. Sorry.

 

This release (a long time coming) is an almost complete refactor of  the original WordTsar. Many speed increases, and it should be easier to add functionality.

I’m starting to use this version for my daily work, but beware, monsters may lurk in the corners.

For now, please use the forum to report bugs. I’m working on a public bug tracker.

Just about ready for a new release

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I’ve been using Alpha 0.0.51.2014-10-07 for the last few years on both Linux (very stable), and OSX (somewhat stable). I wrote three novels using that software (http://geraldbrandt.com) and got them published by one of the Big 5. It was software that worked, but had its flaws. For example, when starting a new document, you needed to insert a pages worth of blank lines, go back to the top of the document, and start typing. That kept it stable. Unfortunately, the software had also reached its limits. Adding new features would have been a major pain.

So, I did what any developer would do… I refactored the darn thing. I’m seeing speed increases of 200% – 2000%, depending on what I’m doing. Fonts work a bit bettter. RTF import has a bug with font tables, but kinda works. Battery usage on laptops is great. Memory usage is a bit higher.

I currently have version Alpha 0.1.73.0 running on Windows 10 and Ubuntu 17.10 and 18.04 (GTK2 and GTK3). I’ll be getting OSX running over the next couple of weeks. I believe 0.1.73.0 has feature parity with 0.0.51, but I’ll have to double check. I’m working on stability now — along with the OSX port.

For a project that’s been basically dead for the last three years, this is a positive step. Keep watching, it’ll be up in binary format soon. Source code to follow (it may take awhile… I’d love to have a finished product before I release source. Who knows).

 

Alpha 0.51 Released

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The latest Alpha was released today.

This release brings about background document formatting.  Now, if you have a 50 page document, and you increase line spacing to 2 at the top of the document (.ls2), you’ll see the page count increase.

Unfortunately, we still have a bug.  WordTsar doesn’t know when to stop formatting, so it always reformats to the end of the document on every keystroke.  On desktops, it’s not a big deal, but on laptops, you will notice a battery drain.

 

Long delay…

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It’s been awhile since I put out a new release.  I’ve been working on (slowly) getting some of the backend formatting multi-threaded, trying all sorts of tricks with font handling, freetype, etc, etc.  Finally decided to Keep It Simple.

Page formatting is now done ‘in the background’.  It’s not perfect yet, and laptop users will notice a higher CPU usage/battery drain.  I’ll release what I have next week, and work on the issues in the coming weeks.