This may be the time to consider a word processor for MeOS. I have no experience writing one, but I did write a grammar-style-punctuation checker in BASIC for the Commodore 64 long ago, plus several dictionaries.

I would be delighted to help if someone wanted to start a team for a MeOS word processor.

Anyone interested?

Bill

Hi bweller,

We have Tinypad for now. I don't think we're at a stage where we could use a word proccessor yet. We'd need to decide on which font formats to support etc... for a start and there's only one working printer driver to my knowledge so no way to output the file.

If you've done some grammer/spell check work though it might be worth working with someone to get that integrated into TinyPad.

I fully agree: grammar/spell corrector as runtime-activated plug-ins to Tinypad.

On the other hand, I find "wysiwyg" wordprocessors somewhat overkill and a pain to develop. (worthless effort)

Maybe we could use html to format the text and then let the browser to render the final layout? That way Tinypad could grow full-featured remaining fat-less.

There have been many commercial GPS (Grammar, Punctuation and Style) programs written since my first one almost twenty years ago. None that I have seen do a very good job. Here is why...

MS Word for instance, attempts to correct grammar as it is typed, ignoring the intended audience.

Grammar is an integral part of style. Style is based much upon readability.

Readability is based on the SMOG readability formula first published in 1969, and it has been widely used by editors and writers ever since.

This is the formula...

1. Count the polysyllabic words (those with three or more syllables), including repetitions.
2. Count the sentences.
3. Divide the number of polysyllabic words by the number of sentences.
4. Subtract the number of sentences from 30.
5. Multiply the answers to steps 3 and 4.
6. Add the number of polysyllabic words.
7. Find the closest square root.
8. Add 3.

Writing for the general adult public, a sixth- to tenth-grade reading level is appropriate.

It is impossible to determine these numbers until completion of the document, so I have a hard time envisioning it being a component of a simple text editor. Perhaps it should be a stand-alone application with editing capabilities. Tinypad would be ideal for that.

The heart of the GPS is the parsing engine, which includes many special cases based on style.

Example: An informal document or novel will allow the use of “ain’t”, phrases used in a passive voice, and misspellings within quotes, whereas a formal or technical document will not.

This is a doable project for MeOS, and I hope will encourage more people to use it as an operating system.

I do NOT believe this project to be premature. Debugging, testing and fine-tuning a word processor of commercial quality would probably mean it would be ready by the time MeOS is mainstream.

The original program was 28k of tokenized BASIC, so It does not have to be bloatware.

I believe in the future of MeOS so strongly, that I have already begun work; found public domain dictionary files in most major languages, and a start on the flow chart.

Incidentally, I found errors in MS Word’s grammar checker when I wrote this, which is at a Bormuth reading level grade 10.9

I think its difficult to apply to languages where pronounciation differs from
the written words and syllables are not clearly defined like English, Italian,
Spanish. Its easier for ugri-languages like Finnish, Hungarian, ... and some
others like Russian, ....

ie in Estonian we have syllables whenever vowel letter is preceded by a
consonant. An example:
Te-re, mi-nu ni-mi on Ma-dis ja mi-nu a-me-tiks on korst-na-püh-ki-ja
Here "-tiks" ends with 2 consonants and "korst-" has them 3 in-a-row, still
the rule applys. The only exeption is when we have 3 or more vowels:
"maa-alu-ne", "jää-äär", ... but these aren't used much (more like artificial)

In Finnish:
Terve, minun nimeni on Madis ja minun työkseni on savupiipunpüühkijä
Lets try that: sa-vu-pii-pun-püüh-ki-jä simple

...but how many syllables are in "here", "there", "byte", ...

...and how many in "fuoco" (Italian) or "puedo" (Spanish) ?

Spanish pronunciation depends strictly from the written words. If you known the rules you will always know how to pronunce a word even if you have never heard it before.
Frágil (unambiguous)

In Italian you need to know in advance which syllabe have the accent unless it have the accent mark.
Fragile (is pronunced fràgile instead of fragìle as French people is tempted to do)

Also Spanish has a strict rule set to syllabing. i.e. it is unambiguous.
(Spanish) pue|do
(Italian) fuo|co

Look at the huge language resources we can find on ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/

Then use one of the other reading level indicators included in the style checker. Note that I used the Bormuth above.

bweller, I'm very interested to learn about the subject and I don't know nothing about it. As I loved so much my C64 I would be pleased if you want to share your code and dictionaries.

Actually I cannot be involved directly on the project because I want to finish first the MeOS tiny browser, but I can assign all needed web space for the project.

Pelaillo,

By tiny browser I assume you mean as in a web browser?
If so, how is it coming along?

Know it's a bit off topic sorry. Just it would be really useful

Yes, there is little advancement in the last couple of months because some personal affaires I need to complete, but I'm interested in continue with the project. Up to now there is little more than a html parser and a set of drawing routines. If you want to give a hand, you are welcome (see the sources in my homepage)

Of course html browser is one of the very important programs that MeOS needs.
But IMHO, HTML is not the best format for internal using in text processors. It is too "string based" and is intended to provide human readable code.Visibly this is the reason why there is so little good WYSIWYG HTML editors.

Regards

The best one is TeX and it is almost impossible to surpass. I don't know how easy is to port it into MeOS using spideros' C libs.
Then the second needed port is the ghostscript library.

Even if 99% of the world prefer to use M$ word, I find it too limiting/time consuming and still consider WYSIWYG for editing as a total waste of time (either for developement or use).

Well, formated text is more readable than plain text. So, for writing documentations, it is more usable, than plain text. On other hand, when you write something, you want to read it too, so WYSIWYG editors are good for writing documentations. Even syntax highlighing is some kind of WYSIWYG editing. Of course everything have to be reasonable and with measure.

Regards

I set up a webpage for the Grammar/Punctuation/Style (GPS) app I mentioned. I am doing this from memory of the one I wrote almost 20 years ago, so there will be errors. Please bear with me, as it is there only to give you an idea of what it entails.

This is the rough draft of the parsing engine flowchart:
http://meosword.250free.com/index.html

Work continues...

Sorry about the ads.javascript:emoticon('')
Embarassed

Bill Weller