WordGrinder: Terminal-based distraction free word processor | Hacker News Reader

WordGrinder: Terminal-based distraction free word processor

github.com

143 pointssathishmanohar68 comments

Nice. There are also WriteRoom (mac) and DarkRoom (win), and on Linux PyRoom, whose website is defunct but which does have a wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PyRoom.

I would just use nano or vim, but their disadvantage is that word wrap, and moving around between wrapped lines, don't work (by default) like you'd want from a plaintext editor.

Vim Pencil is a simple plugin that makes Vim a decent environment for writing. Plus Goyo for full minimalism.

There is zen-mode in emacs as well.

Not to mention olivetti mode[0] in Emacs.

[0]: https://github.com/rnkn/olivetti

What “zen-mode” would that be? https://github.com/zenlang/zen-mode seems to be for the programming language called “Zen”.

Too bad the PyRoom site is down. I want to say I had shared some themes with that project a while back, but can't remember if they were full themes or just screenshots.

:set wrap would make it work in vim or neovim ?

You also probably want

    :noremap j gj
    :noremap k gk

So j/k operate on "one display line" instead of ignoring wrapping.

>WriteRoom (mac)

There's also an analogous mode[0] for emacs that works great on my ARM Mac!

[0] https://github.com/joostkremers/writeroom-mode

Tavis Ormandy released some patches to get WordPerfect for UNIX (terminal based) to run on Linux [1]

Alternatively, WordPerfect 6.2 for DOS running in Wine on Linux (or DOSbox) [2]

This word processor was pretty serious back in the day. I have distant memories of sitting in class and learning it in at school in the early 90s. It’s interesting how we retain such inconsequential memories that can resurface with very specific triggers (such as seeing the screenshots of ASCII text of an ancient word processor).

[1] https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/wordperfect.html

[2] https://blog.cmpxchg8b.com/2020/09/finding-console-word-proc...

Would be nice to have some images in the README to see what makes this unique compared to alternatives. Thankfully, you can find them on the website in the sidebar.

I thought so, too, but the README file is actually just a regular text file, like we used to have before Github.

This reminded me of something I'd love to have - a physical text/graphics terminal with a full (at least as complete as the last DECs/Boundless units) implementation of ANSI codes, as well as a good, high-resolution implementation of Sixels, ReGIS, and Tektronix graphics, smooth scrolling (but now speed-adjusted - the more backlog, the faster it scrolls), as well as terminal-side windowing for multiple terminals (as the Blit family had).

I find it interesting that when we say terminal emulator these days, we are very explicitly referring to an informal standard that is (more or less) VT100 + color + mouse + Unicode.

Oh yes. This would be a board with an MCU, HDMI output and USB input for a keyboard and, perhaps, a mouse.

Preferably a LK501 layout keyboard ;-)

The title reminded me of WordStar from my youth.

In like grade 5 or so a friend and I got it into our heads to become reporters, conduct interviews around our school, and publish dot-matrix printed newsletters. "Just the facts, ma'am"

There's a clone called WordTsar that runs on Linux and Windows, MacOS (though lightly tested), etc. http://wordtsar.ca/

Gotta try this out. I used to have the WS commands burned into my brain, but it’s been decades now …

Home-Home-Up!

I've found vim best for distraction-free writing.

Not a full word processor, true, but its easy enough as a separate step to copypaste text into a word processor doc when WYSIWYG formatting is desired. Or use something like a pandoc script to generate a PDF or ebook, when needed.

If you're looking for a more full-featured terminal word processor, you could take a look at wpunix! https://github.com/taviso/wpunix

If you’re looking for an even less-featured one, feel free to check out my stream of consciousness writing tool: https://enso.sonnet.io

- Not terminal but browser based though.

- Prioritises writing over editing, thinking over second guessing, censoring yourself.

Wow, this is beautiful! Pretty fun to dump text into

Thanks, it started as a thing I kept on the side of the screen to "think aloud". I've been actually using it regularly for the past 4 years or so, writing 800 words per day on average, drafting articles, etc...

Wow what an elegant design. I tried the web version from mobile even after all the warnings and it wasn’t bad at all. I’m definitely trying out the desktop versions later.

I took my iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard to try out Ensō during a hike and it worked fine. That is, until I forgot to switch off my keyboard once, put it in the backpack, and accidentally locked the device for a week!

I think one can unlock a device locked by too many password guesses by plugging it into a computer that is connected to the same iCloud account, but perhaps that feature has been removed in recent security updates.

Correct, but I was a bit too far from home to get that done so did the next best thing:

https://twitter.com/rafalpast/status/1422166755313659904?s=2...

how to install this and word grinder ? also how is this better than vi or neovim or emacs-client?

A text editor and a word processor are different things. There are things you can do very easily in a word processor that are difficult in a text editor, and vice versa. I actually wrote a FAQ about this!

https://github.com/taviso/wpunix/wiki/FAQ#q-why-not-just-use

(Fwiw, I'm a daily vim user)

Looks excellent. I'll even give it a pass for using C (bonus points for Lua). Thanks!

I want to take David Given's Master Class!

Emacs has it built-in: M-x enriched-mode

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/En...

So what actually is this? Reading through it, the description sounds like it's basically notepad? Why would I use this instead of notepad except for some sort of aesthetic of working in the terminal?

"WordGrinder needs the following packages installed: <...> - an OpenGL/GLFW development kit (if you want the OpenGL frontend). This is supplied with most systems."

That's one hell of a terminal based word processor. I wonder why vim doesn't have an opengl frontend? >_<

That's just for console mode.

You missed the "(if you want the OpenGL frontend)" part. It’s like using gvim instead of vim.

Right?! lol I know people pointed out it's a special front end but still like looking through the list of dependencies it's like "Isn't this just a page of text? Can't the console basically already do that?" haha

It supports more formatting than notepad does. The project link has a site that includes screenshots: http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/screenshots.html

My first thought was to compare this to MSDOS edit or *nix nano, but it has basic formatting that they lack. While I doubt I would ever use this for real work, I enjoy that it exists. Back when I was in college I used to pull the PCMCIA wifi card out of my laptop, put AbiWord in full screen mode, and write papers without distractions. It was a great way to write, and this tool seems like the terminal equivalent.

Thanks for the link to screenshots! This is what I wanted from the readme instead of the blocks of text. I don't actually need this I was just trying to give it a quick glance to see what the heck it was and what made it different. I just didn't have the time to keep digging.

It’s a word processor. Notepad is a text editor. They are not the same thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_processor

I think a lot of people have forgotten that “word processors” were originally mechanical devices, and then electrical and electronic devices, before ultimately becoming software.

It is not a word processor in common sense.

Difference between Word Processor and text editor is in WYSIWYG mode of operation. At least for most of people.

Like my Sciter.Notes (https://notes.sciter.com) has better chances to be named as Word Processor as its primary mode is WYSIWYG. It also supports WordGrinder alike mode (Markdown editing) so users can chose what mode is more suitable for particular document type.

> Difference between Word Processor and text editor is in WYSIWYG mode of operation.

That’s a very modern perspective. In the history of computing, WYSIWYG word processing appears only in recent history. For far longer, the requirement was simply “processing words”. How they were displayed was irrelevant.

Indeed, it used to be considered such a computationally expensive task that entire systems were developed exclusively for word processing that did not have any other general purpose computing functionality. They were usually controlled through terminals which did not have graphics capability.

What most people think of today as "word processor" programs are actually low-end desktop publishing systems.

A useful taxonomy might include:

* text editors: produce and edit text, saved to files

* formatting languages: inline, interlinear and/or out-of-band formatting to define semantic and/or visual layout

* word processors: text editors with an integrated formatting system with the ability to integrate some graphic elements, producing either printable documents or a specialized save format. Most likely to offer WYSIWYG-ish as the primary interface.

* publishing systems: formatting systems designed to create templates and apply them to produce repeatable-but-tweakable documents from multiple inputs and updated contents

> Difference between Word Processor and text editor is in WYSIWYG mode of operation. At least for most of people.

As someone who used DOS-based word processors like WordStar, and before that, a Brother word processor that looked like a typewriter with a two-line display that let you edit a whole document, funky inline formatting symbols and all, and then hit "print" when you were done, I think this statement ignores a lot of history.

> Difference between Word Processor and text editor is in WYSIWYG mode of operation.

<graybeard> No, that's the difference between a page layout system and a word processor. </graybeard>

More seriously, word processor is to the tuple (natural language, text editor) as IDE is to the tuple (programming language, text editor). WYSIWYG is a (very, now) common feature of word processors like visual designers are a common feature of an GUI development focussed IDEs, but its not the definition of the category.

Encyclopedia Britannica:

> word processor, computer program used to write and revise documents, compose the layout of the text, and preview on a computer monitor how the printed copy will appear. The last capability is known as “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG; pronounced wi-zē-wig).

and

> Before word processors were available, text-editing programs offered the basic editing capabilities of word processing but without WYSIWYG. WYSIWYG depends on high-resolution bit-mapped computer graphics displays.

So encyclopaedical definition of WP puts WYSIWYG as definitive characteristic of WP from TE.

I'm not sure what to say here other than this statement is demonstrably false:

"Before word processors were available, text-editing programs offered the basic editing capabilities of word processing but without WYSIWYG."

There are many, many, many of us who not only have heard of but actually once used word processors—programs or even devices that were called "word processors" as such—years before GUI, WYSIWYG word processors came on the scene.

This is the article you're referencing:

https://www.britannica.com/technology/word-processor

but the corresponding Wikipedia pages have more of the history of word processing, and an image search for "word processor" will turn up plennnnnnnty of images of things that are emphatically not WYSIWYG.

This isn’t right. Programs like Wordstar and WordPerfect (4.2 and earlier) were text mode only. What distinguishes them from text editors are things like default word wrap, spell check, footnotes, page numbers, and printer interfaces.

When the Mac (and later Windows) came out, desktop publishing became mainstream, with WYSIWIG fonts and graphics and fancy configurable layout.

For a little while in the early nineties, I remember the press talking about some programs like MS Word for Windows as being “Word Publishing”, in that they were word processors with some of the features of desktop publishing software.

Well, they are wrong then, aren't they?

Of course it's 2023, and Encyclopedia Britannica is not exactly in its best years, or the best source for canonical IT information.

Unlike Encyclopedia Britannica editors, here we have people who wrote, sold, and have used word processors without WYSIWYG in the 80s and even 90s, and they were absolutely known as word processors. In fact the first WYSIWYG offering ones, were often called "WYSIWYG word processors" to differentiate them.

Not that "and preview on a computer monitor how the printed copy will appear" is not what you think it is, in other words, it's not live "WYSIWYG" mode, MS Word-style. It also describes the mere ability to preview a rendering of the final page (as will be printed), while you do your layout in another mode. Kind of like Markdown preview today.

>Difference between Word Processor and text editor is in WYSIWYG mode of operation. At least for most of people.

Those people are mistaken.

Word processors give control over page layout and text formatting, even if in pre-graphical days they didn't provide preview of that formatting in real time. Text editors don't give you any such control.

There is a whole school of thought about separating the creation of content from the formatting of content. Some think modern word processors impose an expectation that the creator of content also needs to format that content. Modern word processors like Microsoft Word enforce this by applying default formatting and presentation settings to all documents, and in doing so reduce compatibility and increase file size. If you don't like Microsoft's defaults, you have to go through the effort of changing those defaults, and learn to create and save the default template unless you want to manually make changes every time you create a new document. None of this has anything to do with the creation of content, only with its appearance, which of course may be important to you.

In non-WYSIWYG word processors, formatting and page layout are governed by configuration settings, embedded codes, etc. Files created in Word 5.0 weren't readable in WordPerfect 4.2, for example, unless conversion software was used.

Text editors impose no formatting at all, unless you consider default character set and line endings "formatting." You can change the appearance on the screen if you want, but the file you create has no native font style, no character or paragraph formatting, and your choices of appearance make no difference if you open your file in another editor. You don't need a word processor to create your content; you can easily open your text file in Word or Pages to format the document as needed.

Having spent years in the legal industry, my first impulse is to say "word processors are people" but maybe that's just pedantic...

Genuinely awesome project - especially fit 'n finish. I have a happy place in my heart for this style of terminal app (TUI++).

I hate to ask this, but do you have any plans for implementing modal editing or vi-style shortcuts? EDIT: I feel so guilty asking this question, that I realized that a second "Alternative Shortcut" field would go a long way for me as well. No expectation that this would be implemented, just sharing my thoughts.

More importantly though: awesome project that I do plan on using for my personal writing project (nonfiction book) and at work.

I like the fact that the file format is plaintext and actually includes an embedded dictionary -- it's a nice touch. Would prefer if it used Markdown instead, but conversion seems doable with a simple script.

Edit: it's available on Fedora, FYI.

This is really cool. I write a lot of long text in him but find it not perfect for that task. This looks really amazing and I’m glad to know about it.

I really like that it sticks to the CLI ethos of doing one thing very well.

Thank you for your work.

Does anyone use a typewriter for this purpose? Just to have a distraction free environment?

I use a Casio B.O.S.S. or other similar electronic diaries for this sometimes. I usually type in shorthand since the screens are small.

I was going to pick up an Alphasmart a while back but felt guilty for how little it would be used, and ended up in Nano on my old MSI Wind... It's still amazing how much you can do with these devices. So I'll have a movie open, Falkon on the side, and several terminal sessions. Semi-distraction free since browsing is costly and the movie will be something I've seen before...

For the regular desktop and distraction-free feel, I like to use Breeze for MS-DOS in DOSBox, or mcedit.

I got an e-ink typewriter (a Japanese device, with a 7" screen or something to that effect). It's cool in theory, but in practice it was easier to just use Selfcontrol (on Mac) and block everything, except the word processor.

typing on normal keyboard with all the copy-paste etc. functionality is just so much better.

An even more extreme variant I used was to create a separate user profile with just the word processor in it.

New side project idea: OS that’s a word processor that runs in ring 0 on bare metal that you dual boot into :)

That’s actually intriguing. At least to a fan of Selfcontrol / Coldturkey apps.

Now just lock the other OS until I’ve hit a certain word count and I am already preparing my BIOS

The scrolling is done in a distracting way though.

13 years old and still in “beta?” :-)

You mean vim?

I'm looking at my word processor window on the second monitor right now and it is not distracting.

https://i.imgur.com/E7Xj4Su.png

Which word processors are distracting?

The ones that get in your way!

I can aver that the UI of both Vi and Emacs are highly distracting to me, because I spend my time swearing at them trying to remember what mode I'm in, whether I'm editing text or accidentally invoking editor commands, trying to remember their ridiculous non-standard keystrokes for saving or cutting or pasting or whatever.

Because they totally fail to follow the UI guidelines introduced in the early 1980s and adopted across almost all OSes by the start of the 1990s onwards, they are extremely distracting and constantly get in my way.

I think the point is that a full-screen window that's largely empty of UI means that you don't see other windows, icons, toolbars etc. that are the potential sources of distraction.

It's not that the WP is distracting. It's that the WP leaves other sources of distraction -- such as playing around with formatting, other apps and so on -- visible.

A WP with little or no onscreen UI and which runs full screen so you can't see anything but the WP is trying to minimise visual distraction.

Not to be confused with grindr.com

Reply on news.ycombinator.com