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Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

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Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#171

Post by Throw10987 »

breadwinner wrote: post #163

Microsoft is slowly removing features, but is it adding any notable features? Here are some examples of features I would like to see: - Native Markdown viewer and editor, to replace Wordpad - Disk space manager - graphically show where my diskspace went; allow me to find and delete large files - Restartable and reliable file copy (similar to rsync on Linux) - Notepad with same features as textarea element in browser,…

Robocopy may be an approximate equivalent for rsync. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administrat...

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#172

Post by ipcress_file »

llimos wrote: post #86

Fun fact: Before WordPad there was Microsoft Write. Typing 'write' in the Run dialog still opens WordPad today. They kept the alias for 28 years.

Write had an interesting cursor with the vertical pipe line and something like an asterisk. I used it for a while on Windows 3.1 before someone set me up with a copy of MS Office 4.3.

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#173

Post by crazygringo »

avidiax wrote: post #101
torstenvl wrote: post #72

This is deeply unfortunate. WordPad is by far the best implementation of RTF anywhere.

But who uses RTF? I can't recall ever receiving an RTF file. Scanning my drives, I've only found a single Readme RTF file in some old Windows utilities.

I always thought the only common real-world use of RTF was as a clipboard format (rather than a file format), so you could copy and paste with bold and italics.

But then at some point I think that might have been replaced in practice with HTML as a clipboard format instead.

I'm not sure if you copy text from browsers or word processors today, if it's usually available as both RTF and HTML, or only one?

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#175

Post by heavyset_go »

deafpolygon wrote: post #10

Honestly, I'm just waiting for the Linux community to figure itself out with Wayland/X and get a bit more stable and I'll probably be switching. The only question in the air for me is how I'm going to manage my cloud files (I've gotten used to having filesystem sync between multiple devices) as the existing offerings seem more or less meh.

Wayland's a solved problem if you use an up to date or rolling release distribution.

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#176

Post by crazygringo »

lockhouse wrote: post #103
tredre3 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I literally could write a WordPad clone in an afternoon You might be able to make a Notepad clone in an afternoon, but not wordpad. Creating parsers for all the formats it supports (rtf/doc/html) as well as the renderer/wysiwyg editor would take anyone several days of either coding, or stitching libs together.

The parser and renderer is a pre-existing RichTextEdit widget. Add menus and save, open, and print functionality and you are over 90% of the way to a WordPad clone.

Opening and saving as .docx would seem to be the only hard part.

I'm assuming that's not built into the widget or into Windows. Is there an open-source drop-in docxrtf library out there?

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#177

Post by heavyset_go »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #13

This is the sort of non-consensual change that is the hallmark of proprietary software and drives me towards using free and open-source software every chance I get. I love WordPad's simplicity, and I'll miss it.

WINE ships with a WordPad clone.

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#178

Post by xen2xen1 »

andersa wrote: post #169

I must be the only one who didn't know what a WordPad was before reading about it being removed on here. What do you use it for? I can't remember the last time I had to edit a text document that wasn't either pure text (like markdown), a pdf, or an office file. Some people mentioned ".rtf" files in this thread, but I don't believe I've ever heard of one of those being used for anything.

WordPad had one real use in my world: if you edited a Linux document in WordPad it was smart enough to not mess up the line endings CR/LF versus LF IIRC. It was nice to not have to worry.

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#179

Post by AnthonyMouse »

no_wizard wrote: post #147
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, the difference is precisely that an abandoned FOSS program can be picked up by someone else; that this ability is not always used is beside the point.

Not always is a misnomer. It rarely if ever is. Anyone remember PhantomJS? It took years before a replacement emerged and nobody was willing to take in the project, and this was a critical piece of tech at the time

> It rarely if ever is.

It happens all the time. But when it happens it's so transparent that nobody even notices.

There are many 30+ year old open source applications still in use. How many of the current maintainers are still the original developers?

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