Quote:
Originally Posted by CRussel
Write macros and assign them to keystrokes. I taught Microsoft Word to do Wordstar. ^K and ^Q two key sequences and all.
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I'm guessing, however, that there are a lot of keystrokes I use regularly that would not work in Word.
For one, there is the ^j that brings up the help screens
^b reformats the paragraph (I doubt the function would be relevant in Word)
^t deletes to the next word (useful for clearing unwanted indents)
^kb and ^kk mark the start and end of blocks
^k. (period) and ^k, (comma) add or remove indents in wider step by steps on marked blocks (useful for quotes)
^ko splits in the window in half, ^kq eliminates the current window
^kg makes the current window bigger, ^kt smaller
^ki toggles between show all windows or show one
(lots of window commands)
^qn spellchecks the current word, ^ql spellchecks the whole file
There's all the navigation keystrokes (which I'm guessing is what you mostly recreated in Word)
^o brings up a whole slow of options, like the auto-indent toggle
^qf searches (and replaces) words in a file, ^l finds the next instance
^ky deletes a marked block, ^kc copies it at the current location, ^kv moves it
^y deletes the current line
^kr reads in an existing file into the current one
^qy deletes the rest of a line (from the point of the cursor on)
^u undoes last command, ^^ redoes last command
...and lots more.
I use most of these commands fairly regularly (plus the WordStar "diamond," and extended diamond commands not listed here).
But it's more than just the WordStar keystrokes. With Jstar I set up shell scripts for different purposes. To get to my Terminal, I've set up ^n. From there (for example) when I want to write a general document, (rather than a Fountain or ASCII Doc or note), I type jdoc and then enter the name of the file. That automatically creates a new file or opens an existing one (the .txt extension is assumed or added by the shell script). The script also determines what directory the file is (or is to be) stored in. So I never have to think about this. I've also set up a shell script (lst) that allows me to display all the files in particular directories. "lst doc" for example, shows all .txt files in the /Documents/docs subdirectory.
So to type a document...
^n
jdoc
filename (without extension)
If it's a document I've been working on, I then hit ^qc to go the bottom of the file.
I could set up a shell script (jd, for example) which would save a step (I've done with some of my other scripts.
^n
jd
filename
So there are several reasons I prefer jstar over Word. Faster. No mouse. More efficient. Plain text (will never go out of fashion) and I can easily flow my text into other applications if I need to "fancify" a document. No hidden codes to deal with.
And, probably the simpler answer would have been... I can't use Word (even if I wanted to) because I use Linux. And I don't want to anyhow as I'm very happy with what I'm using.
(Sorry for the long, rambling post.)