Article Preview
Buy Now
FEATURE
Z-Write
Behind a unique word processor written in REALbasic
Issue: 1.6 (June/July 2003)
Author: Marc Zeedar
Author Bio: Marc is Publisher and Editor of
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 15,334
Starting Page Number: 11
Article Number: 1608
Related Web Link(s):
http://www.z-write.com
http://www.z-write.com
Excerpt of article text...
As a writer I've been fascinated by word processors since I discovered them in the early 1980's. I've explored dozens, but never found one that met my precise needs (Ashton-Tate's FullWrite was the closest). One frustrated day in 1999, I was faced with the dilemma of how to organize my novel. Was it better to save each chapter as a separate file or keep the chapters in a single linear file? The single file approach made chapter revisions a pain, but my half-finished novel already consisted of several dozen files of ideas, notes, research, character biographies, and scenes -- I was drowning in files. Suddenly I realized that what was frustrating me wasn't the word processor I was using but the organization problem. Knowing the problem, I set out in search of a solution, and Z-Write was born. I call it a "non-linear" word processor.
Getting Started
The basic idea of Z-Write is to store multiple word processing documents in a single proprietary file. It works with a two-pane window similar to REALbasic's online help: a list of documents on the left and an editing pane on the right. Selecting a Section name on the left brings up that document's text on the right (see Figure 1).
I'd previously written my own help system in REALbasic, and so I quickly adapted that into the first version of Z-Write. I remember being amazed at how quickly it came together: in literally a few hours I had my initial application opening and saving multi-document files!
...End of Excerpt. Please purchase the magazine to read the full article.