[luc-mobile]

Can someone please recommend any plain text file editor or at least viewer? I have been searching high and low in the stores and can't find anything.

This has been discussed before, but the thread is closed. Someone there said:

Put the .txt on the memory card. Go to 'Media', push the menu button (the one to the right of the trackball, with BB logo), select 'Explore', find your file, select, click, and enjoy. You can view it just fine, cannot edit text though.

But no, that does not work for me. I just get a black screen.

Oh, and I think that Mobipocket sucks. It has to be running all the time even when I'm not using it, the letters don't look very good, converting is an inconvenience and their converter requires Windows. So Mobipocket is ruled out.

Thanks for any help.

[JSanders]

BeamBerry - View, Print, Store BlackBerry e-mail attachments

[luc-mobile]

Thanks, but it is really disappointing to see that I would have to pay that much - every year - to view plain txt files...

I mean, really?? To view plain txt files?

[rivviepop]

Dig through the archives, there was a 3rd party vendor who made a plain text editor in combination with a MP3 player and other stuff. I forget the name and haven't seen them around in awhile, so who knows what happened. I think it was called 'MultiPlay' or something like that?

(memory is guessing about 7 to 9 months ago in the Aftermarket subforum here)

[luc-mobile]

Yes, dollars5 makes it. I tried it today. But it has no options for font size or face and it looks awful. Too small. Besides, it took too long to load a 150Kb file. I had to pass.

[ubizmo]

I have to agree that it seems strange to me that there are no standalone text editors that can edit and store ascii files on the SD card. It seems so obvious for a device with a qwerty keyboard. I remember when there were a multitude of text editors for MSDOS machines. Some of them were quite compact and had a nice complement of features: multi-level undo, regular expression search and replace, etc. I think there would be a market for a solid text editor for the BB. It could be used to create documents offline that could be sent as email attachments, or to work on drafts of important emails, that could be copied and pasted into an actual mail later. Some of us have large text files that we need to access and occasionally edit (records, lists, etc). Build it, and people will buy it.

[JSanders]

Originally Posted by ubizmo

I think there would be a market for a solid text editor for the BB. It could be used to create documents offline that could be sent as email attachments, or to work on drafts of important emails, that could be copied and pasted into an actual mail later. Some of us have large text files that we need to access and occasionally edit (records, lists, etc). Build it, and people will buy it.

There you have eWord, that is what it is for, among other things. You act like there is nothing out there.
Likewise, this:
http://www.blackberryforums.com/gene...z-docs-go.html

Because it isn't free doesn't mean that it does't exist.

[ubizmo]

Originally Posted by JSanders

There you have eWord, that is what it is for, among other things. You act like there is nothing out there.
Likewise, this:
http://www.blackberryforums.com/gene...z-docs-go.html

Because it isn't free doesn't mean that it does't exist.

I may be mistaken, but I have the impression that eWord is a word processor, not a text editor. A word processor may be overkill for many purposes, which is why I think there is a niche for a decent text editor.

I'm not expecting free.

[luc-mobile]

Yeah, I never mentioned "free" either. I am a self-employed professional, people try to sabotage the value of my work all the time and that's not fun. I think developers should be paid for their work.

But Beamberry and eOffice are too expensive. Maybe not expensive if you really need all they can offer, but Beamberry is superfluous to me, the native built-in viewer is enough to me, and I really don't see myself editing MS Office documents in this tiny device. The screen and the keyboard just don't cut it. The Palm Foleo would really come in handy now.

But I digress. Plain text files are different from Office files in that they are usually small, we just need them to take down notes and things like that. I won't be writing a lot into them, but I certainly might be reading a lot from them. And that is a very easy format to handle. Geez, I wonder if there is any easier format at all. The Blackberry can handle Word, Excel, music and video, for crying out loud, and can't handle txt? That's just bizarre.

I use txt files on my desktop all the time. I handle a lot of Office documents from customers, but my personal files are all kept in txt. Why wouldn't I? They're small, light and ultra compatible. The Blackberry must be the only computer/system in the world that can't handle them out of the box.

OK, I've made my point. Thanks for the attention and everything.

[JSanders]

Oh, and Repligo, also, for full document editing.

For text files, what is wrong with Memo Pad, then? Right "out of the box". I know, it's not got enough features. None of it is just what you specifically want. Could be that there really isn't a big enough market for a text editor, until NOW, what with ability to store the files on the SD card, etc.

[Redflea]

You didn't say, but if you're using Outlook for your contacts/calendar/tasks, you could start keeping your text files in Outlook Notes...then you'd have them in outlook and on the BB, you could sync them, and have full view/edit in both places. Seems like a win/win. (That's what I do, so it must be really, really smart.)

[JSanders]

Outlook Notes = MemoPad. Same thing, right?

[luc-mobile]

Originally Posted by JSanders

For text files, what is wrong with Memo Pad, then?

Feature starved indeed, but that is not the deal breaker. It's that it can't open/import .txt files off the SD card. I drag and drop a bunch of music from the PC to the phone, why can't I do the same with txt files? Even the lame pared down LG phone I used to have before I bought the Blackberry would let me do that.

Originally Posted by Redflea

You didn't say, but if you're using Outlook for your contacts/calendar/tasks

No, I use Linux. And Outlook notes probably have a very short size limit.

That's one of the things I really love about txt: it's very simple and universal. It is a very useful alternative to proprietary formats that companies will really strive to lock us into. That's what I want: nothing that requires conversions, special programs, proprietary formats or any given operating system. I want to use my text files just like I use my MP3 files. Outlook is totally the opposite of what I'm looking for here. Heck, even with e-mail, Outlook will store it in some weird proprietary format. How can I ever trust a solution that does that to an open universal format?

[Redflea]

Oh, Linux-arian...why didn't you tell us? Had I known I never would have breathed the word outlook.

Sorry...that was my one brilliant idea for the month. Just tapped out. :(

[JSanders]

Well, your question was answered and there is a ready-made solution built in to the BB OS for what you could use. The fact that it is not exactly what you want or would design yourself aside, it does edit text files.

[ubizmo]

Originally Posted by JSanders

Oh, and Repligo, also, for full document editing.

For text files, what is wrong with Memo Pad, then? Right "out of the box". I know, it's not got enough features. None of it is just what you specifically want. Could be that there really isn't a big enough market for a text editor, until NOW, what with ability to store the files on the SD card, etc.

Yes, I think having the SD card available creates more potential uses for a decent text editor. Memo pad is okay. I've been using the Notes feature built into Unyverse, since they are instantly synced. But each note is limited to 4,000 characters.

As an example, I have a text file of references to articles, that I like to be able to refer to. There are hundreds of articles in it, some with short abstracts. With a decent text editor I could edit it, add entries and resort it, find and replace things. I don't need a word processor for this, but an editor with basic features such as replace and sort would be ideal.

[rivviepop]

Originally Posted by JSanders

Well, your question was answered and there is a ready-made solution built in to the BB OS for what you could use. The fact that it is not exactly what you want or would design yourself aside, it does edit text files.

I may drop in $0.02, the question has not been appropriately (successfully?) answered yet, I get the spidey sense that luc-mobile and I are common soldiers in the same battle. I *do* use the MemoPad to store notes (and Tasks - neverending Tasks are a sneaky way to store lots of notes that sync around) but it's far, far insufficient for the needs.

Here, lemme plug in my BB and see what texts I have (which I store in \tBooks, much like \eBooks (MobiPocket) and \MDict (dictionaries)) on my card:

778395   1_Mindstar_Rising.txt
700458   2_A_Quantum_Murder.txt
1071160  3_The_Nano_Flower.txt
927307   Beowulfs_Children.txt
3047     Blue_States.txt
84516    breakfastclub.txt
3044     calif.txt
45118    const.txt
487579   Count_Zero.txt
1493     farc.txt
460900   Neuromancer.txt

As is obvious, I have books, notes, and even a copy of the US Constitution and the script from Breakfast Club sitting on my SD card. MemoPad can *not* handle these things, what luc-mobile and I search for is a good, basic-but-usable plain text editor/viewer that can be found almost anywhere.

Heck, I'd love a mini 'vi' even. :-D

[luc-mobile]

You got that absolutely right, Rivvie! Every man or woman should be entitled to their copy of the Breakfast Club or the Pretty in Pink script in their phones. And it is a very foolish smartphone manufacturer that does not realize that.

Couldn't resist... Jokes aside, that really IS the whole idea.

[JSanders]

pfffttt.... those are man movies? More like date movies.
Patton, Godfather and Outlaw Josey Wells are man movies. hmmmph

OK, Rivvie, you've convinced me, we need a better text editor. Only for your reasons though. They are valid, lol.

[rivviepop]

Originally Posted by luc-mobile

You got that absolutely right, Rivvie! Every man or woman should be entitled to their copy of the Breakfast Club or the Pretty in Pink script in their phones. And it is a very foolish smartphone manufacturer that does not realize that.

Look man, Shermer High School, Shermer Illinois 60062 was a staple in my upbringing as a kid. I can still, to this day, recite the Breakfast Club word for word without even watching the movie.

(and yes, I have been called Carl the Janitor here at work - I am the eyes and ears of this institution my friends)