Greetings NUG members, Sometime ago I embarked on creating an edit field replacement and named it the "Formatted Text Project" (FTP). At that time I got so far, but other high priority tasks got in the way. Well now the time has come where the FTP has become my number one priority to finish which means now it will get finished since I need it to complete a project.
Since the first go around at the FTP, I have changed the requirements of the project. The first time I wanted to do a straight edit field replacement with the ability to embed objects within the text. This would be similar to the approach of the WordGuise plugin. After examining what I needed it for, I decided to model it more after like a page layout view editor similar to Apple's own Pages word processor. So I have mostly rewritten it from scratch to accommodate this new paradigm. I now have a prototype loaded up on my web site. This prototype incorporates the rendering engine for basic layout of the pages in the display and displays sample text in left, center, and right justification. The prototype mainly serves as a proof of concept that it will be fast enough (and it is fast enough and it is not even internally completely optimized for speed!). This project will support embedded objects within the layout meaning you can programmatically create user defined display objects such as charts or pictures. Another thing about this project is that it will be completely written in REALbasic (no external plugin needed) which makes it highly portable and maintainable. The reason why I am making this known now is that I need to know what the interest level is in the FTP. With the shift in paradigm of the requirements of this project, I have decided to put a price tag on it. This is a significant piece of work that needs to be properly supported if I am going to release it publicly. The other reason I need to know the interest level in the FTP is that I will have to take extra steps to turn it into a product for public consumption (documentation etc.) and I need to plan for that now. So if you are seriously interested (meaning you are willing to part with the cash), then email me off list to express your interest and that way I will know you are serious. If you email me, tell me what you would be willing to pay for the software and any other thoughts you may have about the project. I will be monitoring the NUG for general discussion of this thread, but I will only consider private emails as an indicator of true interest. I am personally very pleased with the speed of execution of the software so far and I think this will turn out to be a very valuable piece of software for the REALbasic community. Go the following URL to download the prototype applications. http://www.truenorthsoftware.com/Realbasic/FormattedText.html _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives of this list here: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
