Recent posts

#1

Support / Re: Wordstar Emulator and Offi...

Last post by Forum Admin - September 05, 2022, 01:30:10 AM

Sorry for the delay answering.

The emulator will work with the 32-bit versions of Word. To use it with O365 you'll need O365 to run VBA macros in the same way that the desktop version does. I'm not sure if this is the case, and don't have an O365 account to test it.

#2

Support / Re: Wordstar Emulator and Offi...

Last post by stormyboy - June 23, 2022, 09:55:00 PM

Well, I have confirmed on my 64x Win PC that the Wordstar Emulator works well with Microsoft Office 2021 32bit version installed.  From this, I'm pretty sure that the Emulator would also work with the Office 365 version as long as it is in 32bit mode.

I hope this helps someone.

#3

Support / Wordstar Emulator and Office 2...

Last post by stormyboy - May 31, 2022, 06:04:04 AM

Is anyone successfully using the terrific Wordstar Emulator with the latest Office 2021?  I don't want to install it unless they get along. 
Thanks for all replies.

Tom River

[File]

#4

Discussion / Re: Wordstar Users Deceased ?

Last post by Forum Admin - October 08, 2020, 07:34:47 PM

Hi Janvi,

SoftMaker Office TextMaker does allow the Ribbon to be switched to a drop-down menu. In TextMaker 2021 select the File tab, and then Options. In the Options dialog select the Appearance tab and then User interface. You will see a three Ribbon style options and two drop-down menu interface options to chose from.

To change the keyboard shortcuts select the File tab, and then Customise. Then select Customise Ribbon (not very intuitive), and then in the Customise User Interface dialog, on the lower left, click Shortcut keys. You can now add or remove the shortcut commands. This doesn't appear to have the complete WordStar style command list from a simple selection though, and it never supported the full WordStar command set.


Mike

#5

Discussion / Wordstar Users Deceased ?

Last post by Janvi - March 11, 2020, 10:12:09 PM

Comparing Wordstar with other editors to explain any benefits to young people seems pointless.  There are minimum 10 more years until my retirement and I have been using Wordstar with very early CPM versions.  A comparison with other editors, is like swapping string and brass instruments inside any orchestra.  The result is aw full but neither the musicians nor the instruments are the reason.  Both can be excellent while produced music cannot go beyond beginners level because musicians cannot use their human experience of life long practice.

After the time of DOS, there was only little time to run legacy Wordstar in OS/2 and W95 emulator box. For programming, I soon bought CodeWright (by Premia) and for the document mode Textmaker from Softmaker in Nuremberg.

Unfortunately, both of this editors also disappeared now.  Textmaker (also included in FreeOffice) recently introduced somewhat useless than ribbon menus.  To make the things worster, they also removed the classic keymap what was in fact a subset of the most important Wordstar navigation keys.  I complained about, but in the manufactureres forum there was only one other Wordstar enthusiast user who agreed.  That way, the probability of being heard goes to zero. FreeOffice is not open source.

The fact is: Latest Textmaker Version 2018 for Windows and 2018 for Linux removed the Wordstar keymap what was available with all of the 2016 Versions as predefined "classic keymap".  For the 2018 Versions, it is still possible to setup the typical Wordstar 3-keystroke sequences from user menu.  This is true for Textmaker sold within the Softmaker Office Suite.  Unfortunately this is not true for Textmaker contained in the 2018 FreeOffice suite.  They
also removed the custom keymap in the free version.  If you mangaged to define your own Wordstar keymap in 2018 Textmaker, you need insider information to save the result and there is no warranty if the patch is compatible to use in future Textmaker releases.  Possibly I wont go on paying for new Textmaker versions for this reason.  For the moment, the 2016 Versions are still working fine with W10 and Linux.

The Wordstar keymap in CodeWright was realized by a plug-in DLL.  This DLL contained several bugs (e.g.  the cntl Q-D did not work) but luckily the source for this DLL was included and it was easy to correct all the bugs. I wrote a letter with that patch long ago but Premia refused to take it and was sold a short time later completely with the product to Borland.  Today, licenses of CodeWright are still available in the store of Embarcadero Technologies but it is phased out as a "classic" product without any support. Version 7.5 was not maintained for over 10 years.
Furthermore, CodeWright was never available for anything else than Micro$oft Windows.

This situation, latest Micro$oft Office goes to 365 day subscriptions what kills their golden cash cow more and more.  For the moment, I use jstar (Joes Open Source Editor on Linux) for programmes and small notes like this text.  For programmers, Emacs is also quite sophisticated editor what is capable to run a Wordstar emulation beside other things.  Its not a complete IDE and for some features you have to study 7 years with the black belted Indian
gurus to understand.  Assume all, the time has come definitely to look for some alternatives.

As a programmers IDE, Eclipse seems an alternate future candidate.  The project is open source and written in Java.  It is a complete IDE for nothing and everything.  All features are realized by user generated plugins and there are thousands of them free and paid versions available in a store.
As you can guess, there is no Wordstar emulation available but there is a very similar project what implements the IntelliJ keymap.  I already managed to setup some Wordstar navigation commands to the default Eclipse keymap but the offered keymap system is quite sophisticated.  You can implement system depended features for Apple, Linux and Windows as well as there are diffrent states of the editor what allow diffrent keyboard behaviour similar WS
D-ocument and N-onDocument Mode and it would be even possible to emulate a subset of the old Wordstar menus with delayed pop up.  I have to dive into Java some more and probably I am going to open a Wordstar keymap project for Eclipse on Gitlab.

For Office replacement, LibreOffice as Open Source project seems a hopefull future candidate.  It prevails over OpenOffice since this went to Apache.
The project goes back to the German Star Division founded 1985 by Marco Börries in Lüneburg.  The only early product of Star Division was StarWriter what was in fact a pretty good Wordstar clone.  1999 the project was sold to SUN and later Oracle.  Toady's LibreOffice community is very active but I already failed to try any Wordstar keymaps with LibreOffice.  The framework seems not support a state machine like it is required for Wordstars 3-key
sequences and inherent functionality to adapt keymap is very limited to some well predefined single strokes.  If there is anybody familiar with the LibreOffice code (or Eclipse plugins) please drop a note here.  So long I go lurking the dev mailing lists.

#6

Discussion / Re: Word 2003: Assign "Home" t...

Last post by Clueless - February 20, 2020, 11:02:42 PM

Thanks a million, Mike!

That worked!

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

#7

Support / Re: Error Message From Word 20...

Last post by Clueless - February 20, 2020, 11:00:56 PM

What a nice surprise to find a reply to the query I posted here last May!

Apparently I don't have my account set up to notify me via email when a reply is posted in the threads I start here.

Many thanks, for that exhaustive troubleshooting checklist.  But it turns out I probably won't be needing it after all, because Forum Admin. Mike posted instructions in the WordStar Discussion forum showing me how to     
assign the "Home" key in Word 2003 to a Ctrl+Q+S keyboard shortcut.

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

[1. Check the program is installed in the STARTUP folder:]

#8

Support / Re: Error Message From Word 20...

Last post by Forum Admin - February 12, 2020, 12:44:05 AM

Word has macro security enabled by default. Checks to follow for Word 2007 or 2010 are listed below. If you have an earlier version you'll find similar settings, to those I describe below, under the Tools, Options menu, or the Tools, Macros, Macro Security menu.

1. Check the program is installed in the STARTUP folder:

• Click the Office button (big round button at the top left of the Word window)
• Click the Word Options button at the bottom of the menu
• Click the Advanced item in the left menu bar, then scroll to the end of the advanced options page
• Click the File Locations button
• Select the Startup item under File types, and then click Modify
• In the Look in box, check that the STARTUP folder path is the location where you installed the program.
  Note: You can drag and drop the program into the large box under the Look in box, but you won't be able to see an icon for it.
• Click Cancel then click Close, and then click Cancel to close all the dialog boxes

2. Check the STARTUP folder is trusted:

• Click the Office button (big round button at the top left of the Word window)
• Click the Word Options button at the bottom of the menu
• Click the Trust Center item in the left menu bar
• Click the Trust Center Settings button
• Click the Trusted Locations item in the left menu bar
• Ensure that the STARTUP folder identified in (1) is listed in the large box under the Path
• If the STARTUP folder isn't listed, click Add new location and then type the location of the STARTUP folder into the Path box, or click Browse and browse for it. Then click OK to add the folder to the list of trusted locations
• Click OK and then click OK to save the list of trusted locations

3. Check that un-signed add-ins are allowed:

• Click the Office button (big round button at the top left of the Word window)
• Click the Word Options button at the bottom of the menu
• Click the Trust Center item in the left menu bar
• Click the Trust Center Settings button
• Click the Add-ins item in the left menu bar
• Ensure that the Require Application Add-ins to be signed by Trusted Publisher is not selected
• Click OK and then click OK again to save any setting changes

I suspect that (3) may be the cause of your problems, but please do check the other two sets of steps as well.

[Customize Keyboard]

#9

Discussion / Re: Word 2003: Assign "Home" t...

Last post by Forum Admin - February 12, 2020, 12:24:02 AM

Hi Will,

In the Customize Keyboard screen, in the Categories box select All Commands, and then in the Commands box select StartOfLine. The Current keys box should now show Home.

Click in the Press new shortcut key box and then hold down the Ctrl key and type QS. The box should show this as Ctrl+Q,S. Click Assign to add this key combination as an option to using the Home key.

Close the Customize Keyboard screen and test the new command Ctrl+Q,S.


Regards
Mike

#10

Discussion / Word 2003: Assign "Home" to Ct...

Last post by Clueless - January 31, 2020, 09:53:21 PM

I'm an old guy and back in the 80s I cut my teeth on the CP/M version of WordStar, and I still prefer using its keyboard shortcuts. But over the last few years I've become more and more dependent on the outline mode in MS Word and there's one keyboard shortcut I wish I could add to it:

I'm a clumsy touch typist, and the "Home" key on my PC keyboard is such a long reach away from the standard keyboard keys, that I have to look down from the screen to the keyboard each time I need to use it.

I would like to create a macro in Word 2003 that would assign the action of the "Home" key to the keyboard combination Ctrl+Q+S.

I've figured out how to assign an action to a combination of the Ctrl key plus a single key. But I can't figure out how to assign an action to Ctrl plus two additional keystrokes.

I'd sure be grateful for some help figuring this out.

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"