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Q10: A Retro Text Editor

OK I guess this is kinda going to show my age. I learnt to type on a typewriter: not


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Originally uploaded by emsef

even an electric one. I had a PC before there was windows. The first word processor I used was WordPerfect 4.2. What you got with WordPerfect: you got a black screen and a blinking cursor: hit crtl-C to copy ctrl-V to paste and F7 to spell check. Remember?

Well recently I have had a few problems focussing on writing: I typically have a Firefox browser with 6 or 8 or 10 tabs open, several other programs, 5 or 6 documents open, and a directory or 2!

Surfing the internet, while I was supposed to be writing, I found something rather cool: a simple text editor which eliminates distractions – sound familiar? Remember in the old days when you could only run one program at the time: well just like that!

Well Q10 (cryptic – think scrabble) is a back to the future text editor. It is a “full-screen” editor: that’s right no tool bar, no windows bar nothing: just you and a black screen. I am absolutely amazed that it actually does make a huge difference: I do focus better with out see all the other buttons available. The help is on F1, you can still alt-tab to other windows if you need to check another file or web page but it so much less distracting than actually being able to see the tool bar!

It gets better, there is typewriter sound effects too, which I thought I would immediately turn off: but I didn’t because its kinda nice…

There are a couple of versions available: I chose the one with a spell check, but even then the whole download is tiny, you can add the files to a thumb drive and take it with you, in fact you could even fit it on a floppy disk if you could find the matching drive! You can also set the file encoding, a target number of words (handy if you are writing an article), change the font and colour settings, and it supports quick text allowing you to replace given character combinations with whatever you specify. Q10 also creates files in plain text which is really handy if you are uploading to a site which need text or html such as ezinearticles.com or even for uploading simple files to sites such as Hubpages

Oh and how much is this little marvel cost: zero, ziltch, nada: how cool is that! Download Q10 here