Repository:
https://github.com/billthefarmer/editor
I keep wondering the reason why I'm always being tempted to download new apps. Especially a similar one to the ones I have installed. Well, it's not my fault. It happens that, my app store usually suggest apps for me to download depending on my search history or the ones I have already installed.
Few days ago, I got a notification about an app update. While checking it out, I got a suggestion to check out an open source text editing app. I was like, Huh? Note taking app? No! not again.
You might be wondering why the tiring reaction?
Well, the truth is , I have had enough of text taking apps. But this particular one wasn't discouragingay. Its logo was making sense to me. Hehehe
I had no option but to check it out because I needed to see something new.☺️ I'm not to be blamed. I was tempted to see another text editor with features to beat other ones that I have installed.
If you've been following my blog lately, you would have noticed how often I have blogged about note taking apps. I have about 10 of them installed (Both online & standalone). Although, i have only blogged on four. And they are;
Note taking apps
| Online | Offline |
|---|---|
| Teleposter | Markor |
| Carnet | |
| Turtl |
As you can see from the table above, I have shared my views on lots of similar apps. So, i was shocked after i was tempted to download another one. It's all good, because I love what I downloaded and that is the reason why I have decided to share my views for my lovely blog readers.
Welcome! To a brand new blog post from me. Today, I will be introducing and giving a general overview about Editor a lightweight editor.
I will discuss deeply on its features in the next part of this post.
Introduction
Bill Farmer is an android developer who currently has over twenty projects on github. Editor is one of the active repos. Editor is a simple, easy & lightweight text editing application written in Java.
Editor is a generic text editor. It's funny how its name and its function are the same. 😁 With that in mind, anyone can easily tell what it does.
The name has already explained the function of the app. In addition, it's a standalone text editing app. Meaning it doesn't require an internet connection to flawlessly provide its users with smooth interface to type notes.
Let's Get It Installed
Downloading and installation doesn't even take up to 60 seconds. When I said it's a lightweight app, I wasn't joking. It takes almost no space on your device because it's just 104.2k in size. You can download it from here. That's the link to its current apk version V1.29.
There were no stress encountered during installation. One of the smoothest moves it gave was to immediately display an interface to type a note. There were nothing like steps on how to use the app or any unnecessary introduction popups. I prefer it this way. Unlike some apps that forcefully popup steps the user don't want to see.
It'll be very nice if the developers of these apps will implement an interface to always ask app users if they want to see steps or not.
As you can see from the image below, Editor gives you want you need at the right time. I needed to type a note, that was why I installed it. And Boom!!! It gave it to me launching it.
This is a different case with other apps on playstore. Most of the apps will welcome you with an ad. One of my text editors does that always. I have taken a screenshot showing how my screen is fully covered with an ad preventing me from doing anything else. In some cases, I have to wait for a video to count down before I could do anything.
This is why I will always love open source projects. There's nothing like ad and you'll be opportune to suggest features to the project owner.
From Editor' interface, it's either I create a new text or I open an already created text file. This app reminded me of a text file I created while making Teleposter blog post. I immediately suspended the typing interface to import the text file. Check the set of images below for proceedures on how to import a text file.
The above task can also be completed via sharing a text file with Editor.
I did that by selecting teleposter text file from file manager and then shared it with Editor. By default, the file was opened as a read only file. Being able to edit it wasn't an issue because, by simply press-holding the screen for long will enable editing.
Also, from the top of the screen, I was able to see a pen tool. The pen tool will automatically enable file editing once it's tapped.
After I enabled editing, I then decided to add few words to the note. It feels so good typing with Editor. Everything worked as expected. Although, saving the edited note didn't overwrite the old text file. It silently created a new text file and titled it Editor.txt.
Still, I think it's an awesome idea. It'll prevent the original file from getting lost. One other thing that I fell in love with was its save button. It automatically turns to open file button when the app is in a reading mode, but turns to save button when it's in its editing mode.
Just because I edited the original file, it automatically created a copy file. Both the original and the copy file can be viewed using the open recent option right from the hamburger button at the top right.
One awesome feature I noticed was that, it automatically saves every file as Editor.txt. Although, there's an option to save as, which can be used to change the file name before it's saved. When i tried using it, I noticed I was also opportune to edit the whole title including the file format. The original file format was .txt but I changed it to .html😁
I needed to see if it will support HTML file.
my bad! It didn't open it. But I was able to view it with a web browser and it worked fine. This simply means I can write every of my html codes with it then view it with a web browser.
Guess what? I did it! I wrote a simple code to change background color with my teleposter text in it. Check it out.
Here's the code just in case anyone needs to try it.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style> body
{ background-color: #00FFFF}
</style>
<H1>Introducing Teleposter As My Best Telegraph Android Client
<H1>
<H3>
I believe we've all heard, read or used Telegram. One of the best cloud-based instant messaging and voice over IP service. In March 2018, they announced that it had 200 million monthly active users. According to Wikipedia.
</H3>
</head>
</html>
project update
Due to the love Nicqrocks has for an open source project like Editor, Nicqrocks opened a pull request 11days ago where he added an HTML header and footer to make a valid HTML page that renders nicely on a phone or other device.
2days after, PO merged and released version 1.29.
Conclusion
The truth must be told! I have been using different types of editors. This particular one doesn't even take up to 2% of space when compared with others. That is a true definition of lightweight. Editor is very easy to use with no complicated feature.
In this post, I've been able to introduce Editor, talked about it's Installation, and shared my workspace file and code. We also looked at a little Part of its features. Yeah, In my next post, I will discuss deeply about its other features. But for now, Bye. And thank you for reading.