Posted inInformation Technology

DocPad

seasoned_geek by seasoned_geek
DocPad screen shot

I stumbled into DocPad recently and just had to share a mention of it. Normally I, and all other professionals, avoid using Microsoft products for anything. Recently I’ve had to do some writing on Windows 10. Normally I only opt to install cross platform editors, typically the same free editors I use on various Linux distros. I could have muddled through with one of those as I have in the past. I was going to just use Emacs for the “notes & scraps” editor. Every serious writer really needs Lotus WordPro. Read that post for why.

The Need

Ultimately we need to be able to keep everything in a single file because stuffing it into different files in the same directory is where bad shit happens. Keeping multiple files open in your primary word processor flipping between files is a recipe for disaster. Those of you who aren’t writers don’t know this, but when you have an old version from weeks/months/years ago and your current working version open, cutting and pasting between the two will eventually lead to catastrophe.

Resurrecting an old project, one that has been parked for years, means you need to keep a notes editor open. This really shouldn’t be a word processor of any kind. You need something that will not support any kind of formatting. Since I haven’t ported RedDiamond to Windows yet, I went searching. I do have some other text editors installed, but most of them are very focused on programming. Emacs and a few other editors of old used to fill the needs. Problem is the Windows version of Emacs well and truly sucks. If you are used to the Linux version you just can’t make the native Windows version work. The Linux support layer versions work well, but I have too much other virtual machine stuff on this machine to risk that messing something up.

Requirements

  • Spell check as you type
  • Raw UTF-8 only without font or formatting support
  • Spaces instead of tabs
  • word wrap
  • Block/paragraph indenting
  • Nice to have case converting

Back when we only had VT-100 terminals there were tons of editors meeting this bill. As more and more editors focus on programming and syntax highlighting, their text documents capabilities have diminished if not disappeared. We used to have to insert Form Feeds and everything ourselves to get application documentation to fit on pre-printed documentation forms.

Enter DocPad

Quite honestly this was an accidental find. It is free, but they request a $5+tax “purchase.” I might even pay for it if I have to do much more on Windows 10.

I changed the skin to something easy on my eyes.

The default skin of DocPad didn’t work for me. Neither did the default font of Courier. Depending on your graphics card and/or monitor Courier is mighty nasty on Windows. Thankfully this editor doesn’t have the perpetual font rending issues of jEdit. One would think, after all of these decades, that Java could actually figure out how to properly render fonts.

DocPad Summary

It is sad that DocPad is Windows only. This is a very handy secondary editor for writers.

Edit 2025-03-26

I uninstalled DocPad yesterday. You have to understand most people and shops don’t really use Windows anymore. I have one machine in this office. The other 8+ are all running some form of Linux. Stuff gets copied to my NAS and used by all. I have this file for when non-English speakers spam me with $35/hr W-2 on-site in insert-coastal-state-here illegal alien openings. Most of my other editors are Scintilla based, so they handle this just fine.

Look to the right and you will see “I’m a Sole Prop” gets trashed. The solution was for me to change the underlying file type which I was unsuccessful doing but support claims they could. Notepad++ did it, but then again, Notepad++ didn’t have any problem with the file. Even Vs-Codium (not something I would considered a light scratchpad editor) had no trouble.

DocPad is a nice looking editor that, in the 1990s, when Windows mattered, could be useful. Today Linux runs the bulk of the planet. You need to have a Linux version and you most definitely need to understand text files created/edited on Linux.

ConTEXT also fell amazingly short here.

Textadept handled it just fine. Sadly Textadept doesn’t come with an installer for windows. One of those “just unzip it where ever and run it from there” editors. You also have to edit lua file to change preferences.

Roland Hughes started his IT career in the early 1980s. He quickly became a consultant and president of Logikal Solutions, a software consulting firm specializing in OpenVMS application and C++/Qt touchscreen/embedded Linux development. Early in his career he became involved in what is now called cross platform development. Given the dearth of useful books on the subject he ventured into the world of professional author in 1995 writing the first of the "Zinc It!" book series for John Gordon Burke Publisher, Inc.

A decade later he released a massive (nearly 800 pages) tome "The Minimum You Need to Know to Be an OpenVMS Application Developer" which tried to encapsulate the essential skills gained over what was nearly a 20 year career at that point. From there "The Minimum You Need to Know" book series was born.

Three years later he wrote his first novel "Infinite Exposure" which got much notice from people involved in the banking and financial security worlds. Some of the attacks predicted in that book have since come to pass. While it was not originally intended to be a trilogy, it became the first book of "The Earth That Was" trilogy:
Infinite Exposure
Lesedi - The Greatest Lie Ever Told
John Smith - Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars

When he is not consulting Roland Hughes posts about technology and sometimes politics on his blog. He also has regularly scheduled Sunday posts appearing on the Interesting Authors blog.