I am trying to put together my own take on a low-distraction writer deck platform. The brain will be an SBC, either a Pi Zero or a “Le Potato” Pi 3 alternative, partly because neither has built in wifi, but more because I already have both of them. I’m not quite to a point where I want it truly minimal, but I would like the word processor to be “the” app that it can run.
Software wise, I’m looking at two early leaders. MS Word 5.5 running on DOSBox, or Wordgrinder. That version of Word is oddly nice, but I’d prefer to have something run without needing the overhead of DOSBOX or an x86 emulator. With a tweak to the terminal’s color palette, Wordgrinder could probably be good enough, and I thoroughly appreciate that it does in-line text styling, but it’s still a bit more limited than I’d like. I am wondering though, if there isn’t a solution that would run native on Linux in an ncurses terminal like Wordgrinder but have some of the QoL improvements something like that mature DOS version of Word would have (mouse support, spellcheck, easy color scheme changes, more comprehensive shortcuts).
I would love something like a rich-text editor that is simply markdown behind the scenes, possibly with a spellcheck engine. I don’t need full WYSIWYG, but I do want that basic visual of formatted text without having to mentally parse the markdown code, so I’m not looking for a two-phase solution with VIM and LaTeX, a two-pane markdown editor with live preview, or a note-taking app. If I have to install a DE, I guess Focuswriter or AbiWord could work, but I’d like to avoid that if possible, especially if I go with the Zero.
Here’s one who wrote a thesis on a Raspi Zero (well, in part) and Wordgrinder (all the way). Dropped in to say that Wordgrinder paired with Pandoc is a great and capable package. The writing experience that Wordgrinder offers is par none that I’ve seen. Good enough that I settled and never looked further. Watching this thread to see if there are options…
Yeah, one of the interesting things I’m learning here is that a lot of folks just don’t see much value in something that shows formatted text but also obfuscates the encoding that lies behind it. It probably says something about me as a person that I want to style my text while doing first drafts, yet here we are.
What distro/configuration did you use on the Zero? Right now, I’m fighting with mine to get something that loads fast but preserves the killer feature of Wordgrinder for me, which is the “proper” display of bold, italic, and underlined text.
I had Arch ARM, but that is no longer an option on the first Pi Zero since they dropped support for anything less than ARM7. It’s still applicable for Zero 2 though.
The config was such that I had my phone and a fold-up Bluetooth keyboard for a terminal and connected to the Pi over Bluetooth PAN. The Zero had a PiVoyager board and a 26650 Li-ion cell for power - the whole thing fit in a case the size of a pack of cigarettes :D I could just have that in my bag, slap the phone and keeb on any surface and type away.
I agree that setting the structure of the document as you go is the most effective way of doing things. Doing a separate pass for formatting is a chore best avoided!