Well, here I am on day two of the 31 day Chromebook challenge. It has not been without problems, one of them causing me to use a Windows PC to do a remote support call. I now know how to do that from ChromeOS and will write about it when I can do some more research.
The first question I asked when I started using a Chromebook a couple of months ago was what will I use as a text editor? The obvious choice would seem to be Google Docs or a Google Drive Document. Drive (For now, I will call them Google Docs) has formatting, spell-check and word-count, all things important to a writer. And despite the the “without WiFi it is a brick” whining of the Microsoft Scroogled campaign’s lapdogs, it works perfectly offline, accessing and editing all your documents, as long as you have allowed them to sync with Google before going offline.
But I have one problem with Google Docs as a general purpose text editor. A Google document can be quite hard to view in field conditions. I spend a lot of my day on buses and in the sun, with my Samsung Chromebook Series 3 on my lap. A big, clear screen is vital.
I am currently using Write Space, a full-screen text editor. Write Space is basic. A handful of basic key-strokes, a status bar at the bottom of the screen with Words, Lines and Characters typed.
There is no menu, and no save option. Everything I type is saved locally. It has no file save option. Text just gets saved to the local Chrome storage, and is kept. To use it elsewhere, it must be cut and pasted to a Doc file, Keep, or a text file.
I using Write Space because of the simplicity of the screen and the ability to re-configure it. If you go to the Chrome > plugins > settings menu you can change the page width, font size and colour. Save the settings, and Write Space instantly updates its look an feel.
I am writing in a large, pale blue font on a dark blue background on a page that is 800 pixels wide. It is large, easy on the eyes and very responsive. It is visible in low light. I can read the large font easily when using the computer on my lap. It is a little reminiscent of the Wordperfect screen of the eighties, and easy on the eyes.
There is a spell-checker that works well, even when offline. The usual short cuts work, including the undo function.
When I hit the full-screen key (the equivalent of F11 in a Windows Chrome browser) I have a full, uncluttered and simple screen that allows me to work without distraction.
It is hard to get any simpler, and hard to think of more that a few hundred words to say about an editor that just works. I have never lost a word, and occasionally I copy everything into Keep so it will sync across every device I use.
All in all, I recommend Write Space as a simple and reliable text editor.
Enjoy!
