Legacy software - Textease

Was there ever a 32bit compatible version of Textease? With Softease dropping their RISC OS version years ago what would the chances be of resurrecting it for the raspberry pi I wonder?

This is a very versatile and effective document processor that offered some interesting functions for use in education – embedded sound files for a talking book was one!

I do remember a 32 bit version might have it on one of my old Risc Pc’s (must dig then out dust them off and put them on Ebay sometime) but what is wrong with !fireworks or !ovation Pro for your word/spreadsheet needs???

If you are dusting off Textease for ebay I’m interested if it is 32bit ;-)

It is such a ‘free’ form document processor (which can also be a pain if someone keeps repositioning the cursor and you finish up with multiple blocks of text that should be in one piece) – you just drag and drop images where you want them – there is no box to draw to place them in. You can then resize or relocate them easily. They can overlap, be place to the top or bottom of the stack etc.

Text is done the same way. Click the cursor anywhere on the ‘page’ and type – no need for a text frame. The different image and text ‘frames’ can be spaced/aligned via a dialogue box in the menu or top button bar

It is not necessarily as powerful as the other offerings but has its place particularly with younger children.

I was very impressed by Textease. It has to do some very clever things to work so simply. Its automatic Z-ordering is very neat, and works exactly the way any child would expect, and virtually no software engineer would write.

In answer to Ross’s original question. Yes there were free upgrades of Textease Studio to 5.91, 5.92 and 5.93 which were 32 bit versions for the Iyonix – the last of which works correctly on the latest ROS Iyonix rom image with lazy task swapping on. Without modification to the runimag (the e is missing in the last versions) it doesn’t work correctly on the BB-xm.

The bad news is that the company Textease no longer exists and their programs were bought up by RM Education about 7 years ago and not unexpectedly considering Research machines history of competition with Acorn all support for the “Acorn” version was droped although the PC and Mac versions have been further developed and are still available for around 600pounds.

There was discussion within the long topic "The good, the bad and the RO 5.18! in March 2012 on comp.sys.acorn.misc if you are interested find my Alan Dawes submission of 11March 2012 and follow the links in the thread from that.

At the time, I contacted RM Education and had a long chat to one of the managers. Firstly they no longer know where the Acorn source code is and even if they did were not prepared to issue the last 5.93 update for the Acorn version. Even if they had the source code it would not be financially viable for them to upgrade it or allow others to do so.

Alan

Thanks for that info Alan. Seems like I missed getting the update to 5.93 and will depend on Aemulor to become available for the raspberry pi.

I notice that CJEMicros has Textease on their software list. I’ll check to see what version they have!

I have Textease 5.93 32 bit which does not work well with lazy task swapping on (crashes and graphics problems). It works perfectly on this Iyonix with LTS off.

The two gents responsible for this brilliant piece of software now have a well developed online Java version at j2e.com.

Textease Studio Plus would be a fabulous software companion for the Raspberry Pi – I just have no understanding of RM – the ROS verison should be in the public domain if theu don’t want to sell it any more. What do they have to gain?

I think the answer is that RM are still making a good income from supplying “education solutions” software based on Textease Studio + (PC and Mac) to primary schools and the privately run but publicly funded “free schools” and “Acadamies”. Thus they would not release the slightly earlier Acorn version on which these are based for free as this would mean that their expensive software and hardware solutions would have to compete with much cheaper RPi / BB-xm versions.

Chris was able to supply me with a registered copy so I’ll test it out and see what it is like. At 18 pounds the updated Aemulor would have been a more economical proposition but there is still no release date offered.

Have tried the 32bit copy without success on my Armini so don’t hold out much hope for raspberry pi. Looks like I’ll have to wait for Aemulor for the RPi :-(

Unlike the ARMv7 ARMini, the ARMv6 RPi has a built-in ARMv5 compatibility mode (controllable via a Configure plugin) which renders it immune to the unaligned load changes which cause most compatibility problems. So don’t write it off just yet.

Thanks for the tip Martin. I went to the configuration window, Clicked on CPU and selected ARMv5 compatibility mode
It seems to work. I’ve not done much but it loads onto the iconbar, opens a page and allows me to type.

Panic over Ross, Alan, and Dave – TextEase Studio is back, with kind permission of RM plc, and a new version available now in 3 flavours (Home, Educational, Pro). Fully 32 bit compatible and suitable for RISC OS 3.60 and later.

Interesting – I wonder if it is at all possible obtaining the 3D editor (Da Vinci) produced somewhere in Devon – I think.

Wow, top job there Sprow. Another piece of history rescued.

I remember seeing Textease at the 1994 Harrogate show when it was pretty new. One chap demo-img it on his own. I was blown away by the simplicity compared to the likes of AcornDTP, Ovation or Impression. Just click wherever you want, and type. Brilliant. Not sure how it progressed after that… Did it lose its simplicity as it gained features?!

Just click wherever you want, and type. Brilliant. Not sure how it progressed after that… Did it lose its simplicity as it gained features?!

The extra modules (Paint, Table, Branch, Turtle, Presenter) were all designed with the same sensibilities as the DTP part. That’s reflected in that, for example, you can include a chart drawn from a table in a presentation because they’re all cleverly integrated.

You might need to look at the instructions to know that to OLE edit a Draw graphic you need to press Ctrl while double clicking on it – that’s not accidentally discoverable – but in general it’s a very hands on/visual user interface. Want to move something? Pick it up and move it.

Just had a quick test of TextEase Pro and it is impressive. It is very intuitive and having Presenter as part of the package is a big bonus for me. Big thanks to the clever people at Elesar.