On a similar note, I'm always a bit amused whenever WriteRoom gets lots of praise, because it's actually not so much different from good old Emacs running in a terminal (no X). Back to the future!
I've not used WriteRoom, so I don't know just how configurable it is, but I often find myself in Emacs getting distracted from my original task by accidentally discovering new features, or deciding to automate something in elisp.
"The art of spending 3 hours to complete a 1 hour job in 5 minutes"
And this is after using it for nearly a decade already :)
If you want the same "distraction free" environment, there's also darkroom mode, which gives you a similar look. I really cannot understand why would writers get so distracted by using an editor with more features and vastly more editing power. It's not like you have to hack complex elisp functions to open up a text file, write some text, and save it.
> why would writers get so distracted by using an editor with more features and vastly more editing power.
Because most of the features are useless for writers who only want to write prose where formatting doesn't matter that much (or will be done by people who specialize in that.
As far as "editing power" goes, I don't write much prose (I keep telling myself I should submit an article every once in a while to warrant my press passes) but I am quite sure I don't use much more than what WordStar gave me 25 years ago.
>Because most of the features are useless for writers who only want to write prose where formatting doesn't matter that much (or will be done by people who specialize in that.
And how is having the features available (as in, say, Emacs or Vim) cause the user to get distracted? If you don't need fancy commands, you just don't use them. The day you need them, they'll be there waiting for you.
> As far as "editing power" goes, I don't write much prose (I keep telling myself I should submit an article every once in a while to warrant my press passes) but I am quite sure I don't use much more than what WordStar gave me 25 years ago.
Wordstar was much more of a text processor than Writeroom seems to be. I was thinking more about stuff like regex searches and replacements, being able to see different parts of a buffer/file in different windows, etc. Again, having those features available do not make people spend hours pushing buttons, but when you do need them, they're pretty handy to have.
Just as an aside: this is Emacs with darkroom mode enabled. What exactly would be 'distracting' about it? http://i.imgur.com/hWyJJ.png
I was wondering about what editing power meant. It's now clear you were not talking about Word. That's what I get for not having coffee in the morning. I apologize.
