Media

This thread is for software goals of mine, one goal per post.

Develop a command-line text editor (yes, command-line text editors and even word processors exist: e.g. WordGrinder, Nano, and Norton Textra Writer) that

1. Fully supports Unicode, and that has the standard navigation and editing keyboard shortcuts (like ctrl+backspace to delete a word, Ctrl+arrow keys to move back and forth a word or up and down a paragraph, Ctrl+Z for undo, Ctrl+c for copy, etc.
2. Can run successfully on Termux.
3. Is written in Python 3.x, Vala/Genie, or some such.

This text editor will incorporate at least the following features:
1. Favorites (press a keyboard shortcut, such as Ctrl+d, to bring up an input box to type in the name of a favorite to save or a different keyboard shortcut, such as Ctrl+shift+d to type the name of a favorite to load; more than one file or file position can be recorded in a single favorite; loading a favorite loads all the files that are saved into tabs).
2. A tabbed interface, with different files being loaded in different tabs.
3. Spellcheck
4. The ability to create relations (with context) between entities (whether those entities are files or file-like things within a file).
5. Document statistics
6. A status bar.
7. The ability to launch code to execute.
8. Compose keys/schemes
9. Text styles would be nice (bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, etc.)
10. The ability to make links would be very nice.
11. The ability to change text size with ctrl+= and ctrl+-.
12. Supports composing hypertext fiction, and similar, easily.
13. E-book reader features.
14. And so on and so forth.

Anyway, the purpose of making it a command-line application is to make it so it can be used easily on Android (or pretty much any OS) without having to install some such as Ubuntu or Debian. Command-lines don't generally take nearly as many resources to install. Also, it might speed things up.

I've already created a similar text editor with Tkinter in Python3, but Tkinter doesn't work easily in Android, unfortunately.

I've been trying out Android 10 with my new tablet. It's a Vastking Kingpad SA10. I liked it quite a bit as is, but I just got a new bluetooth keyboard to go with it, and now I've got all kinds of features; so, it's a lot like a laptop now in its functionality (there's hidden functionality that comes out when you hook up a bluetooth keyboard to it (like a lot of shortcuts).

The specific keyboard I got has a lot of cool buttons, too, like buttons for copying, cutting, pasting, selecting all (no menu button, though), controlling a music player, a home button (like the circle button on Android), changing the brightness and volume, etc. Ctrl+ arrow keys works as it does on my desktop.

Anyway, Android 10 has a lot of cool keyboard shortcuts, as does the Chrome web browser, with it, too. Firefox doesn't seem to have a bunch of cool shortcuts, yet.

The one problem with the keyboard is that most of the 10-pad keys don't work when num lock is off (and I was hoping to use the home and end buttons on it). There are additional home and end buttons if you press function with the arrow keys; this is a consolation. The bluetooth seems to work great!

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https://m.gutenberg.org/ebooks.opds/

The above is the URL that you need to use the Gutenberg.org catalog on FBReader.

Okay, so for a long time now, I've had a problem on my Kindle Fire where my email account shows up twice on the email app. I finally discovered that this seems to have been caused by me clearing the app data on the email app without also clearing the app data on my calendar app (apparently, clearing one doesn't clear the other). So, to fix this problem, I just cleared the data of both. Now I just have a single instance of my email account on the email app, again.

So, I watched the colorized version of It's a Wonderful Life, yesterday. I had seen the black and white version before, at least once all the way through.

You know, this movie always gets talked about around Christmas-time, and I even thought it was a Christmas movie—but I don't recall any mention of Christmas in it. Did I miss it? I'm guessing it was Christmas on the last day of the show. There is snow, at least. I looked it up to be sure. It was Christmas Eve on that day, which explains the festivities. I suppose at least couple miracles happened (they might be considered Christmas miracles).

The main character has two friends named Bert and Ernie. I wonder if Sesame Street's characters with the same nanes are a reference to this movie.

Anyway, it's a lot more of a romance story than was my first impression. It seemed much more interesting this time around, too. I missed a lot of stuff before, somehow. If you're not in the habit of re-watching movies, I recommend it, even if you didn't miss anything.

I saw mention of the movie called The Bells of Saint Mary('s?). I think I've seen and enjoyed that (maybe about eight years ago). I haven't seen that many really old movies (so, it's remarkable that I'm familiar with it).

Spoilers ahead.

Anyway, it's about a man who helps out a lot of people without benefitting from it himself. Some of this seems like what he wanted to do, and some seems like it was thrust upon him (unless he wanted to let a lot of people down), and that continues to happen for a while. He's constantly trying to protect the townspeople from essentially becoming enslaved by the antagonist.

Eventually someone misplaces a lot money on his account, and he's under threat of being put in jail. He gets suicidal, considering his life insurance policy. An angel without his wings (Clarence) comes and guides him to his senses by granting his wish that he had never been born. He sees what life would have been like for everyone else (pretty bad).

He repents of his wish and doesn't even bother fretting about the police come to arrest him, he's so happy. But, it turns out, a lot of people (who like him) donate money to his cause, and he doesn't have to go to jail.

Clarence gets his wings.

The angel came much later in the movie than I remembered.

A good part of the movie is the main character progressing through life from boyhood to his having a wife and some children. He met the woman who became his wife when they were children.

The actors and actresses all did good jobs. I think the one who did the main character played Mr. Krueger in Mr. Krueger's Christmas, by his voice, look, and expressions. I used to know his name: James Stewart (I looked it up). Apparently, Michael H. McLean wrote the story for Mr. Krueger's Christmas. (He's well known as a musician and composer among many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Yep, James Stewart played the main character on It's a Wonderful Life.

Here's the parents guide type material:

They kiss a fair amount (and kind of heavily). A woman is naked at one point, hiding in some flowers (but it doesn't show her nakedness), and the main character takes the opportunity to tease her about what it would take for him to give her clothes back (but some emergency happens and he just gives them back when he hears about it).

There is a small amount of violence (I remember a single punch to the head), and there is a small amount of blood from that.

There are some perilous situations (the main character saves a couple lives), and some sorrowful/depressing/stressful/disturbing things. According to Clarence, the same people he saved died (not shown) in the alternate reality (whatever you want to call it), and more people died because of it.

The main character is unkind to some people (even his family) when things are looking bad for him.

A man contemplates jumping off a bridge to commit suicide. He doesn't but he does jump off in order to save someone else's life (who turns out to be an angel).

I don't recall any foul language.

There is a fair amount of implied drinking. I don't remember if it actually pictured anyone doing it, though.

A man and an angel seem to order alcoholic drinks, but the angel seems to have been aware that they didn't have any money to pay for them anyway.

There's some cigar smoking.

Here are some fun and/or mentally stimulating Android games for the Kindle Fire. I haven't checked out many new Android games in a while; so, these are all kind of old.

Kindle Fire 2:
• Bubble Shoot (There are a lot of games that are basically the same as this, but this one is my favorite.)
• Jewels Star (In theory, it's similar to Candy Crush Saga, but you're not limited in how many moves you get, and it goes fast; one of my favorites; I would play it more if it worked on my 6th edition.)
• Most of those in the next list

Kindle Fire HD 8 6th edition:
• Catan Classic (I play this the most, usually against computers. It's kind of hard to beat the computer at first, but once you get used to it, it's very achievable, even on the hardest setting. I played the board game version of it maybe four times before I got the app. Don't expect to play this app with people in-person, unless they're already very familiar with it, because it takes a really long time for new players to finish trading and stuff, and the computers try to trade a lot if one of the players is a computer and there are two human players.)
• Cut the Rope (and the others after it; I don't recommend ever using the special powers to pass levels, though; it's a physics puzzle game)
• Buttons and Scissors
• Cubistry (and similar)
• Dropwords
• Fireworks Arcade
• From Cheese
• Greedy Spiders (and its sequel; may trigger symptoms if you have adrenal fatigue that is activated by certain kinds of mental stress)
• Nexus Chess Online (fast and simple online Chess; no sign-up required)
• Pudding Monsters
• Ticket to Ride
• Word Puzzle for the Soul

Disclaimer (added on 14 Sep 2021): I believe this post was added before the whole Republican party became conspiracy theorists coincident with President Biden's COVID-19 vaccine advocacy. Nowadays, I probably wouldn't have touched this topic, since it would make me look like a conservative (I have some conservative values, like I'm pro-life, but I'm an independent, and I don't believe in tribalism; this post wasn't directed at converting tribal conservatives to your own cause).

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For those who want to debunk conspiracy theories, perhaps the primary way to do it effectively is to establish trust.

Many believe trust must be earned. So earn it.

Stop wasting time telling people they're wrong, and why, unless your words truly, sincerely, do debunk the myths. There are so many 'debunked' conspiracy theories that are not debunked.

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I have a proposition for a new kind of web browser (and Internet).

Purposes:
* To speed up the Internet.
* To prevent jagged, jumping page loads. Page loads should be smooth and not interfere with using the site or reading the text that has already loaded.
* To optimize client-side efficiency.
* To allow equal end-user customization of all pages. Set it and forget it.
* To reduce the workload for web designers.
* To make pages more readable, and standardized.
* To remove slow scripts altogether from the user experience.
* To prevent abuse by trackers and advertisers. Most of the advertizing in this system should be done by individuals (not companies).
* To prevent convolution.
* To make intricate interconnected hypertext more convenient to create.
* To make advertising equal and ethical. No more capitalism ruining your day so someone can make a slightly larger profit.
* To reduce the need for graphic design. There's far too much demand for it, and it's frankly mostly not even necessary, especially if you want equality between websites.
* To be content-oriented (not presentation-oriented).
* To have a specialized scope (rather than being designed for all purposes).
* To eliminate obfuscation of website internals.
* To be fast and simple, both as a web surfer and a web designer.

Scope:

Articles, books, and writing have priority, but it's also designed for store-fronts, forums, non-animated games, and social networks.

Concept:

This is a web browser that supports a new kind of Internet. This Internet would put the aesthetics of web surfing largely on the shoulders of the end-user, meaning, the end-user could do a one-time custimization that would affect all pages (or use the default theme, or one of many pre-set themes).

This Internet would not use HTML, JavaScript, or CSS. HTML and CSS are primarily to describe how content is displayed (and we don't want websites to worry about that; that's almost entirely the end-user's job). JavaScript isn't fast, nor is it ideal; a new scripting language would be used, and have less power to interfere, and have more power to do cool useful stuff.

Of course, we'd want bold, italics, strikethrough, underline, links, and such, but tables and menus would have to be created separately and embedded like images, rather than being part of the text.

A lot of things would be standardized, even web stores and social networks. No longer would stores decide for themselves how their store looks, and many of the functions would be standardized, too.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/06/15/google-confirms-experiment-to-remove-full-address-from-url-bar-in-chrome-details-opt-out-mechanism/

People should be concerned about more than security here. Knowing the URL is important for a lot of purposes that are not security-related. Security is important, however.

This new move would not be pleasant for web designers (for instance), among others.

Today, I was reading on my Kindle Fire HD 8 sixth edition via Word Runner on the Kindle app. When you pause Word Runner, it has a mode where you can just scroll the whole book left to right, with your finger, on one line. I decided to try reading like that (even though it's probably intended as an intermitent mode, rather than a viable way of reading large amounts of text. I discovered that I could read a lot faster that way! I guess new lines really get in the way of reading or something.

The problem with using that feature of Word Runner is that the font size and brightness changes for the focus word. It's not just a scrolling line of text. This has the effect of making it look blurrier when going fast, and being kind of disorienting/dizzying. Also, it doesn't give you a cue to let you know where new paragraphs begin. It only lets you use Word Runner in portrait mode.

So, I propose the following feature for e-book readers:

Have a mode where you can scroll the text on a single line (with your finger, or similar, from side to side). Make every visible word the same brightness and size, and put a paragraph symbol by new paragraphs: ¶

Also, make it so you can go in landscape mode.

Another idea is to fill the whole screen with flowing text, flowing up to (and away from) the current line as you scroll side to side, back and forth, so it looks like one big long snake moving, sort of.

It would also be nice to be able to increase the refresh rate while in this mode (where possible), as that would make it flow more clearly.

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