Jarte 2.6

[Opera Fan™]

I found Jarte when looking for a way to change the default font in Wordpad for editing plain text files (actually an XML file). Courier 10 is not the most comfortable font for screen reading, and I frequently use Wordpad to edit *.ini files or for basic word-processing tasks. Notepad allows one to change the default font, but Wordpad doesn't.

Jarte's main toolbar has five big red panel selectors. Three small buttons at the left of the main toolbar toggle the dropdown menus, the panels at the left, and the status bar at the bottom. To the right of the panel selectors are two small buttons to customize the toolbar: the first toggles text labels for the buttons, and the second offers a choice of backgrounds. Below these two buttons are five more: Insert, Find, Reference, Options, and Help. At the right-hand end of the toolbar is the clipboard icon. To the left of the clipboard is cut, and to the right are copy and paste icons. Below and to the right of the clipboard icons are left and right browser icons for undo and redo. Top right is an icon to exit Jarte. Finally, below the toolbar is a row of tabs for open documents.

The toolbar takes up more screen real estate than necessary, but no more than the average application’s rows of toolbars. The panels can be closed when not in use, leaving most of the space free for the documents.

Features in Jarte Not in Wordpad

• Multiple Document Interface (MDI)
  
• Spell Check
  
• Thesaurus (linked to Wordweb Freeware)
  
• Word count
  
• Full justification of text
  
• Space after paragraphs
  
• Format painter
  
• Text Highlighter
  
• Go to Line Number
  
• Numbered lists
  
• Superscripts and Subscripts
  
• Zoom and Default Zoom
  
• Remember Workspace
  
• Paper colours
  
• Multiple clips clipboard
  
• Favourite files and folders
  
• Screen capture (Jarte minimizes)
  

Pros

The program is small, so it loads almost instantly, just like Wordpad. It has enough features for serious work (e.g. Spell-check and paste clipboard images), but no bloat. I particularly like the way it manages favourites and remembers your workspace. Find and replace remembers previous searches from the current session, and the search toolbar makes searching and replacing very easy. Favourite fonts can be saved, and separate default fonts can be set for Rich Text or Plain Text documents.

Cons

Most people take one look and hate the childish interface (it was written for kids), but I can live with that. It takes at least two clicks to save a file, but control S will do.

Conclusions

In four or five hours I found all the features I was hoping to find, and later a few more that I didn't expect, like go to line number, and multiple clipboard paste. I have always liked Wordpad as a simple text editor, but Jarte is much better. I now use it frequently for simple word-processing tasks, and for editing XML files.

Edited March 9, 2005 by Opera Fan™

[Opera Fan™]

The Beta Version of Jarte 3.0 was released some months ago, but still no sign of the final product. I guess the author must be doing this in his spare time.

The interface is looking very much better, and there are been several worthwhile improvements.

It is well worth downloading the Beta, which seems to be pretty stable.

[Echilon]

Cheers, but I'll stick with Editpad Pro :p

[Opera Fan™]

Cheers, but I'll stick with Editpad Pro :p

It looks fine, but does the free version support Rich Text Format?

[raider360]

it looks so ugly :p

[Opera Fan™]

it looks so ugly :p

If you're talking about Jarte 2.6, then I have to agree, but I don't see what so bad about Jarte 3.0 Beta:

The full layout is illustrated below:

I am not one of those who think that a program's interface is irrelevant. A well-designed interface is an essential part of program design as it makes the program easy to use.

[Dick Montage]

What a ridiculously overblown interface for a rich text editor. In your screenshot - over a third of the real-estate is dedicated to "graphics" - sorry but this represents GUI design at it's poorest!

[Opera Fan™]

The screenshot shows the Window reduced to 640 x 480 to fit the forum. The side panel can be hidden when not in use. One can also use compact mode (illustrated in my previous post), or bare bones mode with the menus only.

[XerXis]

that's just fugly ;)

i think i'll just use notepad++ ;)

edit: which by the way has a special markup for ini files :D

Edited May 4, 2007 by XerXis

[Dick Montage]

If it functions fine with minimal menus, why bloat it with the overhead of your graphical ones? Where is the benefit?

[Opera Fan™]

If it functions fine with minimal menus, why bloat it with the overhead of your graphical ones? Where is the benefit?

It is my review, I am not the program's author. I reviewed it because I enjoy using it for free.

Most programs have toolbars as well as menus. Jarte offers users a choice of three basic layouts:

1. Bare Bones — Menus only

2. Compact — Smaller Toolbar with no menus

3. Full Layout — Full Toolbar with no menus

You can also turn on/off individual interface elements — Menu, Panel, Status Bar, Ruler, Bookmark Gutter, Document Tabs, Find Toolbar, and Reference Toolbar. The benefit of toolbars over menus should be obvious enough. Even Wordpad has Toolbars as well as menus, and options to turn off interface elements. Having a choice of how to arrange a program's interface is always good to suit different users.

The program was never intended to be a programmer's text editor — it is a replacement for Wordpad, and uses the same underlying text engine.

[DanManIt]

I think it looks terrible from the screenshots you showed.

[acido00]

notepad++

[Joshua-San]

Sorry man, Jarte just looks to ugly to use it in my opinion.

[Opera Fan™]

Notepad++ is a source code editor for text files, not a Wordpad replacement, so you're comparing apples and oranges. It has way too many features for editing plain text XML files, which is one of the things I do with Jarte. I prefer the simpler Notepad2 for plain text files or as a source code editor, but then I don't do much coding.

For Rich Text Format one needs just a few basic formatting options like font, font size, font colour, justification, etc., and a few editing tools like undo/redo, find and replace, spell-check, word count, and go to bookmarks or line numbers.

If I need more than that, e.g. paragraph styles, footnotes, tables, TOC, etc., I will use Open Office or Serif Page Plus.

Ugliness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Several posters judged by appearances without even trying the program. Is that how you would choose an MP3 player, or would you first check its feature set, and listen to the sound quality? Good program design is about having the right feature set for its intended tasks. The alternatives like AbiWord are far more bloated.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

To me, the interface looking as it is, is unnecessary, and it would confuse people because there's nothing here which is recognisable. A lot of the icons aren't recognisable, and things like that. When you're designing an interface you need to make one which is instantly recognisable.

If you're looking for an 'enhanced' text editor that isn't bloated, then you have Wordpad. You can't really have anything better - It's part of the Windows Operating System so you will have no reason to add another application would you?

[Opera Fan™]

If you're looking for an 'enhanced' text editor that isn't bloated, then you have Wordpad. You can't really have anything better

If Wordpad had had everything I needed, I would never have looked for an alternative in the first place.

What made me look for something else was that Wordpad had no zoom, nor any easy way to set the default font. Editing in 10 point Arial is not my idea of fun. In Jarte I can set different default fonts for text or rich text documents, and set the default zoom to whatever level makes reading comfortable.

Jarte has several other key features that make it much better than Wordpad: spell-check, word count, go to line number, bookmarks, multiple documents, favourite documents, remember workspace, etc., but not so many that it is bloated — i.e. slow to load, and hard to find the option that you want to use.

Some of your points about the interface are fair enough, but once you have used a program for a while, you get used to the toolbar layout. For first time users it may be an instant turn off if the interface is badly designed as we see from this thread. However, judging by appearances is not a mature way to choose anything. One really needs to try a program to see if it works. Jarte works very well for what I use it for. I wouldn't want to revert to using Wordpad again.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Don't get me wrong, I think it has a nice feature-set, but the interface just lets the whole thing down for me, I wouldn't consider using it only for that reason.

It's been discussed many times before, Interface is everything. Thats why Windows has hardly changed. If they start renaming things and moving things around, people will not be happy.

[SamNeeds]

it looks so ugly :p

Can't help but agree there... :x

[migo]

3.0 is a nice step up interface wise, although I don't dig the fact that it's brushed metal. They should do it for OSX if they're going that way, and do something a bit more Aero like for Windows.

Feature wise it's nice. I don't have it installed right now, but for quickly writing something up, and checking the article length, it works nicely.

Having the interface where everything is easily available, even if it takes up some extra screen real estate, is an advantage for some people compared to having everything hidden in menus. That's one of the things I like about Word 2007, and Jarte has the same concept, although obviously not done nearly as well, and nowhere near as feature rich. However, given that it's a free program, it does a good job.

[Mamoun]

Why the author won't stick to the normal look of any other windows software? I don't ask for something hard, At least (s)he should use normal menus and buttons and it would be great.

Edited July 7, 2007 by Mamoun

[ljc]

Why the author won't stick to the normal look of any other windows software? I don't ask for something hard, At least (s)he should use normal menus and buttons and it would be great.

Have a look at this screen shot of Jarte Plus 3, beta 2, using another one of its views (it offers three views): Minimal Layout.

Laurence

[Opera Fan™]

Have a look at this screen shot of Jarte Plus 3, beta 2, using another one of its views, Minimal Layout.

Unfortunately, the link has expired.

Minimal Layout

Compact Layout

[Quillz]

The minimal layout is considerably better than the ugly "compact" layout. If it's a Wordpad replacement, why can't it actually look like Wordpad?

[Opera Fan™]

If it's a Wordpad replacement, why can't it actually look like Wordpad?

The interface can look any way the designer wants it to look. I would have done a few things differently, but then I didn't write the program. Jarte has more features than Wordpad so it needs a different interface. A lot of the icons are on the panels, which can be hidden when not in use.