Formatted Text Control Wish List

Hey Folks, the Formatted Text Control is starting to show its age and getting very long in the tooth. I’ve been thinking, for a while, that it’s about time to do a major update to it and I wanted to get a feel for what people really need in a word processing component for Xojo. Off the top of my head, here is a short list that’s been requested over the years:

  1. Right to left language support
  2. Full text justification
  3. Export to PDF
  4. Read/Write of MS Word files
  5. Tables
  6. Multiple columns
  7. Better/easier masking support
  8. Better/easier custom objects support

Not making ANY promises for the next major version as far as feature set and/or timeline. This is just exploratory. Thoughts?

Hey Bob,

I’d like to see text justification and support for lists.

Image wrapping would also be great, but we’ve talked about this before.

Read/Write of MS Word files would be very nice.

Very difficult so I doubt it. But I will add it to the list

[quote=353967:@Bob Keeney]Right to left language support
Full text justification
Export to PDF
Read/Write of MS Word files
Tables
Multiple columns
Better/easier masking support
Better/easier custom objects support[/quote]

Bob that is a great list of advances to FTC. here is my 2 cents worth on the list.

  1. text justification (left, right, center, full) would be great in a editor.
  2. export to PDF is kinda needed these days. Some of us are just using DnyaPDF or the like to do it.
  3. read/write MS WOrd files. I would go with .docx files and not .doc. .docx is an open file format which could make it much easier to do so.
  4. tables are a big plus for any editor.
  5. multiple columns is used a lot in editors.

if I had to rank the list, I would go with 5,1,4 as the top 3 with 2,3 next in the listing…

thanks!
-sb

oh @Bob Keeney thanks a lot for FTC! it is a great tool for all of us.

I would like to use FTC to create wordpress posts directly from a desktop app, therefor I would like to see improved HTML export capabilities.

Support for tables, text flow around pictures and support for html styles like heading1, etc would be great.

The current html export still seems to drop some formatting of text or a resized picture in ftc won’t be resized after html export, see screenshot:

Tables!!!

Dear Bob,

Just make a soft copy of present component from www.textcontrol.com and you will hit a bits in to paradise :slight_smile:

If you integrate with DynaPDF I would help and make changes as needed to the plugin.

[quote=354158:@Oliver Osswald]I would like to use FTC to create wordpress posts directly from a desktop app, therefor I would like to see improved HTML export capabilities.

Support for tables, text flow around pictures and support for html styles like heading1, etc would be great.

The current html export still seems to drop some formatting of text or a resized picture in ftc won’t be resized after html export, see screenshot:[/quote]
Have you reported this in our bug tracker? Hard to fix if we don’t know about it.

The HTML Export is one class that can be modified rather easily.

[quote=354520:@Bob Keeney]Have you reported this in our bug tracker? Hard to fix if we don’t know about it.

The HTML Export is one class that can be modified rather easily.[/quote]
I have not, because I guessed it would not be a bug, but simply missing functionality.

Either way, reporting it gets it on the list and looked at. I suspect it’s a bit of both.

When talking about a new Text Control I would advise to keep small in the beginning. The vast majority of us don’t need all fancy Word Processor and export functionality, which can be added later.
Simple text-formatting and HTML out would be a good start I think.

[quote=354682:@Joost Rongen]When talking about a new Text Control I would advise to keep small in the beginning. The vast majority of us don’t need all fancy Word Processor and export functionality, which can be added later.
Simple text-formatting and HTML out would be a good start I think.[/quote]
See, I disagree. I get emails practically every week about expanding functionality that FTC doesn’t currently have. The new tool has to do everything that it does right now and more.

@Bob Keeney nothing against developing a nice and rich word processor control or tool, but it will take long and for now we have nothing native that works properly on desktop. So, why not developing a lightweight version first ?

  1. Export to DynaPDF
  2. Tables
  3. Mail merge / form fields / preview
  4. Multiple columns

at what point does a control cease being a “control” and become an “application”

People want an easy button. I get that. Heck, part of the reason why we purchased FTC back in the pre-version 1.0 days. In the case of FTC the base functionality of the ‘control’ IS a simple word processor. I’m not sure how it gets simpler than that because as soon as you start making a lightweight version you take functionality away that another developer requires. There is no winning.

Bob, Any update on the update to FTC?

I need basic editing in my app for some disclaimers… font size, font type, bold, italicize, and that’s about it.

Should I use FTC or GraffitiHTMLEdit or something else?

Don’t mind paying for a control…

My main issue is that I am still on an older version of Xojo until I swap out the stylegrid control… which I’m doing very soon.