All of these programs have flaws, and I've provided multiple forum posts reporting them, as well as indications of my usage and how that might be typical or atypical. And I've given plenty of "this is the way I like things so you should think about doing it this way too" advice. (A fair amount of those comments -- especially on search and replace -- have been based on how TextPad does things
I believe the programs are better for my input, and I feel as though my contributions were all in areas that the programmers had overlooked or had no idea what the program's users would want or expect.
Here at TextPad.com, I see that I've made enough forum posts over the last couple years to put me in the first page of all forum members listed by number of posts. A fair number of those posts were questions or rank opinion, but once I felt that I knew what I was doing in TextPad, I have contributed help and how-to's on what I did know.
In the coming months, Helios will be adding features that TextPad has lacked. There's been a lot of discussion about what's needed, and what's needed most. (And I anticipate plenty of complaining in the forums about how some things are implemented and in what order.)
What concerns me most in this new era of development is whether TextPad's new features will be tested strenuously enough, and against enough user scenarios.
I don't know if Helios has a beta program in place (with perhaps the NDA requiring the beta users to be as close-to-the-vest as in these forums). If there is one, I hope it will be enlarged. Whether there is one or not, I hope Helios will consider an open-beta approach, encouraging as many people as possible to test the new versions against their own specific needs.
In my own case, I'm running Windows XP SP2, with a recent version of USP10.dll[1] and fairly demanding font-rendering requirements, necessitated by my involvement with the Cambodian (Khmer) language.
When I tested free and up-to-$70 Unicode editors at the end of last year, I found most of them could do great things with all kinds of alphabets/languages but that almost none could edit Khmer properly.
I've used a suite of editors since -- Microsoft Word, OpenOffice Writer, NotePad, XML NotePad and XML Copy Editor -- to handle my Khmer needs, switching among them depending on the task, none of them matching TextPad's feel, speed and capabilities, but all of them reliable regarding Khmer. (Well, except for Word's playing funny with the zero-width space character and the clipboard.)
In this regard, I'm hopeful TextPad's Unicode capabilities will be extended to deal with all the complications that a little-used language like Khmer presents. And I just don't know how Helios can test every new feature in every way that it will be used. I honestly don't think every Unicode scenario can be worked out in advance. I mean, I know what Khmer will require, but I won't be able to tell them how some other languages are going to behave. How are the developers there at Helios going to know?
So, for what it's worth, I want to urge Helios to rely on its users more than before. Use us as beta testers, either formally in a beta test program or in an open-beta release. Let us point out what you might not be equipped to find out.
(Me, I'll tell you whether a non-Vista system can handle some strenuous Unicode and font matters. I hereby volunteer to beta-test your 5.x version with new Unicode capabilities.)
Whether you announce it publicly or just contact users (or "more users"), please do let us help make TextPad a better program on each of its new releases.
Thanks,
Roger Sperberg
[1] This dll isn't available with the regular install of Windows XP or from Microsoft, but only with certain programs. It extends the font-handling capabilities of Windows. MS Office and Google Earth are among the apps that install it, but usually not in a way that allows other applications to use their version.
