My Kingdom for a Quick Fix! (or: I *Hate* TextEdit)

[JayPro]

I've pored thru syntax and commented out extraneous text...I've changed Vers numbers from 261...I've even disabled Classic mode as a measure, bt all in all I remain deeply unsettled.

This urgent plea for help might betray my complete lack of patience; but I've been spending the better part of a full work week trying to deal with this ever-accursed TextEdit code continuing to show up when I open culprit config docs in SimpleText carbon.

I'm certain that this lingering pestilence is responsible for G-Force puking these files out and crashing (I can assure you that code syntax is not an issue as I check thoroughly with each redaction).

I want to continue experimenting MS Word for OS X; but I'm not fully sold on using a .doc tag (although I guess *anything* is preferable to .rtf). I *so* wish it, along with TextEdit and ST Carb, could handle multiple files and change formats en masse without opening tons of documents. I'm looking everywhere for some kind of function in this regard.

BBEdit's Help system, with regard to what I want to do with it, is IMO *completely* baffling and unintuitive (I know Erich uses this for his work, and upon personal examination, maybe I'm missing something).

I decided on holding off on iText in that it doesn't go far enough with what I wish to do, which at day's end, *should* be relatively easy. Instead, I've hit one wall after another.

Boiled down, It makes me *shudder* to have to go thru each questionable file *one by one*.

Oy.

[JayPro]

TextEdit can save as .doc files too. I'll just hafta go thru them piecemeal and they'll just hafta open up in MS Word, that's all.

I'll consider this a lesson in not saving config files as rtf in nasty TextEdit (and having to go back and comment-out things I missed... )

At least this'll be a good opportunity for me to see how I've been getting along with my anti-ADD medication thru three weeks.

EDIT: Well...evidently this tack failed miserably, too. Three quarters of my converted fields are showing up as Factory Default, just plain non-responsive, or a combination of both.

I'm afraid I shall have to compile the troublesome files and have them at the ready for either Erich, Andy or whoever is brave/patient enough to wade thru a literal busload of files in order to make them G-Force-compliant. I've seriously had it. Period.

[andy55]

I want to continue experimenting MS Word for OS X; but I'm not fully sold on using a .doc tag (although I guess *anything* is preferable to .rtf). I *so* wish it, along with TextEdit and ST Carb, could handle multiple files and change formats en masse without opening tons of documents. I'm looking everywhere for some kind of function in this regard.

wait wait... you can use the "Make Plain Text" menu item under the "Format" menu in Text, Edit, no? (That's what i did for all the configs you sent me to get them to work)... i know it sucks to do it manually for each one, but that's what i had to do w/ all the ones you sent me...

How about this... if you do the research/leg-work to find a code snippet, document, or some other kind of lead that describes/performs plain-text/ANSI text extraction from a rich text format file, i'll make a filter in GF and WC that does so... deal?

andy

[JayPro]

...just to see if it works, is to try converting the files with iText Pro and see if they go through.

I'm also gonna try looking at re-formatting in textEdit as well.

Your suggestion at the end: If I understand aright, you'd like me to try to find an application of some sort that isolates Plain Text material from an .rtf file? If I look in a place like versionTracker or something, can you give me a particular keyword or two to work from?

I hope I got your gist.

JwP

EDIT: I tried for many a day converting these to Plain Text as per the Format selection and...well...so much has been done by me since then that I don't recall what format they're in anymore. I think the big screw-up on my part came in when I tried saving as Word docs.

I'm now looking at iText Pro. Of all my config files I selected for the program to work with, a good hald of them are greyed out, I guess meaning that iText can't change them. I have a feeling these are the ones I've been trying like heck to convert from Word format (see above confession).

The problem now is that when I view the effect files in GF, almost all register as Factory default or they fail to perform properly (i.e. they look like the "Nowhere" Flowfield, if you recall what that looks like).

Tell ya what...shall I send them to you and you can prolly make heads/tails out of what I've done?

JwP

EDITED EDIT: I tried to send you a .zip archive of my effects. Did you get them? My .mac Mail couldn't send the first time because of something about "executable itmes" (?)





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[JayPro]

...I'm on to something. Thank heaven for MS-DOS capabilities.