Robert Inventor

THIS PROGRAM IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE - SORRY.

If you don't have it already, I recommend you get NotePad++ - a text editor used by many programmers and website developers etc. It has many of the features of Text Echo (plus of course many more features of its own).

Why I withdrew this program from download and sale

There is a hard to locate bug I have to fix then I'll make it available again, but it is at present low priority due to lack of interest in this program (which doesn't suprise me BTW as there are so many programs to work with text in many ways, it has some unique features but not enough to make it really stand out perhaps).

It gets only one or two downloads a month - and as far as I know, has had no sales at all. It is possible there may be some freeware users - but I have had no support queries about it either so I think freeware users also are probably few and far between if there are any.

If you already do use it, and are keen to see it made available again do let me know.

It is still available on request if you are really keen to see it.

Also if you want to take a look at it despite the bug, please contact me and I can provide a copy for you:

support@robertinventor.com

Plans for the future

The bug is in the rich text editing (text with mixtures of fonts and colours etc). For many users it may be valuable as a plain text editor.

So - I'm going to have another go when I have a bit of time between other coding work - spend a few days on it and see if I can fix the bug. If I can't fix the bug easily in the near future, I might remove all the rich edit capabilities, and release it as a plain text editor instead.

Details of the bug

The bug is hard to trace because it is sporadic - happens maybe once a month when you use it all the time as your main text editor. Also it happens inside the Microsft Rich Text control. I managed to catch the bug in the debug build so I could look at the code "behind the scenes" in the debugger - and still wasn't able to see anything unusual in the code. Everything looked fine but the rich edit control showed the text formatted strangely and with part of it impossible to edit. The actual display of the rich text happens within Windows itself in the rich edit dll, so I don't have direct access to it, even when I look at the code in my debugger.

So - obviously something I'm doing in the program is confusing the Microsoft rich text edit control, perhaps some cofiguration option or other. But what exactly, is hard to say. As it's quite a large program which makes many calls to the control, it is hard to locate the issue. Also because it is so rare and sporadic, I can't roll back to the last known "good version" of Text Echo either, because it is hard to tell if an earlier version is okay or not.

Detailed Symptoms

- Including these in case any of you reading this is a developer and has come across it before and might have a clue about what causes it.

The symptoms are - while editing the text, you may suddenly find that the sentence you are working on gets spread over several lines like this:

This is a s
e
n
t
e
nce

- when it was originally all on one line. Then when you click to try to edit the text, you find you can only click on certain parts of the text, e..g. the first three letters of the first line, and not the later letters of the same line. Then when you type text into the control, then the text you type appears in a completely different place in the document from where you expected it - maybe a few lines further down the page.

So - it is obvious when it happens - and you can then revert to your most recent backup and merge any changes you made in the new version with your backup. So it is workable with - especially as it happens only rarely - but not the sort of thing you would want to include in a released published program.

To download click here (or right click and choose Save As):

Setup_Text_Echo [0.8 MB]

Supported operating systems: for: Windows 9x / ME / 2K / XP / Vista

The old version 1.1 is also still available:Text Echo 1.1 Setup Program [3 MB]

When your browser asks you whether you want to save it or run it from its present location, the usual thing is to choose Save. Take a note of where you saved it.

Once the download is complete, look in the save folder for Text_Echo_Setup, and run it (usually with a double click). Your browser may offer run it for you anyway - if using Explorer click Open in the dialog that pops up after it gets downloaded.

You may get a message saying that the publisher of the software couldn't be verified. This is normal for programs by smaller software companies, indeed even some of the larger ones too - due to the high yearly cost for independent authentifications (e.g. by Verisign). Just say Yes, you want to run the installer anyway.

First you are asked to review the license agreement and accept it.

Then review the installation options, and select / unselect as desired - unselect the desktop shortcut if you don't want one.

Press Next.

Glance at the install directory to see if that is where you want to install it - the preset location of C:\Program Files\Text Echo will be suitable for most.

Click Install. Finally click Close, and the installation is complete. Text Echo will run straight away.

To run it again in the future, look for the Text Echo icon on your desktop, or go to Start | Programs | Text Echo | Text Echo. Or you can set it to start whenever windows starts.

To add the spell checking feature to Text Echo, download and install the free open source spell checker from the Aspell W32 page - you can also install whichever dictionary you want to use from the same page. TFE will automatically detect Aspell once it is installed.

You can delete the installer if you wish - the installation is complete. Or keep it for possible future use.

This installer is very system friendly. It doesn't change any system files or settings. All it does is to install Text Echo into its own folder, and add shortcuts to it to the desktop (if wished) and the Start menu.

Run from its present location is suitable if you have a fast connection. Wait for it to run. Internet Explorer users may get an error message at this point - if so ignore it - more details. Then press Next, Install, and Close as before.

Previous version still available:

Text_Echo_1.0 Setup [0.3 MB]

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