[HN Gopher] Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows after 28 years
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Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows after 28 years
Author : ilamont
Score : 42 points
Date : 2023-09-02 17:52 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Is this somehow symptonatic considering (a presumed lack of)
| adoption of RTF today, compared to formats such as markdown?
|
| I just was hit by the nostalgia of hearing the app name at all
| dominojab wrote:
| [dead]
| llimos wrote:
| Fun fact: Before WordPad there was Microsoft Write.
|
| Typing 'write' in the Run dialog still opens WordPad today. They
| kept the alias for 28 years.
| torstenvl wrote:
| This is deeply unfortunate. WordPad is by _far_ the best
| implementation of RTF anywhere.
| avidiax wrote:
| But who uses RTF? I can't recall ever receiving an RTF file.
| Scanning my drives, I've only found a single Readme RTF file in
| some old Windows utilities.
| Kye wrote:
| Scrivener saves everything in RTF files.
| whobre wrote:
| It's used a lot in the localization industry.
| badrabbit wrote:
| And a regular source of rtf vulns as well unfortunately. But I
| am with you, needing s cloud word/office to edit rich text
| sucks.
| ZeroClickOk wrote:
| The natural upgrade for WordPad did never come: basic html or
| markdown editing.
| afandian wrote:
| Aren't you describing Frontpage Express? I think it was bundled
| with Windows 98?
| ZeroClickOk wrote:
| no so complex.. just everything that a online wyswyg editor
| like tinymce can do, saving as a single HTML file instead
| reassembled wrote:
| Oh man, FrontPage. I haven't heard that name in 20 years. I
| got started learning how to make web pages in FrontPage and
| then branched out to editing HTML in notepad, aided with my
| trusty copy of HTML for Dummies.
| hackerbrother wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/1172/
| lockhouse wrote:
| How much of a maintenance burden can it possibly be? This seems
| silly to me.
|
| Not to be cliche, but I literally could write a WordPad clone in
| an afternoon.
| nullindividual wrote:
| Each feature requires a manager, PM, and dev. WordPad is not
| free of security vulnerabilities.
|
| No shipping code is free.
| tredre3 wrote:
| > I literally could write a WordPad clone in an afternoon
|
| You might be able to make a Notepad clone in an afternoon, but
| not wordpad.
|
| Creating parsers for all the formats it supports (rtf/doc/html)
| as well as the renderer/wysiwyg editor would take anyone
| several days of either coding, or stitching libs together.
| lockhouse wrote:
| The parser and renderer is a pre-existing RichTextEdit
| widget. Add menus and save, open, and print functionality and
| you are over 90% of the way to a WordPad clone.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| A sad loss, but it did seem like Notepad gained a lot of features
| in recent versions of Windows- surprised it doesn't support rich
| text.
| BookhouseGames wrote:
| Shame. Notepad++ should now be the go to, right?
| schube wrote:
| > We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc
| and .rtf
|
| Doesn't Office require a paid license on top of the Windows
| license, unlike WordPad?
| LegitShady wrote:
| Bundling a word processor is anti competitive based on all the
| objections to Microsoft bundling anything else. So what if you
| have to pay for it? Wasn't that the whole point of making this
| fair? You can buy any word processor, or find a free one.
| kadoban wrote:
| Like they give a fuck. They've gone back to forcing use of
| their own browser and others.
| tmpX7dMeXU wrote:
| Damned if you do, damned if you don't then.
| nullindividual wrote:
| OneDrive consumer is free but you have to put files on the
| cloud.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Install LibreOffice.
|
| If you were using WordPad before, LibreOffice will be a fine
| replacement for your purposes.
|
| https://www.libreoffice.org/
| massysett wrote:
| What's the load time on LibreOffice these days? Years ago on
| Linux it took awhile. I use Notepad and Wordpad because they
| load fast.
| lhamil64 wrote:
| They do have the cloud version of Office which is "free".
| tredre3 wrote:
| Yes, it does. Both Office 365 and Office 202X are paid
| products.
|
| There used to be Word and PowerPoint viewers available for free
| but I think Microsoft discontinued them.
| taubek wrote:
| This is a shame. I still use is to open RTF and DOCX files.
| sph wrote:
| Is Notepad now able to read files with UNIX-style line endings?
| Because Wordpad was the only one able to read .txt files created
| on Linux.
| syntheticcorp wrote:
| Yes it can do that now, at least on Windows 10
| emrah wrote:
| I wish they would open source it so it would continue to exist
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(page generated 2023-09-02 23:01 UTC)