Editing TeachText (section)

{{Short description|Text editor made by Apple Computer}}

{{Infobox software
| name             = TeachText 
| logo             = APPL-ttxt.png
| screenshot       = Teachtext.png
| screenshot size  = 250px
| caption          = TeachText in System 4.2
| operating_system = Macintosh [[System 7|System 7.1]] and previous
| genre            = [[Text editor]]
| license          = [[Proprietary software|Proprietary]]
| website          = 
}}

The '''TeachText''' application is a simple [[text editor]] made by [[Apple Computer]] and included with [[System 7|System 7.1]] and earlier.<ref>{{cite web|title=Archived - System 2.0 (4.1/5.5) 800K Disk Contents|url=http://support.apple.com/kb/TA30234?viewlocale=en_US|publisher=[[Apple Inc.]]|access-date=16 February 2013|date=September 1993}}</ref> It was created by Apple programmer Bryan Stearns<ref>{{cite web|title=About TeachText Mac OS 4.2|url=http://www.mac-history.net/computer-history/2008-05-27/mac-os-42/attachment/macos42-10|publisher=Mac History|access-date=16 February 2013}}</ref> with later versions created by Stearns and Francis Stanbach.<ref>{{cite web|last=Leonard|first=Peter|title=TeachText About Box + hidden credits|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/peterl/4412724106/|publisher=Apple Computer Inc.|access-date=16 February 2013|date=7 March 2010}}</ref> TeachText was one of the only applications included with System 7, leading to its frequent role as the application to open "[[ReadMe]]" files. It was named "TeachText" as a nod to this role in tutorials and other introductory materials.<ref name=Dernbach>{{cite web|last=Dernbach|first=Christoph|title=Mac OS 7.0|url=http://www.mac-history.net/computer-history/2008-05-24/mac-os-70-2|publisher=Mac History|access-date=16 February 2013|date=24 May 2008}}</ref>

TeachText was derived from the '''Edit application''',<ref name=Dernbach/> which was a simple text editor for the early pre-[[System 6]] [[Macintosh|Apple Macintosh]] computers. Edit was included with [[Classic Mac OS#System 1.2C 2.2C 3 and 4|early versions of the basic system software]]{{citation needed|date=March 2020}} to demonstrate the use of the Macintosh user interface, and as the primary code editing tool for the original 68000 Macintosh Development System. While Edit was a tool and demonstration program for developers, TeachText was used mainly by [[user (computing)|user]]s to display ReadMe documents.

Since the first Macintosh models came with a full-featured [[word processor]], [[MacWrite]], software publishers commonly shipped documentation in its native format. When Apple stopped bundling MacWrite, ownership was transferred to [[Claris]], so developers could not distribute it on their programs' installation floppy disks. With no text program present on the disks, owners without a second floppy disk drive or hard disk could be left with no way to view documentation or installation instructions. Apple supplied TeachText as a small, freely-distributable program to address this need.

TeachText could only operate on a single document at a time and supported only the default text font (12-point Geneva at the time) in the [[MacRoman]] encoding, with formatting such as bold, italic and underline.<ref>{{cite web|last=Stearns|first=Bryan|title=Technical Note PT36: The Compleat (sic.) Guide to TeachText |url=http://support.apple.com/ |access-date=17 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200705060235/https://support.apple.com/ |archive-date=July 5, 2020 |page=(Macintosh Technical Notes, No.274 (April 1990))|no-pp=y |date=1 August 1990}} [http://www.fenestrated.net/~macman/mirrors/Apple%20Technotes%20(As%20of%202002)/pt/pt_36.html Alt URL]</ref> It also included rudimentary support for embedded images; the images were stored in [[PICT]] format in the file's [[resource fork]] in ascending numbers from zero, instances of [[non-breaking space]]s in the text loaded up the appropriately numbered image, the first instance loading image "0", the second space loading image "1", and so on.

TeachText was automatically associated with all TEXT [[type code]]s for files with an unknown [[Creator code]]. That is, if a user attempted to open any text file and the original program that created it was not known on the local computer, TeachText would be asked to open the file in its place. In this respect, TeachText was the "default editor"<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Petreley|first1=Nicholas|last2=Durlester|first2=Nancy|last3=Wonnacott|first3=Laura|last4=Glass|first4=Brett|editor1-first=Dan|editor1-last=Sommer|title=The interoperability headache: linking disparate clients and servers|journal=InfoWorld|date=15 November 1993|volume=15|issue=46|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DDsEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22TeachText%22+apple&pg=PA130|access-date=16 February 2013}}</ref> of the Mac system, playing a role similar to [[Microsoft Notepad|Notepad]] under [[Microsoft Windows]].

The underlying text engine was the TextEdit Manager built into Mac OS. TextEdit had originally been written to support very small runs of editable text, like those found in Save as... dialogs and similar roles. As such, it had been written with a [[Integer (computer science)#Short integer|short integer]] as a length counter, and could thus only handle up to 32 kB of text in a file. This conflicted with the "default editor" role when it was asked to open files longer than 32k, resulting in an error.<ref>{{cite web|title=Archived - SimpleText: "Document Too Large To Be Opened" Alert|url=http://support.apple.com/kb/TA37612?viewlocale=en_US|publisher=[[Apple Inc.]]|access-date=16 February 2013}}</ref>

TeachText was later replaced by [[SimpleText]], and with the arrival of [[Mac OS X]], both were replaced by the [[TextEdit|TextEdit application]] inherited from [[OPENSTEP]].