Editing SimpleText

{{Short description|Native text editor for the Apple classic Mac OS}}
{{Infobox software
| name                   = SimpleText 
| logo                   = <!--  Commented out because image was deleted: [[Image:SimpleText.png|SimpleText icon]] -->
| screenshot             = German SimpleText.png
| screenshot size        = 250px
| caption                = SimpleText under the German version of [[Mac OS 8]]
| developer              = [[Apple Computer]]
| latest_release_version = 1.4
| latest_release_date    =
| operating_system       = [[System 7]] – [[Mac OS 9]]
| genre                  = [[Text editor]]
| license                = [[Proprietary software|Proprietary]]
| website                = 
}}

'''SimpleText''' is the [[native (computing)|native]] [[text editor]] for the Apple [[classic Mac OS]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Engst|first=Tonya|title=Writing a ReadMe File? Read This |journal=MacTech |year=1998 |volume=14 |issue=10 |url=http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.14/14.10/WritingAReadMeFile/index.html |access-date=17 February 2013}}</ref> SimpleText allows text editing and text formatting (underline, italic, bold, etc.), fonts, and sizes.  It was developed to integrate the features included in the different versions of [[TeachText]] that were created by various software development groups within [[Apple Computer]].<ref name=TN1005>{{cite web|last=Stearns|first=Bryan|title=Technical Note TN1005: The Compleat (sic.) Guide to SimpleText|url=https://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1005.html|work=Apple Technical Notes|access-date=17 February 2013|author2=Mark Cookson |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041011083050/http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1005.html |archive-date=11 October 2004}}</ref>

It can be considered similar to Windows' [[WordPad]] application. In later versions it also gained additional read only display capabilities for [[PICT]] files, as well as other Mac OS built-in formats like Quickdraw GX and [[QTIF]], [[3DMF]] and even [[QuickTime]] movies.<ref name=TN1005/> SimpleText can even record short sound samples and, using Apple's [[Apple PlainTalk|PlainTalk]] speech system, read out text in English. Users who wanted to add sounds longer than 24&nbsp;seconds, however, needed to use a separate program to create the sound and then paste the desired sound into the document using [[ResEdit]].<ref name=TN1005/>

SimpleText superseded [[TeachText]], which was included in System Software up until it was replaced in 1994 (shipped with System Update 3.0 and System 7.1.2). The need for TeachText arose after Apple stopped bundling [[MacWrite]], to ensure that every user could open and read [[Readme]] documents.

The key improvement of SimpleText over TeachText was the addition of text styling. The [[System 7|underlying OS]] required by SimpleText implemented a standard [[styled text]] format, which meant that SimpleText could support multiple fonts and font sizes. Prior Macintosh OS versions lacked this feature, so TeachText supported only a single font per document. Adding text styling features made SimpleText WorldScript-savvy, meaning that it can use Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters.<ref>{{cite web|title=Important Information About System 7.5 and the Chinese Language Kit|url=http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/6664ChineseLang7.5.PDF|publisher=[[Apple Inc.]]|access-date=16 February 2013|format=PDF|year=1994}}</ref> Like TeachText, SimpleText was also limited to only 32&nbsp;kB of text in a document,<ref name=TN1005/> although images could increase the total file size beyond this limit. SimpleText style information was stored in the file's [[resource fork]] in such a way that if the resource fork was stripped (such as by uploading to a non-Macintosh server), the text information would be retained.

In [[Mac OS X]], SimpleText is replaced by the more powerful [[TextEdit]] application, which reads and writes more document formats as well as including [[word processor]]-like features such as a [[ruler]] and [[spell checking]]. TextEdit's styled text format is [[Rich Text Format|RTF]], which is able to survive a single-forked file system intact.

Apple has released the source code for a [[Carbon (computing)|Carbon]] version of SimpleText in the [[Mac OS X Panther]] (10.3) Developer Tools. If the 10.3 Developer Tools are installed, it can be found at {{mono|/Developer/Examples/Carbon/SimpleText}}. Alternatively, the sample code can be found in Apple's [https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/navigation/ Documentation Archive]: [https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/samplecode/SimpleText_Sample/Introduction/Intro.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS10000736 SimpleText Sample].

==See also==
*[[List of text editors]]
*[[Comparison of text editors]]

==References==
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{{Mac OS}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Classic Mac OS-only software made by Apple Inc.]]
[[Category:Classic Mac OS text editors]]


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