On Thu, 20 Sep 2018 21:02:51 +0000, Alister wrote:

> when you want multiple people to be able to access & manipulate data on
> a central server & you don't want then tied to particular hardware or
> software
>
Indeed, but that is NOT what I want or need. I said at the outset that
its a *desktop application* - doesn't anybody read?

To be precise, its specialised desktop CSV editor, intended to read,
update and write files on the locally accessible filesystem. Yes, I could
do the job with a text editor or use a spreadsheet, but both have
disadvantages:

- a text editor isn't great for editing files with TAB field separators
  and/or where the first few fields on a line vary hugely in length and
  the later ones are short and/or can be empty. Both cases are difficult
  to read in a standard text editor

- a spreadsheet at least aligns fields in columns, but also monkeys about
  with some data, e.g.fields containing dates or numbers may have their
  formats modified in ways the the target consuming program doesn't like.
  Some spreadsheets are worse than others at doing this.

So, I am writing a CSV editor that gives the field alignment benefits of
a spreadsheet but that is guaranteed not to mess with the format of any
data. It will be a Java program because Java has extensive GUI support
thanks to its AWT and Swing class libraries and because it can be run on
any hardware and OS where there's version 1.8 JVM - which is almost every
current system including the RPi. And as a bonus, thanks to X.11
forwarding, it can also be used to edit files on any machine that is
accessible via an SSH session.

> this is not the correct model for every app
>
Quite. And its not correct for this one.


--
Martin    | martin at
Gregorie  | gregorie dot org

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