Regarding https://www.uninformativ.de/blog/postings/2024-05-23/0/POSTING-en.html: I remember using Star $Something back in the days. I don’t remember the exact name anymore and none of the screenshots of StarOffice look familiar. Hmm. I have a green UI in mind. Not sure if I completely hallucinate it or whether that was actually the case. It was a commercial software, not freeware, we had to buy it, I think.

My first LaTeX distribution was MiKTeX with – if I remember correctly – the TeXNicCenter. A bit later on Linux I used Kile as my LaTeX editor. LaTeX produces the worst error messages I’ve ever come across. So compile early and often. But the results are amazing.

I know people who never make use of headings and the like to this day. Bold, italics, underline etc. is all they use. Despite writing larger documents. Admittedly, it took me a while to figure out and appreciate all the advantages of actually marking up the document structure properly.

These days I rarely reach for LaTeX or LibreOffice to craft new stuff in my private life. Simple text files is usually it. RST and Markdown if it has to be more fancy.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Hmm, I don’t know of a green-ish Office suite. I mean, LibreOffice is green, but that’s not what you mean. 😅

Ahhh, TeXNicCenter! Many people in Uni used this. What happened to it, is it dead? The last release is from 10 years ago. 🫤

Admittedly, it took me a while to figure out and appreciate all the advantages of actually marking up the document structure properly.

Same here, to be honest. I think it was HTML which changed that eventually. 🤔 Not sure if any “ordinary” users that I know use semantic markup, but then again, none of them write any documents that need this. And in reality, most people are more concerned (rightfully so) with the actual appearance of their document – so it is an extra step to first mark something as a heading and then change the document style to get the appearance they actually want. That’s why I think that all the “Works”-like suites aren’t complete rubbish. They have their place.

These days I rarely reach for LaTeX or LibreOffice to craft new stuff in my private life. Simple text files is usually it.

I was going to ask “but how do you write letters”, and then I realized that the last letter I’ve written was in 2022. 😂 It has become super rare indeed.