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Hi from Rome, Italy

Futz

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Hello, I am an iPad Mini enthusiast who uses the devices for work - translating screenplays. I have a few questions.

1. Is it true that Apple plans to discontinue the mini series?

For me that would be tragic and reason to wear a black armband, for there is no other device out there (not even in the Android or Windows world) that can come close to the iPad Mini's instant-on, work-anywhere-anytime productivity for text editing.

My favorite combination is iPad Mini 4 with TextKraft Pro... but...

2. What other text editing programs are great for editing work WITHOUT external keyboards? (Translation is editing on steroids... lots and lots of forward deletion)

3. I would like to be able to email formatted txt interspersed with graphics (photos). But when I compose a letter in a word processing program, a long letter with photos between some of the paragraphs and then click "send as email" (in the body of the email and NOT as attachment), the person who receives the letter, gets all the photos bundled at the bottom and not the way I had positioned them between the formatted paragraphs.

Thanks!
 

twerppoet

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1. Apple has not commented on the future of hte iPad Mini one way or another. This means nothing. Apple almost never comments on future (or lack of future) products. The rumors are based on nothing but the fact that Apple did not released a new iPad Mini when they released the larger modles. This has also happend before, so it also doens’t mean as much as the doom sayers say.

2. I don’t use either, but both Final Draft and Scriviner are available for the iPad. These text editors are optimized for screenplay writers and novilists. Someone in your line of work is probably familiar with Final Draft, which I understand to be the gold standard for screen play software in the industry. There are tons of other great text editors out there, but these are probably the most optimized for you needs.

3. Even though Mail presents pictures in the body of the email, they are still attachments. How they are displayed depends on the receiving email client. To have total control of how an email looks, you need to send HTML formated emails. This is how most spam and business emals are formated.

The Mail app does not have the abilty to edit HTML emails , but it will send HTML formated text if you paste it into the body of the email. There are several apps that will let you create and send HTML formated emails; however I don’t use any of them, and don’t know anyone who does; so I won’t make recomendations. Try searching for HTML email in the App Store.
 
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Futz

Futz

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Hello twerppoet,
Thanks for answering. And thanks for giving me hope regarding the "mini".

I have Final Draft for iPad but it's no good for translation work. The process for translation is (generally): read a bit of the original, tap in the new and then forward delete the old, again and again and again. I like textkraft pro because it has what they call "extended forward delete"... which entirely does away with the need for text selection for deletion.

Deletion in Final Draft (as in Scrivener) is all done with classical finger painting which is terribly slow and actually kind of embarrassing in its clunkiness. ("place thine finger upon yon screen, tap twice, snag mini handle and drag selection up to and excluding the desired value and then tap backspace"

REALLY CLUNKY!

I'll study the HTML business... (either that or just give up and send pdf attachments!)

Thanks
 

twerppoet

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Interesting. I hadn’t considered the editing mechanics of doing a translation. I’ve never done anything like it, so I don’t know if any of my text editors have forward delete.

While I can see why you like the smaller, portable size of the Mini, I’m a bit surpised you don’t use an iPad Pro instead. Seems to me that side view multitasking would be really useful when translating. Especiall the new iOS feature that would let you highlight, then drag and drop blocks of text between apps.

Anyway, good luck. I hope Apple gives you a new iPad Mini model next year. There will be lots of disapointed people if they don’t.
 
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Futz

Futz

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Ciao again twerppoet,
Thanks. I know the iPad Pro is a beauty... but it's a computer, IOW it requires a chair and a table. It's got tons of valid competition, and not just in the Apple sphere, but even Windows (the surface pro is no slouch).

My oldish Toshiba Core i7 Satellite laptop is fine for translating screenplays - I mean if I have to sit down at a table.

The iPad Mini instead is the ONLY (repeat) O-N-L-Y outta-yer-pocket, instant-on, work anywhere device that's valid, that's productive.

The Android sphere is full of marvelous 8" tablets... but the writing software is terrible for the actual meat-and-potatoes of editing. The iPad Mini against the best Samsung or Huwawei of the same size is like Germany vs Brazil at the last World Cup. (7 to 1)

In the Windows sphere, they've given up on the 8" tablets with decent processors inside.

That leaves the iPad Mini... which all sorts of people are suggesting will be taken off the market.

The secret to working almost as fast on the iPad mini as on a sit-on-yer-butt computer is called Connective Editing.

One and the same button can cancel single words at one touch (and then consecutively, machin gun style), single paragraphs (also consecutively)
With two touches it can cancel from anywhere inside a paragraph to the end of the selfsame paragraph
With two touches it can cancel up to any whatsoever punctuation mark and symbol.
With "X" amount of touches it can cancel to any word...

Take away the iPad mini... and there's nothing for "al fresco", spur of the moment productivity.
 
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Futz

Futz

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Actually I'm an old dog who's been translating screenplays, treatments and synopses since typewriter days. I can tell you that the programmers who normally do stuff that's indistinguishable from magic have us "scribes" working too hard.

So when tablets and phablets came out I rebelled.

I can make editing on handheld flatscreens faster than regular computers. All I need is one button, though two would be ideal.

Hoping that someone might be interested, where do you figure is the best place on this forum to spell it out?
 
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Futz

Futz

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You could try the Apple Developer Forum, developer.apple.com.
Thanks Jupiter7, but that's way out of my league... my solution to make editing on handheld flatscreens better is a factory floor idea.

I know it's doable because I've already achieved a partial implementation...

...and the second looks like it might be in the works.
It's so simple as to be embarrassing - an egg of Columbus.

All I can tell you is that the scribes are working too hard... and it's got to do with the Microsoft Anomaly vis-Ă -vis the form factor of the flat screens.
 

Thomas1977

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Considering the mini 2 still gets updated iOS and the mini 4 is still around the future of the small iPad is unknown.
 

scifan57

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Although Apple doesn't reveal what it's future plans are, any product should continue to be produced if Apple can still generate sufficient profits.
 
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Futz

Futz

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Considering the mini 2 still gets updated iOS and the mini 4 is still around the future of the small iPad is unknown.
Hi Thomas,
Such a fine machine! And with the iOS 11 update, editing was vastly improved. The keyboard is sensational... and I noticed that to zap single words, now only three touches are necessary as opposed to four.

Before it was tap-tap to select word, backspace to cancel, and ANOTHER backspace to "micro-correct" the double space. Hurray! They did away with the micro-correction.

But it's still embarrassing if one considers that using WordStar in 1978, zapping a single word only required <CTRL-T>...
My silly little Connective Editing idea only requires a single touch. Plus there's consecutive action.

The button, let's call it [§] follows one simple instruction. It checks the value immediately before the cursor, then returns in place and then cancels to the right up to and including that same value case insensitive.

This means that if the cursor is at the head of a word a tap on [§] will cancel that word, by connecting the space before to the space after, effectively gobbling the word in the middle.

It also means that if you wish to delete to a period (or any whatsoever punctuation mark or symbol) the effort involved will never be more than 2 touches.

For example take this sentence.

Mary had a little lamb his fleece was white as snow and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.

And let's reduce it to just:

Mary had a little lamb.

Mary had a little lamb.[§] his fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.

With connective editing you, the editor place the link, in the case above, a period "." and then tapping [§] deletes up to and including the next period.
The speed is "Tah-tah"


In the standard finger-painting method, the effort involved would be: "Raise finger from keyboard, tap-tap on "his", snag and drag mini-handle up to and excluding the period after "go" and then backspace.

If you're using iA Writer, the Apple Store's bestseller the effort involved would be:
two taps on shift to enter selection mode, 17 taps on forward word select, 1 tap on backspace and then a last tap on shift to get out of selection mode (which is also CapsLock). For a total of 21 finger exertions.

Not to boast, but iA writer hasn't even gotten started and CE (connective editing) already completed the task.

Now imagine a poor SOB like me who's translating scripts all day (a veritable festival of forward deletion)... with no more good editing programs for real whip-out-device anywhere anytime productivity. Sure, the Androids will have 7 - 8" tablets... but for txt editing that world is barely breathing. Sure, there's MS Word and even Textmaker, with all the bells and whistles, but without an external keyboard you'll go bananas. The actual meat-and-potatoes of editing is awful.
 
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twerppoet

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Editorial is scriptable. It is proably possible to creat a workflow that will do what you want, but you’d probably have to learn a bit of Pyhton (a scripting language); but I’m not sure. My first look didn’t show any easy ways to create what you want. I don’t know enough Python.
 

twerppoet

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1Writer is another scriptable text editor. It uses Javascript. Again, I don’t know enough to write the script myself. But it does look possible.
 

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