Typewriter scrolling for Windows

Posted by JohnK
Jul 13, 2010 at 11:09 PM

This will only be of interest to a small minority of this group, but anyway…as of v0.9.9.0, preview 3, the Windows writing program Writemonkey (http://writemonkey.com) offers typewriter scrolling.

For those who don’t know what typewriter scrolling is: for years I have found it odd that all word processors have a built-in flaw - if you are typing a long document, eventually the cursor reaches the bottom of the screen, and stays there. Crude and unergonomic. Bring back the typewriter.

Since Mac OSX came on the scene, a number of programs, including Writeroom (http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom), have introduced what’s called “typewriter scrolling” - the cursor remains fixed at a line of your choosing and the text scrolls away from you. Maybe disconcerting for youngsters who have never used a typewriter, but very natural for me.

Because a few programs for Mac offer this feature, which has been non-existent on Windows, I assume the Mac OS built-in edit controls make it easy to offer typewriter scrolling, but that’s guesswork.

But some time ago I suggested to Writemonkey’s author that he add typewriter scrolling (more in hope than expectation). And now it’s there. It’s marked as an experimental feature, and it is a preview version, so if you try it don’t use it for anything important, but the scrolling feature works well for me.