About the word counter...

[Andremusic]

I am deeply thankful for the word counter! It really helps me to keep track of how many words I have written. However... I was wondering if it would be possible to reset the counter to zero within a bigger document. I ask this because I am working on my book and have a goal to write about 1000 words a day. Having a counter that starts from zero every time I start on a new day would be really nice. Maybe this is another annoying request (I can imagine that you will say: please let us work on our tables!), but it is worth a shot!

Great work!

André, Sweden

[admin]

Sorry, Andre, but this could not be implemented. You expect a feature that would tell you how many words have been typed "today". But what about words that have been removed "today"? Would you expect a negative "word count" if you open your document, "reset" the word count, then remove some words? The "word count" can tell you how many words are contained by your document not how many words have been added to your document a given day.

I suppose the simplest way to achieve the same goal is by memorizing the word count when you open your document, then typing words until the word count reaches the old value plus 1,000.

[Petar Petrenko]

I think it could be done. The Word Counter Toolbar should be changed to react on selected text the same way as in the Tools/WordCount... option. Whenever you select text you can see the information you need for the selection, otherwise for the whole text.[/i]

[Andremusic]

Hi!

What about a second counter called "words today" or something like that, instead of reseting the main word counter? Would that be possible? Of course it is no problem of just counting the words myself, but... it is so nice to have these kind of options.

André

[Robert]

I think it could be done. The Word Counter Toolbar should be changed to react on selected text the same way as in the Tools/WordCount... option. Whenever you select text you can see the information you need for the selection, otherwise for the whole text.[/i]

Greetings–

What if you have made changes in different parts of the document?
What if you cannot remember which fragments you typed “today”?
How do you make such a multiple selection?
Supposing that you do remember, and you make the (multiple) selection, it would only take one extra mouse click to bring up the Word Count dialogue itself.
This is hardly worth creating a “special feature”, don’t you think?

Now here is a suggestion for André. This is a trick I sometimes use.

First, create a style with any appropriate name, let’s say “Today”. Give that style any characteristics. You can simply derive it from the “Normal” style and create it with the same characteristics. Or you can give it a special color.

Then you can type any new text in the “Today” style.

When you want to know how many words you typed today, use the Control Board “Styles” panel to select all paragraphs associated with the “Today” style.

Bring up the Word Count dialogue. You will know how many words you typed today.

When you are finished, use the same method to select all paragraphs associated with the “Today” style (Control Board “Styles” panel). Reformat these paragraphs with any appropriate style, e.g. the “Normal” style.

The next day, start typing in the “Today” style again. And so on.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Robert

[Robert]

Hi!
What about a second counter called "words today" or something like that, instead of reseting the main word counter? Would that be possible? Of course it is no problem of just counting the words myself, but... it is so nice to have these kind of options.
André

Hi, André!
As Admin tried to explain, Atlantis simply cannot know which words you typed "today" unless you select these words yourself. How would Atlantis keep track of the words that you removed, added, changed since you started typing "today"? Atlantis can only count words in a real text. And the only real text is the current text.
Of course, Atlantis could keep track of the words that you delete too. But what would be the use of this?

[Petar Petrenko]

Hi Robert,

What if you have made changes in different parts of the document?
What if you cannot remember which fragments you typed “today”?
How do you make such a multiple selection?
Supposing that you do remember, and you make the (multiple) selection, it would only take one extra mouse click to bring up the Word Count dialogue itself.
This is hardly worth creating a “special feature”, don’t you think?

Multiple selection can be done with holding the Ctrl key pressed while making extended selection. Then, if you select Word count you can see statistics for the multiply selection. It's so easy, without "special features". But, this option should be placed on the status bar, also.

[Petar Petrenko]

Hi Robert,

Let me put it this way.
If you have more than one part in the document, you can separate them with extra Enter's for easy visual manipulating. At the begging of each part you can put date and time (with Bold?) to know when they are typed.
After that you can make any changes in any part of the document and track the changes with easy. When you select each part of the text (or more parts with Ctrl key you can easy see the information you need in the Word Count... option from the Tools menu. When you finish the document, just remove the extra Enter's (empty paragraphs) and date and time and close the document.[/i]

[Andremusic]

Hi! Thanks for all the suggestions, I thought that it would be an easy thing to make. I can, of course, always write my daily part in a new document till I reach the 1000 words, then copy and past it into my main document. I will however try out the style suggestion.

André

[Robert]

Let me put it this way.
If you have more than one part in the document, you can separate them with extra Enter's for easy visual manipulating. At the begging of each part you can put date and time (with Bold?) to know when they are typed.
After that you can make any changes in any part of the document and track the changes with easy. When you select each part of the text (or more parts with Ctrl key you can easy see the information you need in the Word Count... option from the Tools menu. When you finish the document, just remove the extra Enter's (empty paragraphs) and date and time and close the document.

Hi again!

I think that we can all agree that the main objective is to tell Atlantis which part(s) of the document the word count should cover.

There are several ways to do this.

As you suggested, you can put specific markers at the beginning and end of each fragment. You can also select the relevant fragments manually if you remember which fragments were typed “today”, and not “yesterday” or “some other day”.

But as you pointed out yourself, the manual selection has to be made, and it can be quite long and cumbersome, if not tricky. And of course the “today” markers have to be removed. So this method might prove quite impractical.

Now if you create a “Today” style with same characteristics as the “Normal” style, then type in the “Today” style, selecting all the relevant fragments will be as easy as ABC with the Atlantis Control Board. Returning these same fragments to the “Normal” style will be just as easy. With the added bonus that any direct formatting that you might have applied (like words in bold, underline or italics) will be left AS IS by Atlantis when it applies the “Normal” style to the target “Today” fragments.

Note that this “style trick” (typing in a specific “dummy” style) can also be used to retrieve specific paragraphs after typing. In this case, selecting the target paragraphs across a whole big document is done in a jiffy. The selected paragraphs can then be copied, moved, removed, reformatted.

[Petar Petrenko]

Hi Robert,

Yes it would be easy to convert "Today" style back into "Normal". But, what if the document has more than one style? We are again at the begging of the conversation. In this case if you use my or your suggestion it's all the same. The main point is that the job has to be done. So, Andre has to decide which solution is easier to him and use it.

[Andremusic]

Hi again.

I thought actually that this would be an easy thing to implant, and I also saw it in another word processor. There is a daily count and a total count.

I tried to do it with the styles, but find that to much work really, because to know if I reached my 1000 words, I have to check constantly. That stops me in my writing. It is easier to count it myself as Robert said. Thanks all for the suggestions.


André, Sweden

[Robert]

Hi, André!

Then the best method is the one you suggested yourself: type in a new document every day, and paste the document contents into your main document when you have finished typing 1000 words or so.