God knows why I'm fixated on getting Ted to work...but somewhere in the world is an antiX user who needs to run Ted. So here's the answer to getting the latest version in the repos (2.17-1) to run:

I traced down the maintainer (I think) of the Debian Ted package, who claims that the brokenness of the package is a result of Ted being unable to find the right Helvetica font on the user's system. This can be remedied by installing two files from the Lysistrata repos:

xfonts 75 dpi -transcoded
xfonts 100 dpi -transcoded

I did this in Lysistrata, restarted the machine, and *boom* there is Ted (note: restart, not just re-login).

Now just to make this interesting, I checked the default x-font installs in Spartacus, which runs Ted 2.17 easily (probably not relevant, but who knows?). Well, Spartacus knows nothing of the two files listed above, but it does run by default an xfonts 75 dpi and an xfonts 100 dpi package. In Lysistrata, only the xfonts 100 dpi package is installed by default. So I'm wondering what would happen if I removed the two"-transcoded" packages and left the original default font packages as they are, only adding the xfonts 75 dpi package that Spartacus runs but Lysistrata doesn't. I don't know if I'll try this or just leave a working install of Ted alone.

Okay, I know I'm talking to myself on this. But to the one other person in the world who might want to run the latest Ted in Lysistrata: You're welcome.

Thanks for the findings malanrich on ted.

Just to confirm that installing ted through antiX with sid repos will not work until the above mentioned xfonts are installed.

Now that is sorted, I can uninstall ted __{{emoticon}}__

So to ask.

What is it you like about ted? Compared to scite or leafpad.

anticapitalista wrote:
What is it you like about ted? Compared to scite or leafpad.

Ted has a really nice opening graphic. __{{emoticon}}__

anticapitalista wrote:
What is it you like about ted? Compared to scite or leafpad.

I like Ted because it's a"survivalist" word processor. What that means is that (like text editors) it's light, loads instantly, and can run on almost any OS (I think...), and (like more elaborate apps like Kword, Abiword, OO) it offers almost total functionality (pretty much anything you want to do--numbered lists, footnotes, endnotes, pictures, tables--you can do). So if you were a poor academic shlep like me or for whatever reasons had almost no computing resources available to you but had to compose relatively sophisticated documents, you could use Ted. It's not that I use it all the time or would turn to it first, but I like the idea that it's there. Like a lifeline. Ted is a slight reminder that no one needs to be excluded from the intellectual life of our community from lack of technological resources.

Now if you think that's funny I'll add something even goofier: I like Ted's retro and cumbersome menu system. It has a slightly steep curve. But it's satisfying to discover its logic.