TextPimp 1.0

A few days ago, I was out in the paddock practicing for the upcoming Sheep Daze festival, when I noticed one of the sheep pawing at a clamshell iBook. Recognizing a chance to score a free iBook, I quickly roped the ovine in question and confiscated the clam-like computer. When I looked on the screen, what do you think I found? Yes, I discovered that this blasted horned ruminant had been working away at TextPimp 1.1.

Ogre-like readers, I shudder to think what might have come to pass had this unworthy wool-producer completed her task. Well, except for the release of TextPimp 1.1. Obviously. Hey you, quiet back there! How do YOU know the world wouldn’t have been consumed in a fiery conflagration? Those sheep … always plotting, they are. Ever looked into their eyes? Like, REALLY looked? They’ve got depths, the hidden kind.

Here I pause, thinking how unkind it would be to the more uptight component of our audience to not devote a brief paragraph to the actual function of the application before I launch into the diseased-animal references.

TextPimp is, quite simply, a text editor. “Hey!” you cry. “Haven’t you reviewed a text editor before?” To which I answer, “Yes, we have! Two in fact!” So you see, TextPimp will merely edit your editorials, finger your fiction, alter your addendums, soil your stories, transform your type, and write your words. That is all.

It seems like it would be impossible to screw up a text editor, but TextPimp succeeds brilliantly. Amazingly, it features a plethora of near-useless functions in a large floating toolbar, but somehow neglects to allow the user any choice of font, leaving me stuck with this indecipherable tripe-fount of a typeface.

Although the other features are not necessarily completely useless, their desirability is called into question when the lack of font controls is combined with the lid-lickingly obtuse way in which these other features are presented. In the floating toolbar, we see a vertical row of hefty buttons sporting the usual “Plain,” “Bold,” and “Italic.” Below that we see the dee-litefully named “Cond,” and “Xtend” buttons, bearing their shameful names like a weary badger coming home from the hunt, still hungry.

A little further down, and we see three radio buttons in a horizontal row. What are they doing? Are they part of the Global Monkey Conspiracy? Perhaps they are like those “See-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil” monkey statues! Oh n–I mean, oh kaay! They are not part of the GMC after all – they just control the text alignment.

With the name, one somehow expects the application to have a sequined outfit, and drive an El Dorado, but as far as we’ve been able to determine, that is not the case. Nor does this juicy software delight offer any special toolbar buttons to slap your text around, in an attempt to extract money from it.

We will cease this commentary on the so-called “toolbar” now, save to mention the always-displaying-12-size-indicator, the “Other” button, and the completely superfluous “Close” button, conveniently located at the bottom of the toolbar.

The final insult in this crusty koner-tomb is the supererogatory “Quit” menu item in the File menu, which we believe went out of vogue several years ago. Or perhaps the final insult is the about box, festooned as it is with tie-dye text, some of which might be a link, or on the other hand, maybe not.

Prolix Enterprises, you show a complete lack of originality, as well as an utter lack of UI sense, earning you a 10.4 on the PerversionTracker scale.

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