info-mac@utcsrgv.UUCP (info-mac) (05/08/84)
Date: 6 May 1984 15:03:43-EDT
From: uw-beaver!Bruce.Lucas@CMU-CS-IUS
Subject: bugs
To: utcsrgv!peterr
To: microsof!infomac
The Quickdraw bug in ellipses you mentioned isn't the only one: long skinny
ellipses have points missing. Also, the 45-degree portions of circles are
like
x x x
x x rather than x
x x x
which some might consider a bug, others a feature.
Is there any way to print the Notepad? I haven't found one (short of
putting it in a MacWrite document...) Sure would be nice, e.g. so I don't
have to lug my Mac with me to the grocery store. Should use draft mode.
Also, selection extension (with shift-click) works differently in MacWrite
and Notepad; in particular shift-clicks before the beginning of the original
selection point behave differently. Consider a line a....b....c. Click at
b, shift-click c, selection is from b to c. Now shift-click a; in MacWrite,
selection is from a to b; in Notepad from a to c. Tsk-tsk.info-mac@utcsrgv.UUCP (info-mac) (05/21/84)
Date: 20 May 1984 02:22:22-EDT From: uw-beaver!Bruce.Lucas@CMU-CS-IUS Subject: bugs To: utcsrgv!peterr To: microsof!infomac Here's another inconsistency between Notepad and MacWrite: the interpretation of what character the cursor is pointing to is different. In one (I forget which is which) pointing anywhere within a character selects the point just before that character; in the other, pointing within the first half of the character selects the point before the character and selecting in the second half of the character selects the point just after that character. This is annoying e.g. when making selections: I frequently find myself selecting one character too few or one too many at the beginning of the selection, because I don't have any consistent notion of exactly what will be selected. There's another asymmetry in the Quickdraw routines: the lines going from say (x,y) to (x+dx,y+dy) and from (x,y) to (x+dx,y-dy), where dx is big and dy is small, make their steps (jags) at different x positions. By the way, I hope Monaco 9 isn't going to be the font used for MacTerminal; it's unsuitable for that purpose in a number of respects: the worst problems are that capital "O" and digit "0" are identical; capital "I" and small "l" are virtually identical. (Solution: add a stroke to the zero and add crossbars to the "I"). Some aesthetic problems: given that it is a fixed width font, the "i", "j", and "l" should have one-pixel "serifs" sticking out to the left at the top, so that they don't look so lonely in that big space; the "%" is rather unreadable. The digit "1" is too far right in its space and makes strings of digits containing it look uneven. Given these changes, "1" would be more distinguishable from "l" and "I" if it had a crossbar at the bottom.
info-mac@utcsrgv.UUCP (info-mac) (05/24/84)
Date: Mon, 21 May 84 13:29:26 EDT From: Bob Rees <uw-beaver!rrees@BBN-UNIX.ARPA> Subject: Re: bugs In-Reply-To: Your message of 20 May 1984 02:22:22-EDT To: Bruce.Lucas@cmu-cs-ius.arpa Cc: info-mac@sumex-aim.arpa The font used by the MacFORTH system source editor has the same kinds of ambiguities: capital "O" and digit "0" are exactly identical; capital "I", small "l", and vertical-bar "|" are exactly identical. Not real great for programming in a language where any character can appear in any context! I would love to modify that font so that every character has a unique appearance (aesthetics are clearly secondary). The font is one of the standard (first release) Mac fonts -- the only non-proportional sans-serif font in the set (12-point Monaco? -- I don't have a Mac handy to check now, and I never can remember which font name goes with which font). But how do you modify a font? Using FORTH, I can twiddle any bit in memory or on the disk, but how do I find the right place? I don't have access to a Lisa cross- development system. Any suggestions?