mazur@endor.UUCP (07/20/86)
The other day I tried out the MiniWRITER desk accessory that was posted
recently. It looks like a nice alternative to MockWrite, but unfortunately
it crashes when I select `Typestyle...' from its menu. It comes up with the
outline of a dialog box, and then bombs (ID 03, if I'm correct). I tried to
reinstall it in a 'standard' System File (i.e. a System from one of the Apple
installation diskettes; versions 3.2 and 3.1) and obtained the same result.
The version is 1.0, dated 17 June 1986. Had anybody else noticed this? Is
the author aware of any problems? What is this option supposed to do?
I have also noticed that MiniWRITER can been exceedingly sloooww under the
Finder on a 512k Mac. It's better on a MacPlus. Another strange thing is that
sometimes the text appears in plain Geneva, while at other moments the text
appears in a distorted boldface....
Next topic: PictureBase. I have tried it out briefly on a MacPlus + HD20
in a local computer store. This too looks like something that I could use,
but before I go ahead and buy it I would like to find out a little bit
more. I don't really need it for archiving MacPaint documents. I would like
to put some order in the large number of MacDraw documents I have on my
hard disk (these drawings are typically graphs of experimental data and also
some technical drawings of our apparatus). I noticed a few things about
PictureBase: a) its doesn't seem to handle HFS all that well, b) it only likes
MacDraw files in the PICT format (could someone explain what the advantage of
the MacDraw format is over the PICT format?), c) when you copy from a drawing
stored in PICT format, it changes the copied material into a bitmap (aarrghh!).
Are my observations correct?
I had hoped (more or less) that PictureBase would be like a database for
pictures (as the name seems to imply). In other words I thought I could
collect my drawings into logical sets of drawings, and retrieve them from
them easily. But what good is it if my (Mac)Drawing is converted into a bit-
map? If you have used PictureBase, could you please mail me your impressions
and your type of application?
Eric Mazur
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