borton@sdcc3.UUCP (Chris Borton) (05/27/86)
In article <3503@reed.UUCP> bart@reed.UUCP (Bart Massey) writes: [...] >and to persuade Apple to fix MacDraw, which is about due for an upgrade >anyway. > I find MacDraw to be one of the most powerful applications around, and also one of the most frustrating. There are several small but vital items I wish were corrected in an update: o Oh, for a 'nudge' command! Nudge is a term from Silicon Beach's Silicon Press, and very appropriate, I think. There are so many cases where I want an object to move {up,down,right,left} by one pixel I could never count them all... o Why doesn't a program from Apple handle Desk Accessories correctly? Yes it does handle them. No, I don't call its method satisfactory. It insists upon closing all DA's when the program window is activated, something I find *very* annoying. It changes the menubar because the program itself takes up the whole thing: is this necessary, and if so how can it be done nicely? MacDraw is one program I really wish I could use Tempo with, but it doesn't work with it! o Why doesn't a program from Apple handle fonts correctly? Putting fonts and their sizes together is OK--not scrolling them is not. Jazz is a good example of how to do this correctly, I believe. I will go try the patches posted to the net... o The ability to draw an arc with both endpoints on a vertical or horizontal line should be there. Drawing half-circles can get very frustrating...(best method I found is to group two quarter circles together) For the people that say 'use MacDraft', I did. I went back to MacDraw. Why can't MacDraft open MacDraw files? Transferring something between them reduces it to a PICT, not objects. Is there a format for objects on the clipboard, which defaults to PICT if the Pasting program can't handle it? Enough griping...next year I will learn how to do this myself while I am 'stranded' away from telecommunications in Goettingen, Germany. :-) --Chris -- Chris Borton, UC San Diego Undergraduate CS; Micro Consultant, UCSD borton@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU || ...!{ucbvax,decvax,noscvax,ihnp4,bang}!sdcsvax!borton "Wie traurig...ich habe nur drei Wochen mehr hier und dann muss ich weg"
matt@ucla-cs.ARPA (Matthew J Weinstein) (05/31/86)
To get an arc of an arbitrary number of degrees in MacDraw, first draw a quarter-circle of the appropriate radius, then use the RESHAPE menu command (command-R). SHOW SIZE shows the number of degrees. You can rotate from either endpoint.
jed@mb2c.UUCP (John Duncan) (06/03/86)
> In article <3503@reed.UUCP> bart@reed.UUCP (Bart Massey) writes: > [...] > >and to persuade Apple to fix MacDraw, which is about due for an upgrade > >anyway. > > I vote for a colorization menu and the ability to zoom to bigger than life size for high resolution tweaking. John Duncan (mb2c!jed) Michigan Bell (313) 424-1167
henry@rochester.ARPA (06/05/86)
From: Henry.Kautz
Here are two things I'd really like to be able to do in MacDraw; if
there is some way to do them, please let me know!
1. Suppose you are drawing Venn diagrams, two intersecting circles,
one with horizontal cross hatching, the other with vertical, and
the intersection with checkerboard hatching. Hmmm, can't do it! You
need transparent paint...
2. Same situation, but we want the intersection to be gray, instead.
Hmmm. We need to be able to define an object which is the intersection
of two objects, put it in front, and shade it. This is easy enough if
our original objects are polygons, but circles? Better get out the
Xacto knifes...
---- Henry Kautz
:uucp: {seismo|allegra}!rochester!henry
:arpa: henry@rochester
:mail: Dept. of Computer Science,
University of Rochester,
Rochester, NY 14627
:phone: (716) 275-5766elwell@osu-eddie.UUCP (Clayton M. Elwell) (06/05/86)
I use MacDraw zoomed in at twice normal size all the time. Not only can you edit with greater precision, but when you print it the lines are thinner... In case you think I've gone bonkers, here's how you do it: 1. Go to "Page Setup" and tell the printing managerr to reduce by 50%. This will work on both the LaserWriter and the ImageWriter. It will also auto- matically adjust MacDraw's idea of how big the page is. 2. Go to "Custom Rulers" and set up your rulers with *2* inches per major division. This gives you double-size rulers that will measure the size as printed. 3. If you want to see your drawing actual size, just Reduce by 1 step. 4. Remember that text has to be doubled, as well (24 point gets printed as 12 point). Knock yourself out... -- ______________________________________________________________________ Unless specifically noted, I Clayton Elwell speak only for myself; OSU has plenty Elwell@Ohio-State.EDU of people to speak for it already. ...!cbosgd!osu-eddie!elwell ______________________________________________________________________
oster@ucblapis.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) (06/06/86)
Transparent paint in Macdraw: To create two circles, shaded with orthoganal parallel lines that intersect in a cross hatch, create the circles in macpaint individually, and paste each one separately into MacDraw. In MacDraw, MacPaint bitmaps are each separate objects, AND they are transparent (they are drawn using the srcOr drawing mode, rather than the srcCopy of native MacDraw objects.) Large bitmaps are not one object in MacDraw, but many objects. Group them as the first thing you do after the paste. (Macpaint does this to preserve a Mac User Interface Guidline rule: individual bitmaps shall be small than 3k, so the application program won't die from a big bitmap clobbering the stack.)
rb@ccird1.UUCP (Rex Ballard) (06/06/86)
In article <3366@sdcc3.UUCP> borton@sdcc3.UUCP (Chris Borton) writes: >In article <3503@reed.UUCP> bart@reed.UUCP (Bart Massey) writes: >[...] >>and to persuade Apple to fix MacDraw, which is about due for an upgrade >>anyway. >> >I find MacDraw to be one of the most powerful applications around, and also >one of the most frustrating. There are several small but vital items I wish >were corrected in an update: > > o Oh, for a 'nudge' command! I'd like that one too! > o Why doesn't a program from Apple handle Desk Accessories correctly? Would be nice. > o The ability to draw an arc with both endpoints on a vertical or > horizontal line should be there. The ability to bind each end of a line, arc, or "arrow" to another object. This is real handy for structure charts, schematic diagrams, hierarchies,... How about the ability to "search" for text or "clipboards" on the picture. Ever tried stretching a line from one corner to the other, on a 3 sheet x 3 sheet drawing? > >For the people that say 'use MacDraft', I did. I went back to MacDraw. Not to mention that MacDraft is copy-protected :-(. For my purposes, MacProject was useful, to a point, but I still need to "polish" in MacDraw. >Why can't MacDraft open MacDraw files? Or MacProject, or ... Why isn't there some "stream of objects" format that is a mandatory read-write STANDARD, and not dependent on it's resource. I know, object oriented design implies that one program should be able to do all actions that there is to do with everything. This is like expecting VI to compile it's source files. How about the ability to read a Picture Description Language (PDL) such as PostScript, NAPLPS, or ? >Transferring something between them >reduces it to a PICT, not objects. >Is there a format for objects on the >clipboard, which defaults to PICT if the Pasting program can't handle it? The clipboard interface should be the PDL format. It would also be nice to be able to have a "text" version of the PDL. That way, one could draw using "mouse and windows", filter, duplicate, or whatever with a text editor, and edit this with "mouse and windows" again. >Enough griping...next year I will learn how to do this myself while I am Good Ideas, not griping. >'stranded' away from telecommunications in Goettingen, Germany. :-) If you do, let me know too! Maybe MacDraw is OK, but some new "general purpose" applications need to be written. Just a suggestion: Has anyone looked at the superplot package posted to net.sources? Does anyone think they could come up with a generator/interpreter using the "list of objects" or "quickdraw calls" to one of these other formats? Imagine a U.N. meeting with no interpreters. Such is the state of Mac software. If there were one or more interpreters, the Mac would be Irresistable.
sam@cci632.UUCP (Sam Mantel) (06/09/86)
In article <449@ccird1.UUCP>, rb@ccird1.UUCP (Rex Ballard) writes: > Imagine a U.N. meeting with no interpreters. Such is the state of > Mac software. If there were one or more interpreters, the Mac would > be Irresistable. On any modern computer of any size, the operating system functions as this "UN Interpreter." The mac goes much further than this; namely, the Macintosh Development Guidelines published in Inside Macintosh, the clipboard, and desk accessories, the ROM, the OS, the scrapbook, etc., etc. Because of these "interpreters," the state of Mac software can be nothing other than thriving (of course there is room for strides to be made), and the MAC IS irresistable (in my humble opinion). Sam Mantel -- Roch, NY "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, no matter how wrong is may be." Dr. Samuel J. Mantel, Jr.