liam%cs.qmc.ac.uk@CS.UCL.AC.UK (William Roberts) (02/11/86)
I have just received a copy of TranScript release 2.0, which
has a DITROFF-output to PostScript conversion program called
psdit.
Adobe have decided that it would be a good thing to add a way
of inserting something into the INPUT of this filter which
causes user-supplied PostScript to appear in the output: this
is a good idea and one I have implemented myself (yes, we have
a source licence). However, Adobe have added this feature
in an extremely violent and destructive way, i.e. one which is
NOT transparent to other DITROFF postprocessors.
The scheme is as follows: (Am I about to violate a non-disclosure
agreement? - I doubt it...) extend the DITROFF language by adding
the construct
%\n
your postscript here
this all goes direct into the output
.\n
THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA! All other DITROFF output constructs
are single line things and this goes entirely against the grain.
My own scheme was to add the following comment conventions:
#include filename
#%postscript command
which copy into the output the contents of <filename> and
<postscript command> respectively. Because the # means comment,
any unmodified postprocessor will ignore these instructions.
Another viable scheme is to add extra device control functions
or extra drawing functions to do a similar thing - most drivers
simply ignore functions that they don't support.
IF WE ALL BOYCOTT THIS SCHEME, MAYBE ADOBE WILL CHANGE IT INTO
SOMETHING MORE SENSIBLE.....
-------
William Roberts ARPA: liam@cs.qmc.AC.UK
Dept of Computer Science or liam%qmc.cs@cs.ucl.ARPA
Queen Mary College UUCP: liam@qmc-cs.UUCP
LONDON, UK