gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) (07/30/87)
Does anyone have experience with SuperPaint/MacDraw/MacDraft/CricketDraw in a technical environment that would care to comment on their relative merits? I used MacDraw for my dissertation and was not unhappy with it, but at work we had heard about how wonderful SuperPaint is so we bought it. I am less than impressed (for use in technical work). For instance, (in the draw mode - the only mode I'm really interested in) it will not rotate text (and cannot even import vertical text), making it useless for touching up or producing graphs; it does not smooth polygons, making it worthless for complex figures; it does not put arrows on lines, so you can't easily annotate figures; the arc tool insists on having endpoints at 90 degree angles (a failing in MacDraw, also); you cannot rotate objects at arbitrary angles (also a problem in MacDraw). I don't have a lot of experience with it, so if I'm wrong, please correct me (how do you get it to default to draw mode?). MacDraft overcomes most of these problems, I believe, but I understand that it is _still_ buggy (and copy protected?). My info is quite old on MacDraft, however. CricketDraw seems to have a number of great special effects, but most of them wouldn't be needed for technical reports. Any info on this topic would be much appreciated. We're currently in the process of a rather large Mac purchase for use in preparing technical manuscripts. Thank you, Robert Gardner P.S. It constantly amazes me how developers can be so ignorant of the needs of technical users of Macs. Everyone thinks of business or desktop publishing but not technical use. Another simple example: PowerPoint does not include sub/superscripts in its wordprocessor (though that is planned). Can you possibly imagine a technical presentation without superscripts or subscripts? Adding support for the technical market involves adding rather minor features (compared with the effort of producing the product itself), but developers seem to be ignorant of this.
howard@amdahl.amdahl.com (The Toolmaster) (07/31/87)
In article <5277@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >Does anyone have experience with SuperPaint/MacDraw/MacDraft/CricketDraw >in a technical environment that would care to comment on their relative >merits? Sure. >I used MacDraw for my dissertation and was not unhappy with it, but at >work we had heard about how wonderful SuperPaint is so we bought it. >I am less than impressed (for use in technical work). I'm less than impressed with it for any use. But, until I can buy MacDraw V1.9.5 (the non-brain damaged version as regards fonts) it seems like the only cheap alternative. I know a lot of people waiting for a good drawing program for the Mac. CricketDraw isn't there yet (no multipage and sloooow) MacDraft is close but again its sloow. The speed comparison is in relation to MacDraw. Superpaint is fast until you have a certain number of objects, then it goes into slo-mo. Superpaint bombs regularly. It seems to have something to do with grouping or really small objects. Oh, Graphicworks is neat but conceptually seems to miss the target. They seem to want the world to work in bits rather than objects. The question is, "Canvas." Rumor is, first glimpse will be at the Boston MacExpo. Hopefully, some netters in that area will give us the scoop on it. >For instance, >(in the draw mode - the only mode I'm really interested in) it will not >rotate text (and cannot even import vertical text), making it useless >for touching up or producing graphs; it does not smooth polygons, making >it worthless for complex figures; it does not put arrows on lines, so >you can't easily annotate figures; the arc tool insists on having >endpoints at 90 degree angles (a failing in MacDraw, also); you cannot have you tried selecting the arc ad using reshape. This should let the arc endpoints be manipulated. I am actually rather impressed by the arc manipulation abilities in MacDraw. Now if it would just put arrowheads on the damn things!!! (Whatever-your-name-is Software, are you listening?) >rotate objects at arbitrary angles (also a problem in MacDraw). I >don't have a lot of experience with it, so if I'm wrong, please correct >me (how do you get it to default to draw mode?). You don't, unless someone has a ResEdit/Fedit type trick. >MacDraft overcomes most of these problems, I believe, but I understand >that it is _still_ buggy (and copy protected?). My info is quite old >on MacDraft, however. Definitely old info, but as I said, get an accelerator if you buy it. >CricketDraw seems to have a number of great special effects, but most >of them wouldn't be needed for technical reports. Ditto on my last comment. >Any info on this topic would be much appreciated. We're currently in >the process of a rather large Mac purchase for use in preparing >technical manuscripts. >Thank you, >Robert Gardner My recommendation, either hang back and check out Canvas when it becomes available, or pick up MacDraw V1.9.5 and pray for new features. -- "Plan for the future because that's where you Howard C. Simonson are going to spend the rest of your life." {hplabs,ihnp4,nsc}!amdahl!howard - Mark Twain - [ The disclaimer for this message may be found in my next article ]
jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) (07/31/87)
SuperPaint isn't the be-all or end-all (I'm waiting for Draw 2.0, whatever
and whenver that is) but I'm suprised to hear of it crashing.
I used it daily to do about 80 illustrations, some of them very
detailed, and never noticed a crash in the released (1.0) version.
Now if you want missing features, how about:
1) Landscape mode
2) Arrowheads
3) Compatible with Mac II in 256-color mode (it requires 2-color mode).
They are working on a new one, of course, but I wouldn't want to
guess when or what it will be.
--
Joel West, (c/o UCSD)
Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA 92083
{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edujmpiazza@sunybcs.uucp (Joseph M. Piazza) (07/31/87)
In article <5277@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >Does anyone have experience with SuperPaint/MacDraw/MacDraft/CricketDraw >in a technical environment that would care to comment on their relative >merits? ... "Technical Environment" is a bit fuzzy to me. I do a lot of diagrams and such for Computer Science articles, tech reports, etc. I don't do drafting or intense applications that requires accurate scaling though I do try to be precise in my diagram layouts. >MacDraft overcomes most of these problems, I believe, but I understand >that it is _still_ buggy (and copy protected?). My info is quite old >on MacDraft, however. MacDraft is our mainline draw application and it serves quite adequately. As of the latest version, 1.2a, it is not copy protected. Not too buggy -- nothing major at least; more like quirky. Sometimes it doesn't fully erase portions of the screen; has a hard time selecting an object; drops out of text mode when doing anything other than text, like scrolling; it doesn't have those little lines on the ruler that tells you where the cursor is when moving objects, but are there when drawing them; always starts off with a cross hair cursor that spans the entire window even when "small cursor" is selected (a little cross which I prefer to the cross hair) but works fine once you select small cursor; etc. Nothing insurmountable. One very wierd quirk with our new SE was that it wouldn't change fill patterns. Their tech support directed me to turn menu flashing on (I prefer it off) and voila! fill patterns. >CricketDraw seems to have a number of great special effects, but most >of them wouldn't be needed for technical reports. I've played with it and all it really is good for is special effects. One small nice feature is that you can use different fonts in the same text object. Otherwise, when I tried doing real work, it just lay there like an old dog -- very frustrating. >P.S. It constantly amazes me how developers can be so ignorant of the >needs of technical users of Macs. ... I wonder if any of them have ANY user in mind. It seems that every application is deficient of one feature or another in virtually every discipline. To solve ALL problems usually requires at least two applications. Oh, well. Hope this helps. Flip side, joe piazza --- Cogito ergo equus sum. CS Dept. SUNY at Buffalo 14260 UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!jmpiazza CS: jmpiazza@cs.buffalo.edu BI: jmpiazza@sunybcs
dgold@apple.UUCP (David Goldsmith) (07/31/87)
In article <5277@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >...the arc tool insists on having >endpoints at 90 degree angles (a failing in MacDraw, also); In MacDraw, you can select the arc in question, choose Reshape Arc from the Edit menu, and drag the endpoints to any angle you wish. -- David Goldsmith Apple Computer, Inc. AppleLink: GOLDSMITH1 UUCP: {nsc,dual,sun,voder,ucbvax!mtxinu}!apple!dgold CSNET: dgold@apple.CSNET, dgold%apple@CSNET-RELAY BIX: dgoldsmith
eric@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Eric Fielding) (07/31/87)
In article <5277@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >Does anyone have experience with SuperPaint/MacDraw/MacDraft/CricketDraw >in a technical environment that would care to comment on their relative >merits? >MacDraft overcomes most of these problems, I believe, but I understand >that it is _still_ buggy (and copy protected?). My info is quite old >on MacDraft, however. >Robert Gardner People here mostly use MacDraw and MacDraft, with one person using CricketDraw. MacDraft's newest version (1.2, I think), out about 6-9 months ago seems to have removed most of the bugs, but some things are harder to use than in MacDraw, so we often end up using just MacDraw or both MacDraw and MacDraft to get our figures. It is no longer copy-protected (or did we use MacZap to put it on the hard disk?) CricketDraw has some very nice features that are useful for technical drawings, including the ability to rotate things but decimal degrees, draw grids with linear, logarithmic, or radial spacing, the ability to move things small amounts by using the shift key while dragging, etc. I have not used CricketDraw myself, but I hear that it does still have some bugs which bomb the mac. (Opening the DA DiskInfo immediately bombs under it) I did see a fairly expensive program called MiniCAD, that looks very powerful. It does 2 and 3 D stuff and works with different layers to make it much easier to select the thing you want, something that is nearly impossible sometimes with the other one-layer programs, especially Cricket, when you get a lot of different things in your drawing. I hope this helps. I can answer any other questions you might have by e-mail. ++Eric Fielding Internet: eric@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu -or- fielding@geology.tn.cornell.edu Bitnet: eric@CRNLTHRY
howard@amdahl.amdahl.com (The Toolmaster) (08/02/87)
In article <5305@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >Other than SYSTAT we have been unable to find anything that will plot >3-dimensional data (hidden line removal, rotations, contour plots, etc.). >This lack almost scuttled our proposal to purchase a reasonably large no. >of Macs for technical use. Anyone seen anything? > >Another product that would be useful would be a package of GKS-style >graphics subroutines (similar to DISSPLA) for use in MPW. Of course, a >lot of this is supplied by the Mac Toolbox, but support for plotting >data in 2- and 3-dimensions would be useful. Have you thought of leaving the bulk of the work on the host and using the Macs for graphic terminal emulation to produce the required plots. A terminal emulator like Versaterm PRO allows Tek4014 and 4105 emulation with ability to zoom and capture diagrams as MacDraw type pictures. This allows a great deal of flexibility and finding something host based that produces Tek style output is probably pretty easy. Of course, if you don't have a "host", forget it. >Although the technical market gets ignored a lot by Mac publishers/ >developers, with Apple trying to push the Mac II into the technical >market, I hope things start to change. (I wonder how the Mac II can >face the onslaught of DEC, Sun, and Apollo, though. Their prices are >now so low for volume purchasers that they were almost price-competitive >to our purchase of Mac SE's!! Software was lacking, though. Anyway, >that's another story for another message...) Buyer beware, personal views follow: The way I see it so far; Sun/Apollo/DEC? workstations are nice machines, but the software is the killer. Those companies appear to be heavily discounting now that they don't fully run the market and the low end machines are edging into the picture. But the so called "low end" machines still enjoy low end pricing of their software. Since a software budget can easily eclipse a hardware budget, for any machine, it still doesn't make economic sense to go with the so called "high end." After all, the software doesn't really matter. The hardware doesn't really matter. Getting the job done is what matters. Now, I'm probably about to start a war of epic proportions so let me just remind everyone that this is comp.sys.mac and if you have comments, mail them. Now, people will say, what do you about expensive software. They'll say that they *give* you UN*X on every machine. I look at that and say that's the problem. UN*X belongs in the backend, not on the workstation. The workstation is a user interface engine and shouldn't be bogged down with running UN*X. All it needs is great graphics and support routines in ROM and a streamlined kernel (preferably with multitasking) to manage user interface resources. Sounds a lot like a Mac (as soon as they work out the multitasking). So, what do I see as today's big challenge? Not to turn everyones workstation into a general purpose computer. Not to share the job among many workstations acting as general purpose computers. The challenge is to share the job among many dissimiliar machines, allowing each machine to do what it does best. And right now, it looks like the Mac is best suited to meet the challenge. -- "The value of knowledge lies not in its accumulation, Howard C. Simonson but in its utilization." E. Green amdahl!howard [ The disclaimer for this message may be found in a previous article ]
gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) (08/04/87)
In article <11292@amdahl.amdahl.com> howard@amdahl.UUCP (The Toolmaster) writes: >The way I see it so far; Sun/Apollo/DEC? workstations are nice machines, but >the software is the killer. Those companies appear to be heavily discounting >now that they don't fully run the market and the low end machines are edging >into the picture. But the so called "low end" machines still enjoy low end >pricing of their software. > True, but the ws vendors are now trying to change that by pressuring the software suppliers and noting buyers don't like spending more on a single software package than they did on the hardware, while Mac software prices seem to be going up, so I don't know how much longer the argument will hold. Quality (and usability) of software is still an issue, which depends very much on what you plan on doing with your system once you have it. Note, also, that it's usually only the entry-level (diskless) workstations that are inexpensive -- and they are usually not (cheaply) upgradeable. My original posting said that the hardware (_including_ a cheap version of Interleaf) offered to us by some workstation vendors was nearly price- competitive with our _Mac SE_ (NOT Mac II) proposal! The hardware differences are substantial (to name a few, speed, RAM, screen size, networking). The question remains: Can the Mac II (for workstation use, not document processing -- whatever those mean) compete? The price was right until just a few months ago. Now the Mac II is MORE expensive than most entry-level workstations. (I am NOT comparing equivalent systems, but rather operational systems. For instance, the Mac II can be cheaper if you need color or stand- alone operation -- many workstation environments are set up to share hard disks and, as we all know, you can do a lot w/o color:-) >Now, I'm probably about to start a war of epic proportions so let me just >remind everyone that this is comp.sys.mac and if you have comments, mail them. > Maybe someone would like to comment on what IS appropriate fodder for comp.sys.mac? Is there some other, more appropriate, forum where there is at least a remote chance that the right people at Apple will hear concerns from the people who will be or are purchasing their equipment? And shouldn't developers be concerned when they fear they are seeing the erosion of their (potential) market? Though we're all happy Apple is making lots of money, developers are also very concerned about number of units being sold into the markets they are developing for. Robert Gardner