bernard@prlb2.UUCP (Bernard Yves) (01/27/89)
Although I do not want to start a software maintenance activity, but due
to the many encouraging mails I received and to the very buggy state of
the previoulsy posted version, I finally decided to send a new version
of NeWSillustrator I finished some times ago.
Most of the known bugs have been corrected and the interface has been
completely redesigned : it uses the 3 buttons of the mouse and an iconic
tool palette. More sophisticated functions have been added for lines and
curves edition.
Some NeWS bugs (e.g. pointinpath --> unexpected SIGSEV signal) which
used to crash the news server have been carefully bypassed.
This posting includes a new manual.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NeWSillustrator
---------------
NeWSillustrator is an object-oriented drawing program completely written
in NeWS.
It includes various object types with full control on line width, line
type, line color, font, font size, color filling... Objects can be
moved, scaled, rotated, grouped, copied, edited, clipped, aligned,
centered,... Postscript files can be imported (with the limitation of
the NeWS postscript interpreter) and generated for printing. Full
scrolling and zooming capabilities are available at any time. Graphical
input items (e.g. point, angle, ...) can be defined indifferently with
the mouse or alphanumerically.
Due to the interpreted feature of NeWS Postscript, many functions of
NeWSillustrator can be redefined to your convenience and loaded at any
time. However, this requires some programming experience with
Postscript and NeWS.
NeWSillustrator is written in NeWS, a superset of PostScript:
NeWS = PostScript (a forth-like language with powerful
graphics primitives)
+ Window Management concepts (events, processes,canvas)
+ object-oriented extensions (classes, inheritance,...)
For those interested, look at the code and expand it as you want.
NeWSillustrator runs with Sun NeWS window management system, release
1.1. It requires the existence of two shell variables : HOME and PWD
(current directory of the news_server process).
Starting.
---------
After loading, NeWSillustrator will ask you to shape 3 windows :
the Control Panel, the Drawing Area and the Tool Palette.
Make them big enough. Place them at your convenience.
Mouse Usage.
------------
Most of the input is made with mouse clicks except for text objects. The
general functions of the 3 mouse buttons are the following:
- Left button (LB) : to make an action such as inputting a point, selecting
an object, selecting a control panel item,
confirming, selecting a command icon.
- Right button (RB) :
The right button gives access to the menu associated to the
window except for the Drawing Area where it can have various
meanings:
- in a started command needing an undefined number of clicks,
the right button is used to end the click sequence.
For instance, during the definition of a polygon the sequence
of clicked points is stopped in clicking on the right button.
- in a started command with a known number of clicks,
the right button is used to abort it.
- in some commands (e.g. Select), the right button gives
access to the window menu.
- Middle button (MB) : used in complex edition operations (e.g. to
delete a point) in the Drawing Area. Other baroque usage
in the other windows.
Tool Selection.
------------------
A tool is selected by clicking with the LB on its icon in the tool
palette. The tool layout in the palette is the following:
Select Move Align Left
Rectangle Rotate Align Down
Polyline Scale Align ...
Polygon Copy Align ...
Curve Move Up Center Vertical
RoundedRect Move Down Center ...
Oval Delete/Ungroup Repeat
Text Destroy Undo
Group Edit
Import PS Clip
A tool is always applied on the current object. The Select tool is
used to change the current object. A newly created object always become
the current one.
The Undo tool is implemented for Delete and Destroy.
The Repeat tool repeats the last tool executed. It only works for
Copy. This allows to place objects at a regular distance.
There is a default tool which is by default Select : any time a
command is terminated, the default tool is started. The default
tool is changed by selecting a tool with the Middle button.
Not all tools can be the default one : only object creation tools
and Select.
Usually, once a tool is selected, messages are printed in the control
panel to explain you what to do and what happened. The message panel
item is at the bottom of the control panel. If you don't see it, move or
reshape the control panel window. Error messages come in the item
<error message> item.
For all tools and commands requiring file names (e.g. ImportPS,...),
enter the name in the corresponding control panel item (e.g. PS file
name) BEFORE selecting the command. For file savings, if the file
already exists, you will have to confirm: a explanation appears in the
message panel. Confirmation is made by clicking anywhere with LB.
Commands Menu.
-------------
Pressing the RB button in the Tool Palette or the Drawing Area (when the
select tool is activated) gives access to the menu of commands
associated to the window. The upper part of these menus are filled with
the same commands.
You can use the Scroll bar to scroll and the Zoom commands in the menu
at any time: Zoom In enlarges by a factor 2, Zoom Out by 1/2.
The Drawing Area
----------------
This is where the drawing is made. The dashed lines are the sides of the
visible area of an A4 sheet on a laser printer.
Tools and Commands Descriptions.
--------------------------------
Object Creation Tools.
----------------------
These are : Rect, Polyline, Polygon, Curve, RoundedRect, Oval, Text, Group,
ImportPS.
Rect, RoundedRect, Oval :
should be obvious; input points with LB; abort with RB.
Line, Polygon:
points are input with the Left mouse button. End with the Right mouse
button. Use the Middle button to cancel the last input point.
Curve :
curves are made of Postscript elementary curves which are defined by 4
points. You will be asked to enter a sequence of points, and every time
you input 3 points, a elementary curve is drawn connecting the 3 points
with the last point of the previous curve. The curve is ended in
clicking on the Right button. The middle button deletes the last entered
point. With some practice, it is easy to make complex curves with
straight segments (input the same control points).
Text :
The current text in control panel item labelled 'Text String' will
follow the cursor in the Drawing Area. Click with the LB to place it,
with the RB to abort the command.
The text can be edited before placing it in going in the corresponding
the item in the Control Panel: just click in the Text String item with
the left mouse button and insert text. Text editing is allowed with the
DEL, ctrl-f, ctrl-b and ctrl-d keys with the usual emacs meaning.
Group :
A group is a collection of any objects. A group is defined in two
ways: by a box (the default) or by enumeration. The definition mode is
changed in clicking in the 'Group Defined by' item of the control panel.
by box: just enter a box enclosing completely the objects to group.
by enumeration : select each object by clicking on it. End in clicking
with the Right button. Cancel the last selected object with the middle
button.
Objects in a group are not accessible individually : to select an object
in a group, you have to delete the group.
A group is depicted on the screen by drawing its components and small
squares on its enclosing box. A group is selected by clicking in that
box.
ImportPS :
This object type correspond to imported Postscript files. The range of
importable files is limited by the NeWS Postscript omissions (fonts,
pattern filling,...). PS files produced by Fig seem to work. Of course,
PS files generated by NeWSillustrator can be imported.
Files which NeWS can not display will cause errors -- see the message in
the control panel -- and will be (or should be) refused.
Again, before selecting ImportPS, define the PS file to import in the
corresponding item in the Control Panel.
If the file can be successfully loaded, it will be displayed on the
screen and you will be asked to give its bounding box. If nothing
has appeared in the Drawing Area, then maybe the drawing is not in the
displayed part of the sheet space: use the scroll bars or the zoom out
command (by accessing the command menu in pressing RB in the Tool Palette).
An imported file is considered as an usual object : it can be moved,
copied, rotated, scaled, grouped,...
Importation of Postscript file is made by generating an intermediate
file in your home directory with the same name as the imported file and
".wps" as extension. These files are not deleted.
Edition Tools.
--------------
These operations always work on the current selection. To set an object
as the current selection use the select command.
Select :
click in the inside of the object with the LB or MB. NeWSillustrator
will select the 'smallest' object found under the clicked point. If it is not
the one you want (because of many overlapping objects), move other
objects or create a group that you will define by a box enclosing the
object you want.
Groups are selected by clicking in their enclosing box.
Move, Rotate, Scale : obvious; use the RB to abort the operation.
Rotation and scaling use the origin point of the object as reference
point. The origin point is usually the first point input when defining
the object or a corner of the enclosing box. Scale factors and Rotation
angles are displayed in the Control Panel.
Rotation and scaling of Text is not perfect with some fonts and sizes:
this a bug in NeWS 1.1.
Copy : makes a copy of the current object. The copy becomes the
current object and you have to move it where you want.
Move Up, Move Down : the display order defines how objects overlap each
other. Move Up and Down change the display order and give full control
on overlapping. Move Up (Down) will swap the current object with the
next encountered object in the display list which is drawn after
(before) it. If you continuously apply Move Up (Down) on an object, it
should then become the last (first) displayed object (see the message in
the control panel).
Delete : delete the current selection. Delete a group but not its
components (i.e. ungroup).
Destroy : deletes a group AND all its components.
Edit :
only works for Lines, Polygons, Curves (and Text); allows to move,
delete and insert points defining the selected objects. First, select a
point by clicking on it with the Left button, move it and click with LB
to accept the move or with the RB to cancel it. Delete it with MB.
Insert a point in clicking on the line segment where you want to insert
it.
To stop edition click with the RB. Note that the first point of an item
is not editable.
For Text, simply correct the text in the 'Text String' Control Panel
item.
Clip : clip the current selection object with another object which will
have to be selected by the user. The clipping object should not be a
group, a text or an ImportPS object. The inside of the clipping path is
determined by the normal PostScript non-zero winding number rule. A
clipped object is implemented as a special kind of group: many
operations available on group can be used on clipped object (e.g.
delete, destroy).
Align Left, Right,..., Center : works for items in a selected group;
Drawing Area Menu Commands
--------------------------
Redisplay : objects overlapping moved objects are not redrawn when these
are moved. Use Redisplay to redraw all the objects and redraw them in
the current order.
Zoom Operations : Zoom In and Out by a factor 2 ;
use the scroll bar to scroll your drawing.
Font =>
Choose the font in the font menu. It will be the default font of newly
created text object and the font of the current selection. All the
fonts listed are not available on the laser. Also, there are problems
with some fonts in NeWS.
Font Size => : obvious.
Files Operations.
The 'Files IO =>' leads to a submenu with files operations. They require
the corresponding file name to be defined in the control panel before
selecting them.
save PS file : generates a Postscript file printable on a laser and
importable as an object in NeWSillustrator;
save Objects file: save all the objects of the current drawing;
load Object file: add all the objects in the file to the current drawing;
(Object files can be used as a library)
There are two other entries in the file menu:
Window Pos. : gives the positions and dimensions of the three windows.
See the Customization section.
Info : displays a short copyright notice in the Control Panel message
item.
The generated PostScript files are prefixed with a header string. By
default, this header is the standard Adobe starting line. However, for
including PS files in other applications (e.g. LaTeX), it is generally
useful to have a starting line containing the dimensions of the drawing.
There is a switch called '/LatexFile?' that when set to true will
generate as first line:
% Rotation=0,Width=...,Height=...,Xoff=...,Yoff=...
where the dots will be replaced by the adequate values. See the
Customization section for setting this switch. Change the format
according to your PostScript inclusion facilities of your Latex system
in modifying the format string in the source code.
Control Panel
-------------
There are three main types of Control panel items : text and file name
items, drawing parameters items and control items.
Drawing parameters Items:
--------------------------
They are : line width, style, join, cap, color, fill color, Rounded Corner
Radius, line arrow, arrow size.
Values of the drawing parameters are those of the current selection.
Change of a drawing parameter always affect the current selection.
If it is a group, its components will be affected.
Use of Sliding items (e.g line color): just click anywhere on the line
or drag the cursor to the required value.
line color : the gray level from 0 (black) to 100 (white).
fill color : idem ; the -1 is used for no fill.
Color of text is changed by the line color slide, but in NeWS text is
always displayed as black on a monochrome screen.
In the Menu associated with the Control Panel, there is the "Set as
Default" command which will set the current display parameters as the
default ones for newly created objects.
Control Items :
----------------
These are: grid size, grid on, snap to grid, group defined by, line
quality, click to move, and Message, Values and Error items.
Message Item : where message appear. Look at it.
Just below it is the Values item, which display mouse coordinates,
rotation angle, scaling factor,... Note that coordinates values are
labelled according to the fact that they are relative (e.g. the second
point of a rectangle is given relatively to the first one) or absolute
coordinates.
Just below the 'Values' item is the error message item.
The line quality controls the rendering quality of NeWS : 0 = low
quality but faster, 10 = best quality but slower.
Grid Size : the current unit is screen point.
Snap To Grid : clicked points will be snapped to the grid. 'Snap To
Grid' is independent of the 'Grid On' item, except for the animation mode
in interaction which changes whether the grid is on or not.
Click To Move : the default mode when you select the Move tool on the
current selection is that the object follows the cursor and you click
with LB to place it. In Click To Move, you will first have to click an
anchor point and then move the object. This is sometimes needed to place
objects partly outside the window.
File Items: obvious
-------------------
For writing operations, if the file already exists, you will have to confirm
by clicking on LB.
Alphanumeric Input.
-------------------
Alphanumeric input is to be used when you want to define accurate
geometric informations or when it is physically impossible to define
what you want with the mouse (e.g. scaling a big object by 200...)
In the lower part of the Control Panel, there is an item labelled
'Data'. At any time where the program is waiting for a mouse click
defining a point, an angle or a scaling, you can instead of clicking the
mouse, click with LB in this item and type the values you want. The data
will be sent after you have pressed the big button labelled 'SendIt'.
For instance, if you want to make a circle with a diameter of 100 units,
you can type '100 100' in the 'Data' item and 'SendIts' instead of
clicking the second point of the oval in the drawing area.
If you make an error (e.g. typing error, bad number of arguments), you
will be warned by a message. Be careful to send coordinates matching the
kind of coordinates the program is awaiting for : relative or absolute.
(In general, the first point defining an object is absolute and the
other ones are relative to it).
User Customization.
-------------------
At the end of its loading, before opening all windows, NeWSillustrator
will load a file ~/.NeWSillustrator if it exists.
In this file, you can write postscript code to change the behavior of
NeWSillustrator. This requires some knowledge of NeWS postscript and of
the NeWSillustrator code, but many useful customizations can be done by
just recopying and modifying to your needs the existing procedures (the
complete code of NeWSillustrator is the executable file itself).
Here is an example where the following changes and settings are made:
the drawing of arrows is changed to filled arrows, the default font to
Courrier, the default font size and the crosshair cursor are redefined,
the 'dash2' line style is changed, the 'Click To Move' switch is set on,
the Move command is redefined, starting positions and dimensions are
given for the 3 windows (the 'Window Pos.' options in the file menu will
display in the message item the positions and dimensions of all
windows), and finally the /LatexFile? switch is set to true
console (arrow\n) [] fprintf %useful for debugging
%arrow change
/drarrow { % size x0 y0 x1 y1 => - ; draws an arrow
% at end of seg
%this code will be copied in saved postscript files.
gsave
[] 0 setdash %plain line
dup 3 index sub %s x0 y0 x1 y1 yr
2 index 5 index sub atan %s x0 y0 x1 y1 a
3 1 roll %s x0 y0 a x1 y1
translate rotate pop pop %s
dup neg dup neg %s -s s
moveto 0 0 lineto %s
neg dup lineto
% stroke
fill
grestore
} def
%font and pointsize
/FontName /Courier def
/pointsize 10 def
%crosshair
/crosshair {
crosshair?
{x y 20 sub moveto 0 5 rlineto x y 20 add moveto 0 -5 rlineto
x 20 sub y moveto 5 0 rlineto x 20 add y moveto -5 0 rlineto} if
} def
% plain - dash1 - dash2
/dasharray [ [ [] 0 ] [ [3] 0 ] [ [6 3] 0 ] ] def
console (ClickToMove?\n) [] fprintf
/ClickToMove? true def
%update control panel item value; as CP items are not yet defined, fork
%a little process which will do the update after the Control Panel items
%will be created
{
{
pause
NeWSillustratorDict /Started known
{items begin ClickToMove? /ItemValue 1 put /paint ClickToMove? send end
exit} if
pause pause %let other processes run
} loop
} fork pop
console (Move redefinition\n) [] fprintf
%redefines the tool Move to erase the object before moving it.
CommandDict /Move get %the Move Tool
begin
/execproc {
/crosshair? true def
/erase fapply_on_sel
/drag_and_trans fapply_on_sel
Abort? {/display fapply_on_sel} if
/crosshair? false def
/commandswitch [/ClickToMove? ClickToMove?] store
} def
end
console (Window Positions\n) [] fprintf
/ControlPanelPosition [600 2 550 476] store
/DrawingAreaPosition [15 147 586 671] store
/ToolPalettePosition [847 253 302 619] store
/LatexFile? true store
Making New Tools.
-----------------
The menu associated to the Tool Palette contains a 'Make Tool' option.
In this distributed version, this is the only interactive extension
mechanism. It allows to create a tool template with its icon for which
you have to write the adequate NeWS code.
A tool is just an icon with some associated code. The icon is in fact
a group of objects made with NeWSillustrator. For the code, it is a bit
more complicated.
The procedure to make a tool is the following:
1. draw its icon (it should be a group) or select an existing group;
2. type in the 'Text String' item of the Control Panel the code of your
tool. For instance:
{ mytoolproc }
where my 'mytoolproc' is a Postscript procedure to write.
4. select the 'Make Tool' option in the tool palette menu.
5. Confirm for the code text
6. Position the icon in the tool palette.
7. save the tool in a file
8. edit this file and write the code for /mytoolproc.
Example : make a tool with the following code
{ (CouCou!!) prvalue pause pause}
select its icon: 'CouCou!!' will be displayed for a short time
in the 'Value' control panel item.
Tools can be saved in and loaded from files. Look at the corresponding
options in the file menu.
Frequently used tools files can be included in your ~/.NeWSillustrator
file.
Bugs.
----
There are surely many bugs. For instance, there is a bug in saving text
objects: if the text contains a '(' opening parenthesis and not the
closing one, the saved file (PS or Object) will not be usable. In that
case, use you editor and replace the '(' with '\('.
Performance.
-----------
On my old Sun3/60 -- with its own disk --, performance is quite good.
However, on Sun3/50 or others connected to a heavily loaded server, you
may have problems, the most irritating one being the lost of mouse
clicks due to the slowness of the system. On a Sun3/260, it's a real
pleasure.
Author
------
Yves Bernard
Philips Research Lab, Brussels
2 avenue Van Becelare, 1170 Brussels
e-mail: bernard@prlb2.uucp
Copyright and Warranty : read the notice in the source file.
----------------------