[comp.text.desktop] Ventura Pub Gold 4 Windows update

asmith@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Adam Smith) (11/14/90)

Update on Ventura Publisher for Windows...

If you remember my last message concerning Xerox's little 
"gift" to the graphics community, you'll recall that I was 
something less than impressed with it.

Not much has changed--I'm just a little *less* impressed is all.

Ventura Publisher, if you can believe the articles that I've 
been reading in the computer press (you can't), runs very fast 
under Windows.
In truth, it runs quite respectably on a 386 with more than the 
recommended 4MEGS of RAM. I have a 386SX with exactly 4MEGS of 
available RAM and the program takes a shade over 3 minutes to 
load. I timed it with a stopwatch. A friend's 386-25 with 
8MEGS of RAM loaded it in 15 seconds. I suspect that I am just 
inside the limits of VP3 requires.

The good news (At Last!) is that screen fonts do indeed 
display when VP3 is used in conjunction with ATM. (ATM for 
Windows, by the way, is worth absolutely every penny). I feel 
it's a bit cheeky that Ventura works ONLY with ATM. Basic 
screen fonts are no good--the same goes for Facelift. While 
I haven't got a lot of good things to say about Bitstream from 
a typographic point of view, Facelift is obviously a worthy 
effort in a good direction and VP's utter lack of 
consideration for it is liable to upset a lot of users. A 
little amusing when one considers that VP3 comes with an offer 
for Bitstream fonts. (Has anyone pointed this out to Bitstream?)

Now comes the REALLY good part...

Ventura has a little trouble doing a couple of things. Just a 
couple of tiny bugs that I'm sure won't cause too many 
problems. You can't print or quit.

Attempting to do either of these things results in the dreaded 
"UAE" (Unrecoverable Application Error). Then the system 
seizes up. The inevitable result seems to be a hard reset. 
This effect occurs precisely the same to every user I have 
spoken to, and Ventura "support" (I'll rag on them in a 
minute) is NO help whatsoever. My strong suspicion is that it 
has something to do with ATM and printer fonts and all that 
stuff.

What really confuses the hell out of me, is how VP3 manages to 
get rave reviews from the computer rags. I can understand how 
they might miss the screen font thing. My guess is that the 
reviewers at PC World/PC Computing/etc don't do any real world 
design/production on it--they just fool around a bit, go 
through few tricks, load the capability page and try to print 
it, that kind of stuff. I would be very surprised to hear that 
they have anyone on staff capable of really putting a serious 
page layout program through it's paces for the purposes of 
reviewing it.
But how could they miss the print/quit problem? (My next 
test--and the last thing in the world I have time for is 
testing bug theories in my software at the moment--will be to 
try to load, print and quit without ATM, relying only on the 
basic Windows Times and Helvetica fonts. This may well be what 
happened.) 

As for Ventura support, I won't repeat myself from last time. 
Suffice to say that the 20 minutes that another user I know 
spent on hold was WAY out of line. Just let the swines TRY to 
tell me that my sixty days of "free" support have ended. As far 
as I'm concerned, that goes out the window when they ship 
defective products. Not just buggy--but defective. 

So my parting words...
If you own a copy of Ventura for Windows and have trouble with 
it, rake them over the coals. This company has taken a 
desperate dive and needs to be straightened out. If you are 
using VP3 for Windows without problems, please tell me. I'd 
like to know if this program is running for anyone. 
If you are considering buying VP3 for Windows, wait a few 
weeks and take a serious look at PageMaker 4. You could save 
yourself a LOT of hassle. (Too bad Aldus are equally pathetic at 
customer support.) 

Despite appearances, Ventura Publisher for Windows is not 
ready for release yet. This isn't version 3, its version 1.5.

All mail and comments accepted and encouraged.

Adam 

asmith@questor.wimsey.bc.ca

 

========================================================================
 Adam Smith                     Genius - Graphic Artist - Bad Mood Guy
 The Chameleon Papers                           Vancouver, BC   CANADA
"Human beings are a great disappointment to me and it doesn't help
 one bit that I am one."      (Deko 64)
========================================================================

Chuck.Fairchild@p18.f519.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Chuck Fairchild) (11/15/90)

     Not quite ready for prime time, you say? :)

--  

   	Chuck Fairchild, Chuck.Fairchild@p18.f519.n109.z1.fidonet.org
   	via The Black Cat's Shack's FidoNet<->Usenet Gateway
	    blkcat.fidonet.org   and   Fidonet 1:109/401

LJAQC@CUNYVM (11/20/90)

Still waiting for my update to arrive from Xerox; not so eager after

reading your critique.  We have both PM and VP; switched to VP because

of the vertical justification feature and a couple of other things (which
ellude me now).  How does PM4 handle vertical justification?  Also, is it
cantankerous, as you say VP is, under Windows 3?  I imagine what we all really
want to know is, (a) will a really functioning, mulit-application environment
be poss. w/Windows (remember the outrageous promises made about OS2)?  and (b)
what will it be like?  Great, so we all went out and bought 386 machines w/
plently of RAM headroom, but tell me, when will it be possible to drop down
a window in VP or PM and sketch out a little doodle in Corel Draw, or fix some
typos in WordPerfect, w/o crashing or moving at a snail's pace?  Is this
too much to ask?

spage@cup.portal.com (S spage Page) (11/22/90)

Mr. Smith's comments are bang on, 100% correct.  Our production people
struggled with VP for Windows for two weeks before putting it back in  the
box  and going  back to VP  under  GEM.  They  also had Unrecoverable
Application Errors.  Their latest suspicion is that it's some kind of 
problem with the bitmap Windows fonts (it crashes whether or not ATM is
running).

What we're going to do is run VP Gold GEM edition from Windows.  With 8MB,
you gain multitasking, and the product WORKS.  It's a shame to abandon
windows, because the Windows version has better keyboard shortcuts and 
fixes some of the absurd limitations of VP's separate paragraph and text 
modes, but we too have found that VP for windows DOESN'T WORK.

If you have the VP for Windows version and are having problems, call VSI
and **DEMAND** that they ship you the GEM version as a workaround.

Everything I've seen in my brief exposure to VP has contributed to my
sense that Frame Maker is VP done right, with a host of added features.  I
hope Frame does a Windows port,  though I doubt it.  We got a demo copy of
Frame Maker for the Mac...

=S