[comp.sys.mac.programmer] MacTech Poetry

ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman) (12/05/89)

  Called in sick today, couldn't tear myself off the Winter 1990 (!)
  MachTech Quarterly... lotsa good stuff, as usual, also a treat
  for the eye.  A lengthy `Page & Picture' column on PostScript
  brings forth information of a proposed new graphic file/ print
  format, called `Hybrid PICT', that's already in use by packages
  from Adobe Systems, Aldus, Cricket Software and Emerald City
  Software (Illustrator, FreeHand, Cricket Draw and Smart Art
  respectively).  Other programs are capable of reading/ displaying
  and properly printing from files of this type.

  Unlike the EPSF format that, in its Macintosh' incarnation, consists
  of 2 separate files (the data fork holding the PostScript code while
  the resource fork holds either a PICT or a bitmap-wrapped-in-a-
  PICT) thereby making it difficult for other programs to know which
  part to decode and/ or print, the proposed new format makes use
  of PicComments-embedded "crunched" PostScript code that provides
  for mutually exclusive printing capability;  no need to go into
  that deeper than that here and now.

  Needless to say, the format is _NOT_ actively supported by Apple,
  which is a pity, considering the stand-alone-like features of
  the proposed method.  Apple, please, take note and act before it
  is too late!.

  Or, as Bill Woodruff, author of Cricket Draw 1.1, tells it in
  the column:

 "Once upon a time in the land of the Garage where happy boys
  contemplated integrated circuits rather than stock options,
  Apple said: "Let applications have a way to describe lines and
  shapes to each other and exchange them, and let drawing applications
  have a way to preserve drawings as lines and shapes rather than
  small dots and let this goodness be called `PICT'.  And let these
  PICTs be saved to a heaven on a disk and also to a special heaven
  in a special file called the ScrapBook through the grace of an
  angel called Clipboard."


  Wait, wait! there's more, that was just to whet you appetite!


 "If QuickDraw and PostScript are the capital cities of desktop 
  publishing (you tell me which is staid colonial London and which
  is revolutionary Paris), then the PICT and EPSF formats are the
  gold and silver metals, the hard stuff that enables commerce
  between different trading towns and the ports of distant nations.

  [...]

  The Hybrid PICT embeds custom PostScript in its QuickDraw description
  so that it prints in high quality when sent to a PostScript printer.
  It can go through the clipboard and be pasted (like a normal PICT,
  and unlike an EPSF file).

  Understanding Hybrid PICT's behavior is a good night-combat
  orientation exercise for you Mac software developers, power users and
  desktop cognoscenti.  It will prepare you and your... minions, regiment,
  staff... for the coming Armaggedon of desktop incompatibilities as we
  are plunged into the world finals of tag-team imaging model and
  visual interface championships between Adobe and Apple."

  --------------------------------------------------------

  Well, I'd say, it couldn't be expressed better.  Or less poetically
  (and can you imagine it uttered in context of the Messy-Dos graphics?)

  For more of the same subscribe to the MacTech Quarterly, 4 issues
  a year, US$ 30 (US), 40 (Canada), 45 ("foreign" surface), 60 ("foreign"
  airmail), worth every cent.  Published by TechAlliance, 290 SW 43rd
  Street, Renton WA 98055, (206) 251-5222. Visa, MasterCard, Discover
  Card, American Express.  No connection, just a-more-than satisfied
  customer.


--Ian Feldman /  ianf@nada.kth.se || uunet!nada.kth.se!ianf
             / "Let's get out of this place and nuke it from orbit" -- Alien

hpoppe@bierstadt.ucar.edu (Herb Poppe) (12/05/89)

In article <2469@draken.nada.kth.se> ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman) writes:
%
%  Called in sick today, couldn't tear myself off the Winter 1990 (!)
%  MachTech Quarterly... lotsa good stuff, as usual, also a treat
%  for the eye.  A lengthy `Page & Picture' column on PostScript
%  brings forth information of a proposed new graphic file/ print
%  format, called `Hybrid PICT', that's already in use by packages
%  from Adobe Systems, Aldus, Cricket Software and Emerald City
%  Software (Illustrator, FreeHand, Cricket Draw and Smart Art
%  respectively).  Other programs are capable of reading/ displaying
%  and properly printing from files of this type.
%
%  Unlike the EPSF format that, in its Macintosh' incarnation, consists
%  of 2 separate files (the data fork holding the PostScript code while
%  the resource fork holds either a PICT or a bitmap-wrapped-in-a-
%  PICT) thereby making it difficult for other programs to know which
%  part to decode and/ or print, the proposed new format makes use
%  of PicComments-embedded "crunched" PostScript code that provides
%  for mutually exclusive printing capability;  no need to go into
%  that deeper than that here and now.
%
%  Needless to say, the format is _NOT_ actively supported by Apple,
%  which is a pity, considering the stand-alone-like features of
%  the proposed method.  Apple, please, take note and act before it
%  is too late!.

Well, well, well: it looks like Aldus and company finally read Apple's
TechNotes.

TN  91 [Nov. 86] "Optimizing for the LaserWriter - Picture Comments"
TN 183 [Nov. 87] "Position-Independent PostScript"

Herb Poppe      NCAR                         INTERNET: hpoppe@ncar.ucar.edu
(303) 497-1296  P.O. Box 3000                   CSNET: hpoppe@ncar.CSNET
		Boulder, CO  80307               UUCP: hpoppe@ncar.UUCP

ejd@iris.brown.edu (Ed Devinney) (12/05/89)

In article <2469@draken.nada.kth.se> ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman) writes:
>   Or, as Bill Woodruff, author of Cricket Draw 1.1, tells it in the 
column [...]

I haven't yet read the new MTQ, but I must hope that this is a 
misunderstanding on Ian's part.  Bill Woodruff wrote important parts of 
Cricket Draw, but there were a few primary authors (Dennis McFerren, 
Georgianne Yashur, and Joe Zglinicki spring immediately to mind) and a 
number of secondary programmers on that project (yours truly among them).  
Bill Woodruff's work is amazing and essential to Draw's functionality, but 
he's not really the author, per se.

ed
(former Cricketeer)

++++++++
Ed Devinney...IRIS/Brown University...ejd@iris.brown.edu
    "They're building mechanical trees which grow to their full height,
       and then they chop themselves down" = Laurie Anderson 

lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) (12/05/89)

In article <2469@draken.nada.kth.se> ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman) writes:
>   brings forth information of a proposed new graphic file/ print
>   format, called `Hybrid PICT', that's already in use by packages
>   from Adobe Systems, Aldus, Cricket Software and Emerald City
...
>   Needless to say, the format is _NOT_ actively supported by Apple,
>   which is a pity, considering the stand-alone-like features of

I agree 100% that this is a good format to exchange pictures.

I don't know what you mean by "actively supported" but the necessary 
picture comments are documented in Tech Note #91, and the technique for 
making this position independent is in Tech Note #183.  That seems like 
supported to me.



Larry Rosenstein, Apple Computer, Inc.
Object Specialist

Internet: lsr@Apple.com   UUCP: {nsc, sun}!apple!lsr
AppleLink: Rosenstein1

ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman) (12/05/89)

 
In article <22204@brunix.UUCP> ejd@iris.brown.edu (Ed Devinney) writes:
>In article <2469@draken.nada.kth.se> ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman) writes:
>>Or, as Bill Woodruff, author of Cricket Draw 1.1, tells it in the
>>column [...]
>
>Bill Woodruff wrote important parts of
>Cricket Draw, but there were a few primary authors (Dennis McFerren,
>Georgianne Yashur, and Joe Zglinicki spring immediately to mind) and a
>number of secondary programmers on that project (yours truly among them).
>Bill Woodruff's work is amazing and essential to Draw's functionality, but
>he's not really the author, per se.
 
  My apologies to all involved, should have written "one of the
  authors of Cricket Draw 1.1" as it is expressed in the MTQ.
 
  Thank you for setting the record straight.
 
--Ian Feldman /  ianf@nada.kth.se || uunet!nada.kth.se!ianf
             / "Let's get out of this place and nuke it from orbit" -- Alien