mazu@terre.DMI.USherb.CA (Marc Mazuhelli) (11/16/90)
In article <2300.2743cc90@waikato.ac.nz> phil@waikato.ac.nz writes: <discussion about alternative to Canvas> >The main contenders, IMHO,are MacDraw II and SuperPaint 2.0. There are others, >but they are usually a bit short on features. > >Both allow you to "group" objects, so that they are then treated as a single >object for all operations. Canvas also has a GROUP command... >MacDraw II has an "arc" object, but it's very difficult to get exactly the >curve you want out of it. Canvas also has an ARC command >SuperPaint 2.0, on the other hand, has a "Bezier curve" >which can be edited in a similar fashion to FreeHand 2.0 and Illustrator 88 Canvas 2.1 also has a Bezier Curve tool, and individual points can be moved/deleted and new points can be added at will. >It also has "Auto Trace", like FreeHand and Illustrator, which has >adjustible sensitivity. Canvas has auto trace, but I haven't used it so I can't comment... >Text handling is pretty similar in both, and I don't know how Canvas compares. Canvas handles text pretty well. I particularly like the shortcuts to get at the font, size and style menus (you shift-click on the text tool to get a pop-up menu of sizes; option-click gives you style and alignment and command-click gives you fonts). The only thing I don't like is the fact that once you use special effects like sqew, perspective or distort, the text becomes a bitmap and doesn't print very well on the LaserWriter... >Both have a variety of line styles, including arrows of adjustable shape at >either end, and dashed lines. Same for Canvas. >Both have an option to display cursor position and object size and orientation >in the current units. Ditto for Canvas >MacDraw II has the ability to scale rulers, and haas some other features which >make it a better choice for *simple* drafting (e.g. maps, house plans). Canvas has variable rulers, and a versatile SCALE command with an option to scale the line widths of the lines. >SuperPaint has the advantage of being an integrated "Paint" and "Draw" package, >and, at least over here, is cheaper as well. I like its interface better than >MacDraw. Canvas has "bit maps objects" that are fuly editable, and at variable resolutions (from 72 to 2540 dpi, including 300) but you need a lot of memory to do 1270 or 2540 dpi. Any object can be turned in a bit map and edited. It's a different approach than SuperPaint with it's 2 different layers, and I think it's more versatile. >MacDraw handles colour much better than SuperPaint (which is limited to the 7 >standard QuickDraw or ImageWriter colours). But if you are printing on a >LaserWriter, and/or don't have a colour screen, then this is not a problem with >SuperPaint. Canvas supports a lot of colors, at least 266 but I think it even does 32bit colours. I have a Mac Plus, so I can't really say... Another big advantage of Canvas since version 2.1 is the fact that it opens native MacDraw II documents. It also has and a very versatile layer manager and macros (you can define any object as a macro that is added in a menu and inserted with just a menu command. You can also ressize the object when you insert it). A DA version also comes with the package, although with memory prices dropping and MultiFinder, it's less useful now as it was before. All in all, I think that Canvas has most of the advantages of both MacDraw II and SuperPaint and it costs a lot less than MacDraw II (I'm not sure about the price or SuperPaint, but I suspect they're in the same range). I didn't like the interface of SuperPaint 1 (in fact I hated it; palettes took too much space on the Plus screen). I have never tried version 2 and probably never will, as I'm satisfied with Canvas 2.1. Moreover, we have standardized on Canvas at work (I was the one who had to make the choice...). We bought a few copies of Canvas when it was still at version 1.? and received version 2.0 at no (or almost no) cost. Disclaimer: I have no connection with Deneba Software except for being a satisfied customer . -- { Marc Mazuhelli | professeur } { internet: mazu@dmi.USherb.CA | Departement de math-info. } { <this space intentionaly ... | Universite de Sherbrooke } { ... left blank> | Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada }
gaynor@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Jim Gaynor) (11/17/90)
The two contenders mentioned as Good Macintosh Draw Programs were SuperPaint 2.0 and MacDraw II 1.1. Another netter added Canvas 2.1. Those three tend to pretty much sum up the QuickDraw-based Draw Program market. There are other contenders, but few match the price/performance/features of these three. Brief reviews/opinions: o MacDraw II 1.1 - A good, standard, draw program. Probably the best of the three for people who use an unexpanded Mac Plus, SE, or Classic. Has all the basic features, and then some. -Very- nice on-line help facility (same help engine as MacWrite II). o Canvas 2.1 - My personal favorite. Slow, but still acceptable, on 68000 Macs. Much more useful on Mac II level machines. Very full command set, follows the Macintosh interface well. Well-written documentation. o SuperPaint 2.0 - I'm just not fond of this one, although some of my friends swear by it. Unacceptably slow on 68000 Macs. The interface doesn't feel quite "right". Loading/saving a file is -slow-. On the up side, it has an extraordinary command set, and has built-in hooks for adding additional command "modules." -- Jim Gaynor - Systems Analyst 1 + "This is Serious. He is Lost. The Ohio State University ACS-FM-OCES | We must begin the Search at once." gaynor@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.ed | -Rabbit, from gaynor@agvax2.ag.ohio-state.edu + "The House at Pooh Corner"
sandy@snoopy.cs.umass.edu (& Wise) (11/17/90)
In article <1990Nov16.164858.24834@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu> gaynor@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Jim Gaynor) writes: > The two contenders mentioned as Good Macintosh Draw Programs > were SuperPaint 2.0 and MacDraw II 1.1. Another netter added Canvas > 2.1. Those three tend to pretty much sum up the QuickDraw-based Draw > Program market. There are other contenders, but few match the > price/performance/features of these three. I think UltraPaint 1.0 probably has the best price/performance/ features match. UP is Deneba's (Canvas' Publisher) competition with SuperPaint, and as such is cheaper than Canvas. It is very similar to Canvas except that it limits you to 8 layers and doesn't have the spellchecker, etc... Many of the dialog boxes are actually identical! To compete with SuperPaint, UP has a background paint layer, 256 color paint, greyscale TIFF editing, two kinds of curves: Besier and a polygon spline, plug-ins modules, 9 zillion floating palettes, blah, blah, blah... Since I have an SE, half the feature set (color and greyscale) are useless on my machine, but it is acceptably fast on an SE... So... whats wrong with it? The manual. I am doing the stuff DRI distributed with CP/M a great diservice by refering to the UP docs as a manual. First it comes dissasembled, and it took me about 1/2 hr just to get all the pages in the right places. More importantly, I have yet to get any useful information out of it, and with a program as complex as UP. I have tried. Lord how I have tried! /s -- Alexander Erskine Wise /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Software Development Laboratory /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ WISE@CS.UMASS.EDU /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\ This situation calls for large amounts of unadulterated CHOCOLATE! /\/\/\
gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (11/18/90)
> o Canvas 2.1 - My personal favorite. Slow, but still acceptable, on > 68000 Macs. Much more useful on Mac II level machines. Very full > command set, follows the Macintosh interface well. Well-written > documentation. I have used canvas 2.0 and find it to be screwed up. No other draw program I have ever seen would produce postscript that caused our printer to crash, or caused it to loop for 20 minutes without a result. I have drawn pictures in canvas 2.0, pasted it on the clipboard, and taken it to MacDraw II. Well, the picture was seriously distorted by this operation. The circles became ovals. The circles also printed as ovals on the printer. My conclusion is that the people who wrote this program have little understanding of numerical analysis and roundoff error. This can be a very serious problem when you want to draw two objects that overlap PRECISELY on a laserprinter. Canvas 2.0 exports bad PICTs. A frame with text gets converted into a frame, with a white frame behind it. In other draw programs you have to delete this extra junk Canvas has included. Canvas 2.0 does not compact files. I had some 3-d plots which took 300K in canvas. Finally, I decided to save them as pict and reload them, and the size went down to 140K! This was a big shock to me. Perhaps it stripped away annotated postscript, but this postscript was not printing anyway so I don't understand why the big decrease in file size. MacDraw II generates some "custom" postscript for postscript printers. I believe it partially bypasses the macintosh driver, since many problems do not appear IF YOU PRINT with MacDraw II. For example, when I shade a box and use a .5-point box border, most macintosh programs including Canvas will screw up slightly, letting the fill-shading escape the box in the postscript printout, by about 1-2 dpi on the postscript printer (making the box border look somewhat ragged). If you print from MacDraw II, you get the correct WYSWYG result. Also, the mac print driver seems to put an infinitesimal border around figures with .5-pt lines, so that if you (for example) inscrible a circle within a box, there is an infinitesimal halo around the circle. If you print from MacDraw II, this problem does not occur. I suggest you use canvas quite extensively before you make a decision to purchase it. I have given up on canvas because of its quirks for drawing precise technical figures, and now use MacDraw II. If you just want to make party posters, by all means buy canvas.
mazu@terre.DMI.USherb.CA (Marc Mazuhelli) (11/19/90)
In article <70100025@m.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: > >> o Canvas 2.1 - My personal favorite. Slow, but still acceptable, on >> 68000 Macs. Much more useful on Mac II level machines. Very full >> command set, follows the Macintosh interface well. Well-written >> documentation. > >I have used canvas 2.0 and find it to be screwed up. No other draw ^^^ >program I have ever seen would produce postscript that caused our >printer to crash, or caused it to loop for 20 minutes without a >result. > >I suggest you use canvas quite extensively before you make a decision >to purchase it. I have given up on canvas because of its quirks for >drawing precise technical figures, and now use MacDraw II. > >If you just want to make party posters, by all means buy canvas. Version 2.0 had a few bugs when it came out. That's why the current version is 2.1. I don't think recommendations should be made based on previous versions of programs. I'm not saying thaall the described problems are corrected in 2.1, but it's definitely better than version 2.0! -- { Marc Mazuhelli | professeur } { internet: mazu@dmi.USherb.CA | Departement de math-info. } { <this space intentionaly ... | Universite de Sherbrooke } { ... left blank> | Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada }