Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com (03/15/91)
Earlier, I wrote: >>The structured drawing program GemDraw is much faster on a mere PC/AT. >>It gets its speed from having less options (e.g., text only comes in >>certain sizes, you can only rotate it at 90 degree angles, you can't >>strech, bend, curve, warp, spindle, or mutilate it.) Depending on your >>needs, this is either good or bad. > To which, Dave Hanie replied: >For any real professional work, I don't think you can possibly live with >something like that. In my work with technical illustrations, I need fonts >that are scaleable within at least a point of being perfect. That will >_require_ vector fonts, even though a program could kludge it and go faster >with bitmapped fonts, if it chooses to limit the sizes. Oh, excuse me. 'Real professionals' use vector fonts. And all this time I thought I was a professional. Must have been all those paychecks that fooled me. :-) All sarcasm aside, I got along fine without vector fonts for years. It's nice to have them, but I'd swap them for a drawing program that allows me to add text quickly (i.e., just put the cursor on the screen and type), and allows me to re-edit text after its on the page. ('Course there's no reason why one couldn't have both.) Vector fonts are great if you can afford the time penalty, but I bet there are plenty-o-folks with vanilla 68000 Amigas who would be thrilled to have a fast, bitmapped font structured drawing program. ---------------- Earlier, you wrote that you used ProfessionalDraw for the Zorro III bus documentation. Out of curiousity: how could you do such extensive illustration on a program that provides no way of drawing perfectly vertical or horizontal lines, and does not support 'Grid Snap'? I find these to be indespensible. ---------------- The following comments were addressed at ProfessionalDraw 2.0: >>>However, complaining about a tool being too powerful is rarely a valid >>>point when you claim to come from a business prespective. A business will >>>rarely make such complaints, and if the tool runs too slow, they'll buy a >>>faster system. > >>b) I disagree with your statement. A business will buy a superfast PC if >>they NEED the power of Ventura Publisher or AutoCAD. Businesses won't buy >>VP if they just need to do simple memos, > >Of course not, they'll use WordPerfect or something. You can too, but you're >not writing simple memos, you're interesting in doing things that are pretty >much only handled by high end system. Dave, you're trying to change the subject on me. We were talking about ProDraw being too powerful, not Ami word processors. My point is that I didn't need all its power (for text manipulation) but I didn't have the option to buy a low-end structured drawing program, because there weren't any (that I was aware of. Since then, everyone keeps telling me about ProVector.) And even if I had been talking about word processors: > ...you're interesting in doing things that are pretty >much only handled by high end system. I am not talking about any capability that cannot be done with a word processor on a PC/AT, which is NOT my definition of a high-end system. (I've actually done this work on an PC/XT, but its s_l_o_w.) -------------------------------------------------------------------- On the more positive side: everyone has given such strong recommendations on AmigaTeX that I'm going to give it a try. It will have to wait til next month though, as I've already spent this months software budget. Lee Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com
cseaman@sequent.UUCP (Chris "The Bartman" Seaman) (03/16/91)
Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com writes: < Vector fonts are great if you can afford the time < penalty, but I bet there are plenty-o-folks with vanilla 68000 Amigas < who would be thrilled to have a fast, bitmapped font structured drawing < program. But, again, the final output quality of any bitmapped font is limited, whereas a vector font is not. < Earlier, you wrote that you used ProfessionalDraw for the Zorro III bus < documentation. Out of curiousity: how could you do such extensive < illustration on a program that provides no way of drawing perfectly < vertical or horizontal lines, and does not support 'Grid Snap'? I < find these to be indespensible. I beg to differ on these points. Professional Draw 2.0 does indeed 'draw perfectly vertical and horizontal lines', as well as supporting grid snap (which IS indispensable). < >>A business will buy a superfast PC if < >>they NEED the power of Ventura Publisher or AutoCAD. Businesses won't buy < >>VP if they just need to do simple memos, < > < >Of course not, they'll use WordPerfect or something. You can too, but you're < >not writing simple memos, you're interesting in doing things that are pretty < >much only handled by high end system. < < Dave, you're trying to change the subject on me. We were talking about < ProDraw being too powerful, not Ami word processors. My point is that I < didn't need all its power (for text manipulation) but I didn't have the < option to buy a low-end structured drawing program, because < there weren't any (that I was aware of. Since then, everyone keeps < telling me about ProVector.) I think Dave's point was that no one is going to intentionally buy an overpowered product (when there are alternatives). It sounds as though he was agreeing with your statement. < I am not talking about any capability that cannot be done with a word < processor on a PC/AT, which is NOT my definition of a high-end system. < (I've actually done this work on an PC/XT, but its s_l_o_w.) Could you elaborate on this? Which MS-DOS word processor have you used that supported importing of structured drawings (with vector fonts, if possible)? I have never seen such a beast. < On the more positive side: everyone has given such strong recommendations < on AmigaTeX that I'm going to give it a try. It will have to wait til next < month though, as I've already spent this months software budget. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Regards, Chris -- Chris (Insert phrase here) Seaman | o\ /o See cseaman@sequent.com <or> | || "Attack of the Killer Smiley"! ...!uunet!sequent!cseaman | \vvvvvv/ Coming Soon | \____/ to a newsgroup near you!
Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com (03/17/91)
>Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com writes: >< Vector fonts are great if you can afford the time >< penalty, but I bet there are plenty-o-folks with vanilla 68000 Amigas >< who would be thrilled to have a fast, bitmapped font structured drawing >< program. > >But, again, the final output quality of any bitmapped font is limited, >whereas a vector font is not. I have seen *excellent* output quality from bitmap fonts, the key is that the bitmap used on the screen is *NOT* the bitmap sent to the printer. A higher smoother resolution bitmap is what is printed. Granted, this does limit the size of your text (you only get the sizes they provide, no scaling) but its FAST! on the screen, and as long as you don't want to do anything fancy, like bending, warping, etc. of text, it works great. > >< Earlier, you wrote that you used ProfessionalDraw for the Zorro III bus >< documentation. Out of curiousity: how could you do such extensive >< illustration on a program that provides no way of drawing perfectly >< vertical or horizontal lines, and does not support 'Grid Snap'? I >< find these to be indespensible. > >I beg to differ on these points. Professional Draw 2.0 does indeed >'draw perfectly vertical and horizontal lines', as well as supporting >grid snap (which IS indispensable). HOW? On what page of the manual is this described? I RTFM, and have not been able to locate this feature. I've tried calling Gold Disk's support line 5 times this week for just this question (always busy, I never got through.) > >< >>A business will buy a superfast PC if >< >>they NEED the power of Ventura Publisher or AutoCAD. Businesses won't buy >< >>VP if they just need to do simple memos, >< > >< >Of course not, they'll use WordPerfect or something. You can too, but you're >< >not writing simple memos, you're interesting in doing things that are pretty >< >much only handled by high end system. >< >< Dave, you're trying to change the subject on me. We were talking about >< ProDraw being too powerful, not Ami word processors. My point is that I >< didn't need all its power (for text manipulation) but I didn't have the >< option to buy a low-end structured drawing program, because >< there weren't any (that I was aware of. Since then, everyone keeps >< telling me about ProVector.) > >I think Dave's point was that no one is going to intentionally buy an >overpowered product (when there are alternatives). It sounds as >though he was agreeing with your statement. > >< I am not talking about any capability that cannot be done with a word >< processor on a PC/AT, which is NOT my definition of a high-end system. >< (I've actually done this work on an PC/XT, but its s_l_o_w.) > >Could you elaborate on this? Which MS-DOS word processor have you used >that supported importing of structured drawings (with vector fonts, if >possible)? I have never seen such a beast. Lotus Manuscript is a full featured word processor that imports encapsulated PostScript, Lotus Freelance (Lotus' structured drawing program, PC Bitmaps (I wrote an IFF ILBM->PC Bitmap converter once), among others. NOTE: The drawings are not displayed on screen during typing mode, but can be seen in preview mode. Manuscript handles footnotes, endnotes, tables of contents, figures, tables, multiple columns, structure paragraph numbering, and mathematical formula. It's not WYSIWYG, but its as close as you can get when running in PC text mode. And its plenty fast on yer basic PC/AT. Lee Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (03/19/91)
In article <40169@cup.portal.com> Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com writes: >Earlier, you wrote that you used ProfessionalDraw for the Zorro III bus >documentation. Out of curiousity: how could you do such extensive >illustration on a program that provides no way of drawing perfectly >vertical or horizontal lines, and does not support 'Grid Snap'? I >find these to be indespensible. ProDraw did both for me just dandy. You can switch grid snap on or off as you like it, and pick the grid you want. While the drawing mechanism is point to point, as long as you have the grid snap on, a perfectly vertical or horizontal line is a piece of cake. >I am not talking about any capability that cannot be done with a word >processor on a PC/AT, which is NOT my definition of a high-end system. >(I've actually done this work on an PC/XT, but its s_l_o_w.) Just because a program works on a particular system does not mean that it was intended to be reasonable on that system, as your mention of the PC/XT points out. All the DTP and CAD programs for the Amiga work just fine on an A500 hooked up to your TV set, with a little extra memory added. That doesn't mean such programs are really suitable for professional work at that level. I use the fastest Amigas around and sharp monochrome 1000x800 displays for DTP work, and it does make a big difference. Just about all the drawing you seem to be interested in can be handled just dandy by most of the bitmapped drawing programs, like DPaint3 (keep in mind that most modern programs of this type let you work on very large bitmaps). If you don't care about vectored fonts, and just need lines and boxes, I still don't think you really need a vectored drawing program. I think the excellence of the bitmapped drawing programs on the Amiga has been responsible for most of the vectored programs aiming for the high end drawing or CAD markets. In fact, I did use DPaint for my technical drawing for quite awhile. It did the job, and looked very nice. I couldn't possibly use it to draw a detailed mechanical spec, like the shape of a Zorro III card, so when I got into that, I switched to ProDraw, and ultimately converted all my bitmapped drawings over to vector format. It's all much better looking now that it once was, but even waveform drawings are more complex than the stuff you seem to be into. >On the more positive side: everyone has given such strong recommendations >on AmigaTeX that I'm going to give it a try. It will have to wait til next >month though, as I've already spent this months software budget. Our QA group uses it for all their documentation, and they yell at me for wasting time with ProPage and PostScript. From what I have learned fooling around with AmigaTeX, they're probably right, at least for any documents larger than 25 pages or so. >Lee Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "What works for me might work for you" -Jimmy Buffett