#Quark 3.2
9 messages in this thread
Since Soft-Logik seems to be asking for any suggestions/wishes/et al, I
was wondering if anyone in your team was aware of QuarkXpress 3.2?
I was just at the Boston Seybold conference this past Wednesday where
Quark was showing 3.2. Suffice it to say that they have improved upon
their flagship product.
If you wish, I could fax you a page or two from their 3.2 brochure… It
might make sense to shoot for their list of new features.
I don't know enough about Quark or Pagestream to rattle off specific
things Quark 3.2 has vs. what PS 3.0 will have.
Needless to say, if you REALLY wanted to capture some attention, allow PS
3.0 to IMPORT Quark documents! 😉
Miguel ——– AP, AP, and away!
Importing documents is an extremely difficult problem. We'd have to first
reverse engineer their format (anyone attempting to reverse engineer our 2.2
format would go crazy—it would take a year), then we'd have to have a huge
block of code to import it. This is not really practical. PgS 3.0 will use an
open format (IFF DOC) which will be available to other companies and which will
support all of their features. If they wish to settle on a standard format we'd
be happy to oblige, but so far, everyone else seems to want to protect their
own format.
3.2: I haven't seen the brochure yet, although I'm sure somebody will upload it
online soon. If you want to fax me a copy, our number is 314-894-3280. Attn:
Mike. Thanks.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Of course the Quark loader thing was said tongue-in-cheek! Besides, from
everything I've seen in Quark up to 3.11, their file format is not too
efficient/organized, IMHO.
Hey, anything I can do to make sure one camp is fully aware of what the
other camp is up to.
There's nothing that makes me cringe more when someone says their product
is better than someone else's product, yet they haven't noticed that that
other product has been revised not too long ago.
For instance, I hope all the image processor people out there in Amigadom
are looking at what Photoshop 2.5 is capable of doing, as well as Kai's
power tools, a Photoshop set of plug-ins that greatly enhance PS.
Thanks for listening…
Miguel ——– AP, AP, and away!
It seems as though Softlogic is part of the problem when it comes to
import/export of files then. The data format for *any* program other than
compression programs should be placed in the public domain, so that other
pieces of software can exchange data with them. At *worst* the company
creating the data format should create a datatype under 3.0.
The data format for 3.0 will be a public format. It is called IFF DOC. The data
format for PageLiner is IFF DTXT. The data format for tags is IFF DTAG. The
data format for drawings if IFF DR2D. The data format is Art Expression is EPS
(documentation available on request, although it is simple and obvious for a
PostScript programmer). The only non-public format we have ever had is the old
PageStream document format, and we are the first company to use a public
desktop publishing format.
Import/Export filters are part of the program code, and are not a data format.
Printer drivers are also part of the program code and are not a data format.
Make sure you know what you are talking about before you accuse us of
something.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Yike! Are you SERIOUS? Soft-Logic has done more to support standard file
and object formats than any other company that I know of!
This effort is anything but trivial also. S-L has gone to a great deal of
trouble to support these "public" formats and not loose anything in the
power and capabilities of the programs.
Expecting PgS to have a "public" file format for the documents is er…
wild. At this stage of the game DTP is evolving far too rapidly to even
consider such a thing. By being the company that has proposed and
supported standard that allow the sharing of complex data structures
between programs S-L has done more than anyone else in this area for this
class of program. The process has been and undoubtedly will continue to
be (for some time to come) a painful one. Just trying to get DR2D to work
well between programs has been quite an effort for all of the software
authors that have tried and they have a ways to go yet.
Implementing datatypes is indeed a good idea but keep in mind that
datatypes is rather new and is not available for older versions of the OS
(an important consideration for software authors). Also consider that so
far datatypes has been exclusively a "read only" acitvity. A lot more
work needs to be done there before data types is ready for the job.
In summary, while your suggestions are wonderful (but overly idealistic),
you have attacked the one company that has tried the hardest to make it
possible for you to use other vendor software to manipulate the data that
S-L products work with!
-bill
Thanks for defending the crown Bill, but PgS will have a public file format in
version 3.0. (Well, public to developers at least. Just like you don't find the
IFF DTXT specs in AmigaWorld since it's such fascinating reading. 😉
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
If you have a PC or BB, you can get a working demo of Quark for $10. Just
call the company. (It's quite something, but their "introductory special"
of $595 is pretty steep.)
…..Nancy
From Edmonton, AB, Canada
I'm not sure why you're telling me this? Maybe you meant this message for
the Soft-Logik folks?
Miguel ——– AP, AP, and away!