#ProDraw upgrade?
25 messages in this thread
Darlene … is there a newer version of ProDraw around?
I have v2.0, dated 26th May 1990, and it is so terribly buggy that it
becoming less and less useful to me.
I sometimes get strange artefacts appearing on the screen, I try to drag
objects and their image is offset from where it should be, deeleting
control points sometimes changes complete shapes (I had a letter D last
night, deleted a single control point and it turned into a perfect circle),
subpaths within text characters fail to control the fill once they're
ungrouped … and this is only a few!
Is Gold Disk working on an upgrade? I hope so, as ProDraw is extremely
useful!
Thanks
Mike (Whapping from the UK)
Mike, I just got ProDraw 2.1 in the mail. It is a free upgrade if your a
registered owner. Give them a call or write them. I don't know if the 800
order number works from UK. BTW does the keyboard equivalent [ALT] W work
for you? Its suppose to toggle the wireframe option ON/OFF. But it doesn't
work for me in ProDraw 2.1 or ProPage2.1.
Chris
Chris:
That's probably our MI-NA1 keymap killing your ALT W for GD's products. If
you don't need the MI-NA1 keymap to call extra characters, you're better
off getting rid of it. Sorry (just GD making wild assumptions about the
keymap again…:(
Gary
– Mirror Image Prod. (416) 495-7469, via WHAP!
Gary,
Thanks for the info on the keymap, BTW for some unknown reason,
MIFont has begun to iconize instead of quit!? I can't figure it out! I
haven't changed anything in my config that I can tell. But I like it!
One other question, I saw someone having trouble with Sonata, so I loaded
it up into MIFont, MI-Outline and MI-MI2!, made all the files. And then
tried out the VisualReferenceFiles. The thing printed to Post but barely
any of the characters imaged. Oh a couple on the first page, maybe three on
the chart, but mostly just the key presses printed, no typeface
representatives. ProDraw produces them fine with its Pdrawfont. And
Pagestream draws them in its screen, but PPage's screen font doesn't
display. Any thoughts on how to fix it?
chris
Chris:
Hmmm, I don't know why the VI didn't work for Sonata; that's one we tried
here during beta testing and worked okay. One of things alot of people
don't realize is that Sonata has very unusual conventions in it; you can't
just use it like a regular font. Basically, it's made up of, by and large,
"partial" characters, which are designed to be printed in certain
combinations, side by side, to produce particular musical notations. That
is, many of the individual characters are meaningless scribbles on their
own. The reason the PPage font doesn't look like it shows up is that the
bitmap fonts for Sonata (and this true with "Carta" as well), have
incredibly huge bounding boxes, within which reside very tiny characters.
What I mean is, there is one character in Sonata which is maybe 4 or 5
times as tall as any other character, and another which is 4 or 5 times as
wide as any other character. Since bitmap font characters must reside in a
bounding box, the rest of the chars tend to look very tiny as compared to
the box. PPage, unfortunately, doesn't really know what to do with a font
like this. It assumes that the characters pretty much fill up the bbox. To
make matters worse, the smallest point size for the bitmaps (36 or
something, I think) is much bigger than the size you probably tried it at
(12, maybe?), so that PPage scales these huge bitmaps, containing little
characters, down to 1/2 or 1/3 their original size! The thing is that the
characters really WERE there on the screen and you could have printed them
out; you just wouldn't be able to really use them effectively. Again, all
this goes for Carta too. How it works on the Mac, I dunno'. But they handle
bitmaps totally differently (probably some additional info in the font file
used by their OS to accomodate the unusual bitmap). So when it comes to
Sonata and Carta, I would recommend staying away from PPage and use the
Type 1's in PageStream.
Hope that helps,
Gary
– Mirror Image Prod. (416) 495-7469, via WHAP!
Gary,
I tried to use the point sizes that MIFONT generated for Sonata. I will
use it in Pagestream and forget about using it in PPage. Of course PDraw
works OK. I don't know about the VI files. Oh well, can't have it all, but
at least it was worth a try.
Thanks, Happy Holidays,
Chris
Chris … no, 800 numbers don't work from the UK. I do wish US companies
would give real-number alternatives for those of us who cannot use the 800
numbers. It is so very frustrating to want to get in touch with a company
and only have an 800 numbers.
Yes, ALT-W works for me on PDraw and PPage.
Mike (Whapping from the UK)
Mike,
I can't figure out why the ALT-W combo won't work for me on either
GD program. I'm using the Usa0 keymap in my setmap command.
Chris
Mike: PDraw 2.01…I'll send you it tomorrow. Haven't heard from you in a
bit. How are things? BTW Are you running "ARP"?
Best regards,
Darlene McLean Gold Disk Technical Support
P.S. Merry Christmas!
Darlene,
I'd like to get a copy of ProDraw 2.01 as well. Tried getting
through yesterd but the lines were busy as always. I am registered under
J.R. Bookwalter; my old address may still be listed, but my new one is:
3360 Mogadore Rd. #3, Mogadore, OH. 44260.
Thanks,
J.R.
J.R.: Consider it done. Have a Merry Chrismas!
Best regards,
Darlene McLean Gold Disk Technical Support
Darlene,
Thanks and same to you!
J.R.
Darlene,
While your here (?) could you answer a ProCalc question? THe ads day it
accepts DB III, Lotus 123 and some other format of spread. Can it also
output those file formats? If not, could you pass that along tothe
authors? PeeCee type spreads have both import and export for non-native
forms, but for some reason, Amiga developers seem to think only the import
side is important. However, most people who need cross platfrom/package
access need it both ways.
wmc
Wayne,
ProCalc won't take native dBase files. It said dBase in .info magazine but
that was a misunderstanding. What it DOES take is a database interchange
format known as CSV (Comma Separated Values). Originally, that was in the
menus as "Save As DBase" and "Paste DBase". This was changed to CSV because
it was thought that people would get confused with the Ashton-Tate product.
And, of course, this has already happened to some degree.
MultiPlan will import/export CSV and it's trivial to get it into (or out of
dBase). PCalc will import MaxiPlan but doesn't export it. It will
import/export Lotus files. It should be possible to get files from other
programs/platforms into PCalc (and vice versa) using Lotus format as an
intermediary.
Malcolm
Malcom, Is the CSV "strict" (i.e. does it ignore " marks or do " start a
new field)? Some have an "ignore quotes" which comes in handy from time to
time.
How is the database functionality of Pcalc as opposed to the spreadsheet
functions?
Thanks for the info, BTW.
wmc
Wayne,
I just checked. On export, all fields are enclosed in quotes and each is
separated by a comma (including one before EOL).
I entered this:
string string
15 +1.00E+15
2.32 0.0008
3.1416 6
the 3.1416 was entered as "=pi()"
..and the exported file looks like this:
"string","string",
"15","+1.00E+15",
"2.32","0.0008",
"3.1416","6",
which is how they appear onscreen. Changing column widths and max decimals
would change the result. (Actually, I still don't have the release version.
These are still referred to as "DBase" in the old copy I'm using.)
On import, no quotes will result in each line being placed into a single
cell on a "Paste CSV" operation. Paste File, OTOH, will start a new cell
for each space or tab (configurable) it encounters. So if you have spaces
in your string fields, you have the choice of delimiting fields by tabs or
ensuring that your strings, at least, are enclosed in quotes.
Paste File ignores quotes (well, they show up as part of the string) in
that it only starts a new cell for a space or tab.
The database functionality is the same sort of list management that's
included in Lotus. There are named criteria ranges, you can AND & OR by
putting things on the same lines or different lines. The database functions
operate on those records which match the specified criteria. And, of
course, you can set a criterion that'll pass all records. And it's all much
faster than Advantage was. It's pretty nifty! And friendly too. Nice for
those jobs that don't require a relational system or files bigger than
available memory.
I think people will really like PCalc and I'm eager to see the reviews. 🙂
Malcolm
Malcolm,
What does it do if you have fields with quotes in them misxed with fields
that are seperated by a comma:
"Title os the memo",author,recipient,12-13-91,14,123.22
How would PCalc treat such a line on import as CSV? (Is there an "ignore
quotes" option?)
wmc
Wayne,
I imported the line and it came in as you would (presumably) want it too;
the quoted string in A1, author in B2, etc. Interestingly, 12-13-91 was
recognized as a date! It shows in the cell as "Dec-13-91" and in the cell
contents box as 5094 (the PCalc's internal datevalue for that date) so you
_could_ do date arithmetic with the cell; i.e. search for memos older than
14 days, etc. The two ending numbers were numeric cells; if you wanted them
as strings, you'd need the quotes (same for the date).
It's pretty smart. I changed "author" to "memo author" expecting that the
two words would appear in different cells. But no, both words appeared in
B1. So although there is no "ignore quotes" option (at least in my gamma),
it does seem pretty forgiving of them.
One more note that may be important: When I changed "123.22" to
"123.22-12", I wound up with "123.22" as a value. This is just what you'd
get if you entered it from the keyboard. Any expression is considered a
formula and must be preceeded by a "=". You _can_ enter such an expression
and calc it in the edit box, though.
As noted above, there may be some differences in the release version.
Malcolm
Malcolm,
Sounds like it imported the line just the way I would want it imported. If
the 123.22-12 was a section/para reference, it would be easy to quote it or
precede it with string justification char before import.
Guess I'll have to check out PCalc when it is released.
wmc
Wayne: Professional Calc will export Lotus 1-2-3. I will have to double
check the other file formats and get back to you. It does have full ARexx
support., can export charts as PDraw clips, IFF bitmaps, Ageis draw clips
and EPS file formats.
Have a great Christmas!
Darlene McLean Gold Disk Technical Support
Darlene, Sounds like a good product. I am interested in replacing the
spread and DB package I now have. PCalc may be the thing.
wmc
Dar:
When's ProCalc going to start shipping?
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Thanks, Darlene … I appreciate that.
I've been very busy lately with one thing and another. As you may know, I
work for BBC Radio here in London, and we are going through a very busy and
difficult time.
It's not helped that my office, which has four Acorn "BBC micro" computers,
has now acquired two Compaq 386s … and I'm having to learn about this
antiquated PC technology. The PCs are connected to a huge Ethernet
(currently around 1500 users, but soon to expand to 5000) and are going to
be invaluable and I guess I'm going to have to do a lot of the work to set
them up. So, I've got to learn about them 🙁
As for ARP, yes I do have ARP installed for when I work under 1.3
Mike (Whapping from the UK)
Mike: Good luck with that! Hope you have a great christmas! I have sent you
PDraw 2.01. Expect it anyday now… Arp> I do not know the full reason>
but… PPage and Pdraw do not seem to like it. Perhaps it is only certain
versions we are unable to find the comon denoninator on this one yt> a
finger seems to point in this direction however..
Best regards,
Darlene McLean Gold Disk Technical Support
Darlene…
My company is a registered user of PDraw 2.0, and we would like a copy of
2.01. Our copy is registered under Newkirk Products, Inc. and/or Jonathan
Hirschman. Let me know if there is a charge for the upgrade.
Jonathan
– via Whap!