Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:35765 comp.sys.mac.programmer:8015
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!pur-phy!sho
From: sho@pur-phy (Sho Kuwamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: System 7.0 speculations: Hot Scoop?
Message-ID: <2397@pur-phy>
Date: 2 Aug 89 17:51:16 GMT
References: <587GDAU100@BGUVM> <26548@amdcad.AMD.COM> <24101@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <458@lloyd.camex.uucp>
Reply-To: sho@newton.physics.purdue.edu.UUCP (Sho Kuwamoto)
Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept., W. Lafayette, IN
Lines: 50

In article <458@lloyd.camex.uucp> kent@lloyd.UUCP (Kent Borg) writes:
>
>Want an answer in the form of a wild-ass prediction?  
>
>Apple knows that fuzzy fonts are better, but Apple has *no* intention
>of making the new font manager output fuzzy fonts.
>
>Never.  
>
>Rather, when they fix QuickDraw (i.e., give it all that PostScript can
>do, plus some) they will give *it* antialiasing.  That way, not only
>will fonts be antialiased, but so will diagonal lines, circles, etc.

Yes, I like the idea of anti-aliasing.  No, I don't think we'll see it
standardized in the near future.  I was hoping that when the Mac II
came out, they would at least implement an intelligent scaled
CopyBits, but they didn't.  I was thinking about this, and one of the
main reasons that anti-aliasing would be difficult is that the
programmer (or perhaps user, even) has complete control over the color
palette.  Try to anti-alias when all your colors have been set up as a
rainbow + black & white.

> [...]
>When will a new QuickDraw hit?  Well, I think they were at some point
>planning on having it be part of 7.0, but I don't know whether they
>still think so.
>
>Any of you have wild predictions about a new QuickDraw?
>
>Disclaimer: Apple has told me *nothing* about the future of QuickDraw.
>(Which tells me something--boy have they been tight lipped about it!)
>What I write here is an educated (??) guess.

We've been hearing for a while about how great this new Quickdraw
replacement (NuGraph?  NuGraf?) is going to be.  I believe it.
Postscript is no prize.  However, Apple hasn't even begun to issue any
guidelines for future compatibility, esp with regards to color
selection.  At the very least, Apple should commandeer *4* colors out
of any given palette, not two.  Assign them to be the foreground,
background, and intermediate shades.  If the colors are not set
correectly, anti-alising will be almost pointless.  32bit quickdraw
was nice, esp the dithering, but it is only a tiny step forward, as
far as I'm concerned.  When the new QuickDraw comes, it will probably
be completely incompatible with QuickDraw (like the new printing
manager) or it will keep the old quickdraw stuff around as extra
baggage, like the old color model.  For example, how would you
implement regions in a completely device independent manner?

-Sho
--
sho@risc.com  <<-- more calories than a big lump of butter.