Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!virtue!ccc_ldo
From: ccc_ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: PostScript vs TrueType?
Message-ID: <1112.26b420eb@waikato.ac.nz>
Date: 29 Jul 90 23:58:34 GMT
References: <1100.26af57d3@waikato.ac.nz> <1393@wet.UUCP>
Followup-To: comp.lang.postscript
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Lines: 48

In <1393@wet.UUCP>, capslock@wet.UUCP (Allen Crider) says
"TrueType is not a complete page description language."

True, but not the whole truth. TrueType is just one component
of a strategy which includes QuickDraw as the basic graphics
engine, and the Macintosh Print Manager to supply the complete
page description.

Granted the strategy isn't complete yet: at last year's Australian Apple
Developer's Conference I saw a preview--for a few minutes--of the
Layout Manager. This builds on two existing components of the
Mac system: the Script Manager, which handles the peculiarities of
non-Roman versus Roman writing systems (including both keyboard
input and font display), and TextEdit, which is a set of tools
for managing pieces of editable text (and which supports non-Roman
scripts via the Script Manager). To these, it adds extensive layout
functions, including automatic kerning, handling of contextual
forms, and vertical layout of, say, Chinese text.

The demo used the Zapf Chancery font, including a full range of
intricate swashes and ligatures which automatically broke and
rejoined to the appropriate contextual forms as the presenter was
typing and editing the text. Made the standard PostScript version of
Zapf Chancery look pretty weak, I can tell you.

What a pity the Layout Manager is one of those pieces that isn't
going to make the initial System 7.0 release...

I guess the point is, that PostScript cannot be made to fit easily
into a system like this--I agree it's very powerful in its own way
(I don't know much about the Display PostScript extensions), but its
mindset is so different from so many of the existing pieces of the
Macintosh system, that it could only partially replace some of them,
and interface poorly to the rest. It would only make sense if you
were building an interactive, WYSIWYG, multi-script, graphical
environment from scratch, so you could fit your additions around
Display PostScript.

The same thing is probably true of the OS/2 environment, which would
be why Microsoft is licensing TrueType for use there. Apple losing
"years of their advantage vis-a-vis MS-DOS"? I don't think so.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro                       fone: +64-71-562-889
Computer Services Dept                     fax: +64-71-384-066
University of Waikato            electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz
Hamilton, New Zealand    37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+12:00
To someone with a hammer and a screwdriver, every problem looks
like a nail with threads.