Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!reed!barry
From: barry@reed.UUCP (Barry Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Textures 1.3 and CM/PS Fonts 0.9: Several Steps in the Wrong
Summary: author's reply, Blue Sky Research, long
Keywords: fonts PostScript installation
Message-ID: <15840@reed.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jan 91 09:09:28 GMT
References: <55@sierra.STANFORD.EDU>
Reply-To: barry@reed.UUCP (Barry Smith)
Organization: Blue Sky Research, Portland OR
Lines: 73

\address
Anthony Siegman
Department of Electrical Engineering
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4085

\salute
Dear Professor Siegman,

\body
Thank you, sincerely, for your comments on our Computer Modern PostScript
version 0.9 release.  Although I cannot agree with some of your opinions
(and by this letter hope to sway some of these), I appreciate very much the
candor and directness of your words.

I'd like to reply directly to some of your statements, both from your letter
of 18 December and your posting of 24 December, in arbitrary order:

\quote{should have been held off the market until it could be finished and
done right.} It {\it is} version 0.9, and I believe we have been clear that
we at Blue Sky Research do not consider the package to meet our own
standards of ``publication quality.''  We do believe that the package offers
very substantial capabilities not available elsewhere, and that by offering
it now in its current form we provide better service to our customers than
by withholding these capabilities while we improve the packaging. We feel
the product is easily of sufficient quality to warrant our unconditional
guarantee. To date, one purchaser has returned the product, because it did
not improve his print quality (and we do not make any advertisement that
it will).

\quote{installation of this package ranges from headache to nightmare.}
I agree!  (Although I've had much worse of both.)  This product has generated
{\it many} more telephone calls for installation assistance than any product
we've offered.  A surprising fact, to me, is that the tedious step of
deleting and/or copying fonts has {\it not} caused problems, but the trivial
step of copying fonts to the System Folder has been a major source of
difficulties!

\quote{Do I really have to put them in the System Folder? All individually?} 
Yes.  You do. {\it Don't blame us.} That's the way the Apple System Software
and the Adobe Type Manager work.  The Computer Modern PostScript fonts have
to work with other software---that's their purpose. The installation notes
do suggest using Suitcase or Master Juggler.

\quote{The Fonts menu in my other applications is already nearly a full
screen long.}  My own font menu, in those applications that create an
unrestricted font menu, is four screens long, on a large monitor. (Font
menus are {\it not} a good method for organizing a large collection of fonts,
and who would urge that we should therefore restrict our available fonts?)

It's fair to say that we did not recognize, before this release, the change
in perspective this package of fonts would require for some of our customers
(those not already working with a large set of Macintosh fonts).

Unfortunately, the current version of Adobe Type Reunion (a menu manager
that attempts to create hierarchies in font menus) fails to make any sense
of the Computer Modern font names.  We're talking with Adobe about this,
with a greater sense of urgency. 

\quote{Fonts are messy, muddy and mysterious! You gotta make this font stuff
simpler and easier!}  Agreed.  We {\it will} take the time, in the version
1.0 release, to more thoroughly explain the installation process and cover
more options.  You should understand, however, that in several ways our
hands are tied: we don't make the system software standards, but we do make
great efforts to follow them.

\quote{I love Textures} Thanks, it's good to hear from you!

\close
Sincerely,

Barry Smith
Blue Sky Research