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From: zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu (Andrew Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Improv does not cater to the scientific!
Message-ID: <1991Mar30.053149.14485@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 30 Mar 91 05:31:49 GMT
References: <441dahla@yoda.byu.edu> <1991Mar30.032849.2659@agate.berkeley.edu>
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In article <1991Mar30.032849.2659@agate.berkeley.edu> izumi@mindseye.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) writes:
>In article <441dahla@yoda.byu.edu> dahla@yoda.byu.edu writes:
>>Well I was up late last night trying to use my new copy of Improv to generate
>>some power curves.  I am an avid Excel user and hoped that catching on to
>>Improv without reading all off the pages would be a sinch.  Well, no luck.  It
>>appears that Improv will only plot things that say sales, quarters, and
>>distributtion costs.
>>It appears that Lotus and NeXT are going after a new market of NeXT users.
>>Why don't we here from those business oriented Improv lovers on the net?
>
>
>What the developers can and should do is to provide hooks
>to which 3-rd party develpers and users can attach
>a custom plotting module.
>Why nobody has such a thing?
>
>Izumi Ohzawa             [ $@Bg_78^=;(J ]

Couple of comments here.  ( I am disappointed with Improv also. :-)

1.  Improv does allow the user to do scatter plots.  This allows a value
    axis on the x-axis, so you can do log-log, etc.  Unfortunately,
    the points can't be connected with lines.

2.  Improv might provide the hooks.  In the redme file, it mentions a thing
    called the API disk.  I called Improv and they said they would send
    me info.  (That was a couple of weeks ago.)

3.  Figuring that Improv was a lost cause, I gave the people at WingZ a call.
    Turns out that WingZ only runs under 1.0, and even then, they are having
    trouble shipping.  (Some lame excuse about not being able to get OD's)

4.  When I asked the net for a good (presentation quality) graphing 
    program, I got a lot of replies about gnuplot.  (Thanks to Mark Adler's
    email, it wasn't too hard to get up and running.)  Although it is not
    bad, it isn't presentation quality, and on the NeXT it isn't interactive.
    (if it is, send email. :-)

5.  One other person, Marko, sent me a nice little program he said he had 
    thrown together.  It would be a nice starting place.

    
6.  I have also heard that PowerPoint has been delayed, if not canceled.
    I have also heard from a CC that he had a Beta release.

7.  Lest people think I am being harsh on NeXT for a lack of a spreadsheet,
    I have yet to find a decent spreadsheet for any Unix (mach) box.
    (I was testing WingZ on a DEC Station today.  Wow, that was fun. :-( )

   My officemate had the best comment.  He wonders why Lotus just didn't
   do a cc on 1-2-3 for the NeXT. only half :-)

Andrew
zimmer@calvin.stanford.edu