Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!amdahl!howard
From: howard@amdahl.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: MacDraw file format?
Message-ID: <5200@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 17-Jan-87 04:57:31 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.5200
Posted: Sat Jan 17 04:57:31 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Jan-87 16:32:46 EST
References: <105800001@datacube>
Reply-To: howard@amdahl.UUCP (Howard C. Simonson)
Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 29

In article <105800001@datacube> berger@datacube.UUCP writes:
>
>Does anyone have a document that describes the MacDraw file format?

I believe Tech Note #27 is the source of all knowledge in this area.

>I'm planning to write some code for taking a MacDraw file and convert it
>to other formats (in particular MIF for Frame maker, pic for unix maybe).

Don't ask me why, but the other night I wondered just how hard it would be
to turn a PICT format file into Unix pic format.  Well I have a prototype.
It handles lines, rects, roundrects (as rects), ellipses, rudimentary text,
and various opcodes that don't translate to a pic environment.  In the
process, I learned some hard, cold reasons why diagramming on the Mac beats
pic hands down (*I* needed no convincing).  The main problem is that pic is
vector oriented, not raster.  So you can't really "paint a rect" or erase
a rect.  Most of the best features of MacDraw/Superpaint/whatever won't
work in a pic environment.  The best you can do is reasonable transfer of
"wire frame" diagrams.  Well I have yet to implement polys and do something
with regions (does anyone know the format of region data?).  And improve
text processing.  When I'm done, I'll see if I can post it to the net.
No promises though, this is a software development shop.

-- 
"Plan for the future because that's where you                Howard C. Simonson
    are going to spend the rest of your life." {hplabs,ihnp4,nsc}!amdahl!howard
         - Mark Twain -

[ The disclaimer for this message may be found in my next article ]