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From: ralph@mit-atrp.UUCP (Amiga-Man)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Object Oriented Drawing
Message-ID: <1492@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 27-Aug-87 07:54:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-amt.1492
Posted: Thu Aug 27 07:54:31 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Aug-87 08:59:14 EDT
Sender: usenet@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: ralph@mit-atrp.UUCP (Amiga-Man)
Distribution: na
Organization: MIT Amiga Users Group c/o MIT Cognitive Info. Processing Group
Lines: 45


An unfortunate realization:
It seems that the presence of Aegis Draw and Draw Plus has blocked the
market for new versions of object oriented drawing programs.
                        This is a shame.
Although Draw Plus is roughly O.K. for driving a plotter, it is
poor on the screen and very poor on a dot matrix printer.
The primary problem is with its use of "stroke fonts" instead of using
properly scaled raster fonts. I realize that such a choice is perhaps
a good one for driving plotters, but most of us want to use
our cheap, multi-purpose, dot matrix printers for output, and most of the time
we'll be looking at the version on the screen. Thus, an intelligent raster font
scheme is better. And it oughta use Amiga fonts so I can design my own
heavy duty math fonts.

Now, I don't want to make folks angry, but any intelligent developer
who's considering creating an object oriented program ought to take
a long, hard look at...dare I say it?....MacDraw. Yep. This baby does
most of the job correctly. Now, why hasn't anyone brought out such a
program for the Amiga ? Bank bucks on it folks....it would sell better
than Aegis Draw Plus, because it would better address the average persons
needs. Don't get me wrong, Draw Plus is fine for a drafting house with
a D size plotter (and a 68020 souped up Amiga), but for me trying to
make figures for a technical paper it just plain fails. I tried real hard to
use it, because the advantages of object oriented drawing are great.
I just couldn't get useable output, and the screen fonts looked unreadable.
                               A shame.
I hope I have induced some developer, or budding developer, to consider
creating such a product. Oh, and while you're at it, give it a postscript
output mode too, so it can drive a laser printer.
Just think how useful this program would be. I had hopes for Aegis Draw
but they have been dashed. I'm now grumbling and using dpaint II, which
although it isn't object oriented, does give me clean IFF pictures.
But, oh, the cutting and pasting to rearrange drawings is brutal.
I hope this is the right forum to suggest such ideas....
(Yup, I'd pay $$$ for it too).

                                   I want "AmigaDraw",
                                       Ralph

P.S: And while I'm grumbling, don't make the program *insist* on using
4 bit planes ! I may want to use 2 ! Or maybe even 1, if I don't have alot
of memory. Don't be a hog like Aegis Draw and demand 4 bit planes.
Say bye-bye to chip memory when you run hi-resolution !
"The CHIP-memory Preservation Society".