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From: john@RENOIR.BERKELEY.EDU (John Coker)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: X PostScript previewer (again)
Message-ID: <8709152340.AA01411@renoir.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Tue, 15-Sep-87 19:40:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: renoir.8709152340.AA01411
Posted: Tue Sep 15 19:40:25 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Sep-87 01:26:43 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 49


    Since a message I would like to respond to was send to this alias, I will
followup to the alias also.

> From: lll-crg.arpa!brooks@lll-lcc.arpa  (Eugene D. Brooks III)
> Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
> Subject: Re: X PostScript previewer (again)
> To: xpert@athena.mit.edu
>
> In article <2953@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
> >Will the sources be free [freedom, not cost], or is the state-owned
> >University of California getting into the commercial software business?
>
> Who frigging cares!  If ups in its released form can preview my ditroff->
> postscript output (which it currently can't) I would be willing to pay
> hard cache (pun intended) for the rights to use it.

    Previewing psdit output was a use I hadn't considered for a PostScript
previewer.  In retrospect it makes sense, but I don't think it's practical
for several reasons:

    1)	We don't have the LaserWriter font shapes, and probably never will.
	UPS is almost useless for previewing large amounts of text
	(each character print as the bounding box of its image).

    2)	Speed.  This may not be that much of a problem, but certain obvious
	optimizations for document previewing are not made by a general
	PS interpreter).

    3)	Legibility.  Scan-converted characters which are 10-20 pixels high
	high are going to be difficult to distinguish (if it's possible to
	distinguish them at all).

    4)	it seems to me that ditroff->PS->previewing is putting an expensive
	and unnecessary step in the previewing process.  Why not just a
	troff previewer for X?

What the troff world needs is a good troff previewer for X.  There is at least
one for TeX (which we use here).  For one thing, you want raster fonts and
document page cacheing at the very least.

    On the subject of U of C selling software.  It might, but UPS sources will
be availble for a nominal cost when version 1.0 emerges.  Until then, it's
easier for me not to have to deal with other people's ports/enhancements.
I will welcome ports, etc. when there is a sound and stable basis to work from.
And, in case you didn't know, the Regents of the University of California is
a corporation, which can own software (among other things).

						John