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From: matthews@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: What's WriteNow?  Does NextStep support fuzzy fonts?
Message-ID: <10575@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 25 Oct 88 14:02:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.10575
References: <1439@titan.>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: matthews@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews)
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 30

In article <1439@titan.> janssen@titan.sw.mcc.com (Bill Janssen) writes:
>I'd be grateful if *someone who really knows* would describe the
>WriteNow WP.  Is it emacsey?  WordStar-like?  FrameMaker or PageMaker-like?
>

WriteNow on the NeXT machine is apparently a port of their Mac version.
That version is a well-done, WYSIWYG Mac word processor.  It is not
programmable and (like most Mac programs) it relies heavily on the
mouse.  It does not have extensive desktop publishing features (by the
standards of the Mac market, anyway) but it does do on-screen columns.
I guess I'd describe it as a souped-up MacWrite.  The most interesting
thing about WriteNow may be the way it was written.  I heard that the
authors implemented parts of the Mac Toolbox in NextStep primitives, and
were able to leave much of the Mac code alone.  If that's true, porting
from the Mac might not be too tough.

>Similarly, does NextStep support fuzzy fonts as a standard thing?  This
>is probably only answerable by someone from Adobe or Next, I guess.
>

Judging from the glossy screen-shots distributed at the intro, they do
not use anti-aliasing to improve font display.  They do use the greys to
make icons, buttons, etc. more visually appealing, but the fonts looked
as bad as Apple's bitmap versions of PostScript fonts.  They looked
significantly worse (i.e. more jagged) than the bitmap fonts that
originally came with the Mac -- not surprising, since those were
designed with the screen resolution in mind.

Jim Matthews
Dartmouth Software Development