Re: ANN: Graphos 0.3

[William F. Adams]

On May 24, 2:14 am, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo.mott...@libero.it>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> William F. Adams wrote:
>
> > I desperately hope that you've looked at Altsys Virtuoso / Macromedia
> > Freehand -- I'm dreading having to replace my iMac running 10.6 at
> > work --- w/o Rosetta, 10.7 won't be able to run Freehand MX.
>
> I think you are aim a bit high. There aren't many people working on it
> :) But I have used Freehand  even in Aldus times, so of course I can get
> inspired from it.

Excellent! Big things which I need are for the key-modifiers to work
w/ the pen tool:

 - shift constrain seems to be over-applied / sticky --- it should
only read the shift state when holding the key (to show where the path
will be constrained to) --- releasing the shift key should restore
freedom in placing the next node and it should allow one to place the
next node w/ some sort of systematic constraint (sometimes it overly
aggressively forces the node to be 90 or 180 degrees from the
previously placed one)

 - holding down command should allow one to move the just placed node

 - holding down alt/option should allow one to move off-curve points
independently of one another

 - clicking near the first placed node should close the path

Also, tool buttons need to highlight / depress and the cursor needs to
change to reflect the currently selected tool.

> It is work in progress... and open for patches.

I'm a designer and typesetter, not a programmer, but I'll see what I
can do to help.

> And complain at Apple for dropping Rosetta.

I have.

> Or complain for their
> continuously uselessly changing operating systems.

It's not useless if their stock continues to improve in price and if
they become profitable enough to begin paying dividends.

> I still run PPC, so
> my binaries won't run without Rosetta. But of course, recompiling the
> sources is easy. Why do you need to replace your Mac at all? WHy do you
> need 10.7? It is all your choice.

Because I do work which deals w/ thousands of files or pages or both
and getting a newer, faster machine makes that work faster and more
profitable and Apple isn't making any newer, faster machines which run
10.6 --- it's not something which is happening immediately, but it's
something which I will eventually have to face when the economics make
sense, or the machine dies and needs to be replaced --- I said
``dreading'', so it's in the future.

> That is why open source it is important: the freedom! You decide where
> to compile, which platforms to support... The Macintosh port of Graphos
> is my work.
> Of course it is also the drawback: people must work on it. No free lunch.

Agreed. I donate as much as I can to the TeX User's Group and their
funding of the development of tools which I use --- is there a 501c3
which I can add to my United Way contribution next year which will
fund GNUstep and apps like Graphos?

William