G´day

As a preface I must confess to being a Linux newbie. The first PGS that I was
able to actually get to run was h. Things have been moving along and every
time I work out what I am going to say Deron uploads a new version.

So here we are now. I am running Mandrake 9.1

First impression is the look is a bit ¨clunky¨ compared to the Ami version. By
that I mean the screen real estate is taken up by the oversize window
borders. The toolbox, for example, is about three times as wide as it needs
to be in comparison to the buttons it holds. Guess that is related to what
you have to work with with Linux.

Good to now have the flyouts, right mouse button is OK Deron, but always
think of consistency, if it´s possible to implement.

An aside re cross platform font difficulties... I was wondering if it would be
possible to embed the fonts in the document much as you can in PDFs and
postcript output. So when you take your document from one platform to another
you can ¨save out¨ or ¨export¨ to a temp folder. Just a thought.

Speaking of fonts, the popup from the edit palette still doesn´t scroll if the
palette is below the page and the popup pops up. If you move the palette
upwards and the popup pops down it will scroll (just discovered that).

Fonts are duplicated in the list but not necessarily consecutively.

Is it possible to make a fonts directory within the PGS directory and use
those fonts? Or is that a limitation of Linux as in MacOS?

You can only make one frameless text on the page.

Letters seem to have disappeared from the alphabet, ie type a string of text
and there are missing letters. (Same fonts which were working in previous
versions)

On startup the windows appear in random positions still in spite of ¨remember
window positions¨

Keyboard shortcuts for align not working, you have to click on the buttons.

I am missing some of the other keyboard shortcuts from the Ami version but
given time they will probably be implemented.

I haven´t tested saving/loading documents yet. Printing was working in the
last version, haven´t yet tested in this version.

Enough for now, best be off to bed.

Great work Deron, from nothing to this in such a short time, WOW!!!

Ken

ken at kgh-jjh dot net

>First impression is the look is a bit ¨clunky¨ compared to the Ami
>version. By
>that I mean the screen real estate is taken up by the oversize window
>borders. The toolbox, for example, is about three times as wide as it needs
>to be in comparison to the buttons it holds. Guess that is related to what
>you have to work with with Linux.

Could you maybe send me a screenshot that showed what you are talking
about? The windows borders for PageStream don't appear any different than
in other applications. Also, the toolbox is no wider than the items in it.
Take a look at the screenshot posted on www.grasshopperllc.com and see if
you identify the same issue you are talking about.

>Good to now have the flyouts, right mouse button is OK Deron, but always
>think of consistency, if it´s possible to implement.

Well, as always there is consistency between different platform releases of
PageStream, and different applications on a platform. However, I don't
think much of a standard exists for flyouts ATM, so it shouldn't be a problem.

>An aside re cross platform font difficulties... I was wondering if it
>would be
>possible to embed the fonts in the document much as you can in PDFs and
>postcript output. So when you take your document from one platform to another
>you can ¨save out¨ or ¨export¨ to a temp folder. Just a thought.

Not very easily. Especially coming from the Amiga with CG fonts. The other
issue is that each platform has different installation steps for fonts, and
different formats/wrappers. While it would be possible to overcome these
issues, the development costs would be high. However, I think in a future
that it would be easy enough to save the font's character widths so that
Helvetica/Triumvirate/Arial/ whatever can be made to break the same (or not
depending on the users choise).

>Speaking of fonts, the popup from the edit palette still doesn´t scroll if
>the
>palette is below the page and the popup pops up. If you move the palette
>upwards and the popup pops down it will scroll (just discovered that).

On the buglist!

>Fonts are duplicated in the list but not necessarily consecutively.
>
>Is it possible to make a fonts directory within the PGS directory and use
>those fonts? Or is that a limitation of Linux as in MacOS?

Well, for example, the Mac requires that the fonts be in the system folder
(well, at least for pre OSX), Linux they can be anywhere, but they are all
added together, it is not like you can switch from one set to another. In
Linux fontconfig/freetype you have a file that lists all the directories
that are scanned. Then in each of those directories is at least one file
that is a "cache" of the font information that is in that directory. If you
add/remove fonts, or add/remove directories, you need to rebuild the caches
(which requires root privileges).

In fact, I guess this is going to need to be in the online help. Unlike
other platforms, it is not so easy to add/remove fonts. Of course, it is
not a PageStream function, so maybe it is best left to the system docs.

>You can only make one frameless text on the page.

That is something new! I'll have to check it out.

>Letters seem to have disappeared from the alphabet, ie type a string of text
>and there are missing letters. (Same fonts which were working in previous
>versions)

Yea, see previous post.

>On startup the windows appear in random positions still in spite
>of ¨remember
>window positions¨

On the buglist.

>Keyboard shortcuts for align not working, you have to click on the
>buttons.

Hmm.

>I am missing some of the other keyboard shortcuts from the Ami version but
>given time they will probably be implemented.

Well, not all shortcuts are the same between platforms. The Amiga has more
shortcuts than any other platform. Windows has the fewest. The problem is
that the ALT key is not available to all.

>Enough for now, best be off to bed.

Night!

>Great work Deron, from nothing to this in such a short time, WOW!!!
>
>Ken
>
>ken at kgh-jjh dot net

Deron Kazmaier - support@grasshopperllc.com
Grasshopper LLC Publishing -http://www.grasshopperllc.com
PageStream DTP for Amiga, Linux, Macintosh, and Windows

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On Saturday 15 November 2003 08:46 am, PageStream Support wrote:
> >First impression is the look is a bit ¨clunky¨ compared to the Ami
> >version. By
> >that I mean the screen real estate is taken up by the oversize
> > window borders. The toolbox, for example, is about three times as
> > wide as it needs to be in comparison to the buttons it holds. Guess
> > that is related to what you have to work with with Linux.
>
> Could you maybe send me a screenshot that showed what you are talking
> about? The windows borders for PageStream don't appear any different
> than in other applications. Also, the toolbox is no wider than the
> items in it. Take a look at the screenshot posted on
> www.grasshopperllc.com and see if you identify the same issue you are
> talking about.

I think this may be an issue for kde users (like myself)
In the default mode the toolbox uses the "Vertical Strip" format (from
preferences). KDE opens a window for the toolbox which includes close
and iconify buttons, thus making the window (almost 3x) wider than the
toolbox buttons.

If I open pagestream in gnome then the (Vertical Strip) toolbox frame is
the same width as the buttons as it should be (and as seen on the web
page).

Maybe there is some way to tell kde to not create a frame and titlebar.

I worked around this visual anomaly in kde by setting the toolbox
preferences format to Horizontal Strip"

- --
dh
Don't shop at GoogleGear.com!
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On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 02:46 am, PageStream Support wrote:
> >First impression is the look is a bit ¨clunky¨ compared to the Ami
> >version. By
> >that I mean the screen real estate is taken up by the oversize window
> >borders. The toolbox, for example, is about three times as wide as it
> > needs to be in comparison to the buttons it holds. Guess that is related
> > to what you have to work with with Linux.
>
> Could you maybe send me a screenshot that showed what you are talking
> about? The windows borders for PageStream don't appear any different than
> in other applications. Also, the toolbox is no wider than the items in it.
> Take a look at the screenshot posted on www.grasshopperllc.com and see if
> you identify the same issue you are talking about.
>
Screenshot sent separately.

The screenshot to which you refer is a Windows shot and is pretty much how my
Ami is set up and that what I´d like on Linux.

Drop down menu bar with Toolbar beneath across the top.
Toolbox vertical on the left. Document, Page, Style, Colour and Layer
Palettes vertically under each other on the right. And the Edit palette
horizontally across the bottom. The only difference is Windows and Linux have
the docking thingummy across the bottom which I don´t have on Ami.
I always have my Document window open in Full Height view which on Ami is
(don´t recall exact figure and can´t check) 70%+ but in Linux Full Height is
54.3%

The screen resolutions are set to the same 1280 x 1024 on 17inch screens.

[snip]

Some further comments on frameless text. I discovered that if you click and
hold for a few seconds you can actually make another frameless text so it´s
not responding to a normal click.

If you convert to path, as I think someone reported the ¨text¨ disappears and
it´s still invisible if you do an undo. I did discover that if you select the
invisible text (after the undo, need to ¨marquee¨ to find) and then call up
line & fill you´ll find it has no stroke. Set it to stroked and it
re-appears.
Of course that doesn´t help with the convert to path.

Shear and rotate also cause frameless text to become invisible.

Enough for the moment.

ken
ken at kgh-jjh dot net

On Saturday 15 November 2003 18:36, David Herman wrote:
> On Saturday 15 November 2003 08:46 am, PageStream Support wrote:
> > >First impression is the look is a bit ¨clunky¨ compared to the Ami
> > >version. By
> > >that I mean the screen real estate is taken up by the oversize
> > > window borders. The toolbox, for example, is about three times as
> > > wide as it needs to be in comparison to the buttons it holds. Guess
> > > that is related to what you have to work with with Linux.
> >
> > Could you maybe send me a screenshot that showed what you are talking
> > about? The windows borders for PageStream don't appear any different
> > than in other applications. Also, the toolbox is no wider than the
> > items in it. Take a look at the screenshot posted on
> > www.grasshopperllc.com and see if you identify the same issue you are
> > talking about.
>
> I think this may be an issue for kde users (like myself)
> In the default mode the toolbox uses the "Vertical Strip" format (from
> preferences). KDE opens a window for the toolbox which includes close
> and iconify buttons, thus making the window (almost 3x) wider than the
> toolbox buttons.
>
> If I open pagestream in gnome then the (Vertical Strip) toolbox frame is
> the same width as the buttons as it should be (and as seen on the web
> page).
>
> Maybe there is some way to tell kde to not create a frame and titlebar.

I dug through the KDE prefs and it doesn't look like there is a user way of
doing this per window. Many times I have missed MUI.
>
> I worked around this visual anomaly in kde by setting the toolbox
> preferences format to Horizontal Strip"

Maybe I could get used to that.

Tim Doty

>The screenshot to which you refer is a Windows shot and is pretty much how my
>Ami is set up and that what I´d like on Linux.
>Drop down menu bar with Toolbar beneath across the top.
>Toolbox vertical on the left. Document, Page, Style, Colour and Layer
>Palettes vertically under each other on the right. And the Edit palette
>horizontally across the bottom. The only difference is Windows and Linux have
>the docking thingummy across the bottom which I don´t have on Ami.

I was asking about the toolbar issue, and what you meant by that. I figured
it out after looking at your screenshot that the toolbar incorrectly has
gadgets in it that it should not. You are free of course to arrange your
windows anyway you want

>I always have my Document window open in Full Height view which on Ami is
>(don´t recall exact figure and can´t check) 70%+ but in Linux Full Height is
>54.3%

The difference is because of the huge window title bar height you have. Is
this not a function of the theme that you have selected? Same for the width
of the toolbar. I'll see if there is not some way to make darn sure those
extra window gadgets are not displayed, but I am not aware of any. The
"full window/restore" button should certainly not be there as the window is
set as not resizeable. That would sound like a bug in KDE that I will have
to work around somehow.

Also, it appears the request for smaller text in the window bar to the left
of the horizontal scroll bar is not getting set correctly.

>ken
>ken at kgh-jjh dot net

Deron Kazmaier - support@grasshopperllc.com
Grasshopper LLC Publishing -http://www.grasshopperllc.com
PageStream DTP for Amiga, Linux, Macintosh, and Windows

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 06:33 am, PageStream Support wrote:
> >The screenshot to which you refer is a Windows shot and is pretty much how
> > my Ami is set up and that what I´d like on Linux.
> >Drop down menu bar with Toolbar beneath across the top.
> >Toolbox vertical on the left. Document, Page, Style, Colour and Layer
> >Palettes vertically under each other on the right. And the Edit palette
> >horizontally across the bottom. The only difference is Windows and Linux
> > have the docking thingummy across the bottom which I don´t have on Ami.
>
> I was asking about the toolbar issue, and what you meant by that. I figured
> it out after looking at your screenshot that the toolbar incorrectly has
> gadgets in it that it should not. You are free of course to arrange your
> windows anyway you want
>
> >I always have my Document window open in Full Height view which on Ami is
> >(don´t recall exact figure and can´t check) 70%+ but in Linux Full Height
> > is 54.3%
>
> The difference is because of the huge window title bar height you have. Is
> this not a function of the theme that you have selected? Same for the width
> of the toolbar. I'll see if there is not some way to make darn sure those
> extra window gadgets are not displayed, but I am not aware of any. The
> "full window/restore" button should certainly not be there as the window is
> set as not resizeable. That would sound like a bug in KDE that I will have
> to work around somehow.

As previously stated I am a complete newbie to Linux. You opened a can of
worms here. I have been discovering all the different ways and means of
configuring the look and feel of the desktop etc. The problem has been
different settings under different ¨control centre applets¨. It´s a
combination of the many parts that achieves the final look.

Am sending with your indulgence another screenshot separately.

One problem is that not all themes have the same configurabilty options so you
get an improvement in one thing but not another. There is a marginal
improvement in total screen real estate but not enough.
Thanks for your efforts and suggestions. The Pagestream community is wonderful
in that we all pull together to achieve the desired end result -- the best
DTP programme.

Catch ya´ later

[snip]

ken

ken at kgh-jjh dot net