Got the eagerly awaited r8b last night -
here are my first impressions:

+ Looks and feels a bit cleaner.

+ An actual directory requestor for directory prefs. Nice!

- Too bad the installation overwrites my toolbar prefs.

Known bugs:
1. Crash on save bug: FIXED
2. Prints page sideways on my HP Deskjet 942C: not fixed.
3. Crash on PDF save: seems to be fixed....
However, now I can't view the pdf's with
Adobe Acrobat 4 - it crashes with a page fault
every time I try to open a Pagestream-generated
pdf file. Even a simple file with five words
in Times New Roman converted to PDF crashes acrobat.
All pdf files created with pagestream are now poison.
Rats! This was my only hope of getting
around bug #2.
4. Bad char width on some fonts: Font converted from
compugraphic with typesmith to ps type 1 work with
windows apps but not with pagestream. They massively
overlap - not fixed.
5: BME display window problems: not fixed.
6: Applied styles don't display: not fixed
7: Dragging out first text box after opening page
still doesn't work.
8: Windows open overlapped with tool bar: not fixed.
9: Lots of crashes: largely fixed. Only had one crash
so far and that was when closing the program.
10: jpeg import color problems: FIXED
11: Font substitution in PDF documents saved: can't
tell since files are poison.
12: gradients not saved in PDF files: see item 11.
13: No auto backups: FIXED

New one: I can't place a dr2d picture in a document!

Summary:
Definite improvement in this version but most of my favorite
bugs were NOT fixed. #2, #4 and #6 are still show-stoppers
for me, keeping me using 3.3 on my Amiga. Also, this is less
useful to me than r8a now that there is no working PDF
generation.

I guess I will have to wait for version r8c (or will it be r9?)
I will try out printing on my computer at work to make sure that
that still works (I use a postscript printer there).

Keep up the good work. Please fix printing next! Thanks.

Steve Meloche

P.S. To all those using UAE - when I try it I just get a
flashing yellow screen. What do I need to do to make it work?

Sorry Deron, It's better than I thought! In my previous
bug report I said:

> Known bugs:
. . .
> 3. Crash on PDF save: seems to be fixed....
> However, now I can't view the pdf's with
> Adobe Acrobat 4 - it crashes with a page fault
> every time I try to open a Pagestream-generated
> pdf file. Even a simple file with five words
> in Times New Roman converted to PDF crashes acrobat.
> All pdf files created with pagestream are now poison.

It turns out that for some unknown reason Adobe Acrobat
chose this time to go bad. (It is probably because I
installed the latest McAfee Virus Scan - which totally
messed up my computer until I removed it. I'm glad that
program was free after the rebates. Yecch) Anyway,
Acrobat was crashing when viewing *ALL* pdf files.

I had to totally uninstall it and reinstall it and now
it can view Pagestream-generated PDF files. It even seems
to have the correct fonts. So please rest easy on the above
item. My computer was screwed up on that one. PDF export
is looking good! So, as long as I don't want gradient fills,
I can get printouts on my deskjet now using acrobat while
waiting for the printing problem to be fixed.

Does printing to non-postscript printers under windows 98
work for other people out there? With me everything comes
out 90% rotated and I can't fix it by any combination of
page orientation and printer setup.

One other new/old bug update:
By the way, outline fonts don't render to the screen or
to printouts but they do work in PDF output. Strange.

Keep up the good work! Sorry again that my bug report had bugs.

Steve Meloche

--- In PageStreamWindowsBeta@egroups.com, "Steve Meloche"
<meloche@k...> wrote:

> Does printing to non-postscript printers under windows 98
> work for other people out there? With me everything comes
> out 90% rotated and I can't fix it by any combination of
> page orientation and printer setup.

Here my experience so far..
(using Windows 98 SE; the document just has one single page that
contains a textframe with lorem ipsum in Arial, a small gif picture,
a circle object with a radial fill and a text object with "Hello
World" in Arial.)

HP LaserJet 4 MP, Postscript:
A 21 MB File is spooled and very slowly transferred to the printer. I
cancelled the print job after about two hours...
A second test with a single page just containing a text object with
"Hello World" in Arial, 42pt was printed at normal speed, although
the kerning on the printout seems a little odd.

HP LaserJet 4 MP, Non-Postscript:
An empty page resulted.

Epson Stylus Color 600, 360 dpi:
The page is printed, but printing starts in the lower right quadrant
of the sheet (not rotated). The radial fill of the circle is printed
as a basic fill and there are white "stripes" on the page, although
the printer is ok (checked it afterwars).

Epson Stylus Color 600, 720dpi:
The page is printed and it seems everything is about where it should.
Still the radial fill results in a solid color and there are stripes
in the printout as if there was a problem with the printers head.

FinePrint 2000 (virtual printer driver for creating multiple pages
per sheet, booklets etc.):
The drivers preview shows an empty page.

5D PDF creator:
Everything seemed to lock up and after some minutes the whole machine
crashed. Maybe pagestream tried to create another 20MB+ Postsctript
file that was to much for the PDF creator?
A test with a single page just containing "Hello World" in Arial
worked fine.

Regards
Roland Knecht

--- In PageStreamWindowsBeta@egroups.com, "Roland Knecht"
<knecht@l...> wrote:
> --- In PageStreamWindowsBeta@egroups.com, "Steve Meloche"
> <meloche@k...> wrote:
>
> > Does printing to non-postscript printers under windows 98
> > work for other people out there? With me everything comes
> > out 90% rotated and I can't fix it by any combination of
> > page orientation and printer setup.
>
> Here my experience so far..
> (using Windows 98 SE; the document just has one single page that
> contains a textframe with lorem ipsum in Arial, a small gif picture,
> a circle object with a radial fill and a text object with "Hello
> World" in Arial.)
>
> HP LaserJet 4 MP, Postscript:
> A 21 MB File is spooled and very slowly transferred to the printer.
I
> cancelled the print job after about two hours...
> A second test with a single page just containing a text object with
> "Hello World" in Arial, 42pt was printed at normal speed, although
> the kerning on the printout seems a little odd.
>
> HP LaserJet 4 MP, Non-Postscript:
> An empty page resulted.
>
> Epson Stylus Color 600, 360 dpi:
> The page is printed, but printing starts in the lower right
quadrant
> of the sheet (not rotated). The radial fill of the circle is
printed
> as a basic fill and there are white "stripes" on the page, although
> the printer is ok (checked it afterwars).
>
> Epson Stylus Color 600, 720dpi:
> The page is printed and it seems everything is about where it
should.
> Still the radial fill results in a solid color and there are
stripes
> in the printout as if there was a problem with the printers head.
>
> FinePrint 2000 (virtual printer driver for creating multiple pages
> per sheet, booklets etc.):
> The drivers preview shows an empty page.
>
> 5D PDF creator:
> Everything seemed to lock up and after some minutes the whole
machine
> crashed. Maybe pagestream tried to create another 20MB+ Postsctript
> file that was to much for the PDF creator?
> A test with a single page just containing "Hello World" in Arial
> worked fine.
>
> Regards
> Roland Knecht

I can't print with it. I have an Epson Stylus colorII, windows 98 and
128M ram. The printer control data light flashes for a fraction of a
second then nothing.

Other issues:
The program "opens" or "new" document with the window gadgets
obstructed. Each time I have to click the collapse gadget to fully
open the document window in order to see the close window gadget.
"Remember window position" does not fix this. Not major,but one
would
hope a shipping version would have the windows rock solid.

The kerning, at least on screen, is off. Try Times New Roman:
"articulated" and "frustration" for example. 'la' of articulated is
way off as is 'ra' 'ti' and 'io' of frustration. I haven't checked
other fonts yet.

The constant need to "manually" redraw" the window is not acceptable
in a shipping product. All above comments refer to 4.0.8a.