From: kak@hico2.westmark.com (Kris A. Kugel)
Subject: Re: Any graphics or better wp's for 7300?
Reply-To: kak2@hico2.westmark.com
Organization: High Country Software
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Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 02:04:40 GMT

Chris Lewis (clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca) wrote:
: In article <1993Jan16.021127.14456@d-and-d.com> dnichols@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols) writes:
: >In article <1993Jan15.131743.954@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> rlsx@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (russell.l.stauffer) writes:
: >>I want to be able to make up some "fliers" and posters at home on a Unixpc.
: >>What, if anything, is out there that would enable me to do this ??  I'd
: >>like a "graphical" word processor, similar to FrameMaker, etc. to the point
: >>that I can "draw" something with the mouse & stick it on a page with text
: >>on it.  Or, even a better word processor than "stock" that would allow me
: >>to make up a page with different text sizes (fonts, too?) on it (I suppose
: >>I could try "troff" if it's there...).  Any suggestions?

: I don't think troff is very suitable for this.  You can do newsletters
: okay, but fliers and posters need more graphics power.

: >	Troff is not there, only nroff.  However, you can use groff (Gnu's
: >implementation of troff, with pic (for line drawings from text commands).  I
: >think that there are binaries of this out there,

: The only one that I am aware of is Picasso, an unadvertised package contained
: in one of the AT&T DWB 2.x releases for 3b2 series machines.  With that you
: could do full blown mouse point/click/stretch etc. and generate pic.
: Only if you had a blit or 5620 as a display - this ain't X windows stuff....  : Nor does it seem to be available anymore, or on other platforms.
: I've heard rumors of something for DWB 3.x, but AT&T decided to not do
: DWB 3.x for 3b1s (even after we pretty-pleased a lot).
: -- 
: Chris Lewis; clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca; Phone: Canada 613 832-0541
: Psroff 3.0 info: psroff-request@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
: Ferret list: ferret-request@ferret.ocunix.on.ca

Ignoring for the moment that I don't think troff/nroff is
really the way to go for the case you describe,
(I've just put together a org chart using pic,
and it ain't all that much fun.  You CAN do it.)
I'll describe what I've done.

Now, in the same document, I've got a diagram I drew with cdraw
and then converted into pic.  I got the tool cdraw2fig from
an archive, and the program fig2dev from and archive, and
produced the diagram thusly (from my Makefile)

.cd.fig:
	cdraw2fig $< > $@
.fig.pic:
	fig2dev -Lpic $< > $@

Well, actually, it's not as easy as that yet.  I had to track
down a generated broken "fig" construct, the generation is not
quite clean.  And in reality, I think cdraw, while better than
nothing, really could use some improvements.
(creating subassemblies, for one).
Pic has some really nasty long-term problems, one of which is
you really can't make a generalize picture, because the fonts
don't scale.  Probably the long-term solution is to generate
postscript from pic rather than troff constructs in a groff/gs-type
system, and so take advantage of scalable fonts.

Y'know, I'm TIRED of trying to manually drag my UNIX into the 90's.
I LIKE troff; if AT&T had spent 1/8 the effort the DOS WP people did,
and made it available, we'd have a pleasant, decent text processing system.
Instead, GNU'll have to create a decent gnuware version that we can
modify ourselves just so we can play catchup with idiotic DOS boxes....


(can you tell I've spent all week
 trying to create a document with diagrams?
 I now know how to plot with grap, gnuplot,
 and ghostscript remotely via uux)

Kris A. Kugel	908-842-2707
hico2!kak	kak@hico2.westmark.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.3b1