From: ttgrf@wsinfo11.info.win.tue.nl (Edwin Hautus)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Artworks, first impressions
Date: 15 Oct 92 12:20:15 GMT
Reply-To: ttgrf@info.win.tue.nl


I've been working with Artworks now for about a week, and first of all I
must say it's a great piece of software. Not only is it very fast, it's also
got a great user interface. As you would expect from a RISC OS program, the 
learning curve for experienced RISC OS users is almost *non-existing*. More
importantly, once you get used to it, things can be done very quickly. 
There's no need to go through a lot of menus like in Draw+, which I have
used up till now. The zoom function is also very good. The path editing is
great and I also love the very useful blend function.
                                                                            
So what's wrong and missing?

There are no fill patterns. These are really essential when you're not
working  with a colour printer. Corel Draw has pattern fills, so perhaps
it's one of the tools that will be added later.

There are no rulers. These should have been optional like in Impression.

The perspectivize tool is not very easy to use. It's okay if you want to put
something flat in perspective, but it's rather annoying if you want to use
the same centres of projection for an entire drawing. You have to put the 
centres in one place by hand, but this is not possible if the centres are 
off screen (which is usually the case). The manual is not very clear about
this, so perhaps I missed something. 

Artwork files cost a LOT of memory. A simple file typically costs 10 times
as much as an exported draw file (without using any features not supported
by  the drawfile type). Even Artworks EPS files are about 50% cheaper. It's
unclear to me why Artwork files should cost that much. Also, because no
other program can read Artwork files (at the moment), a "work with the
draw-format as a default" option would have been very useful.

When one aligns perspectivized or blended objects, some objects become
invisible. Artworks also crashed several times, when I investigated this bug.

When exporting drawfiles, the two arrow types are treated differently. The
triangle is made an "end cap triangle". The other arrow-types are saved as
separate objects. This is okay for non-pattern lines. Patterned lines result
in a lot of arrows at the end of each segment (actually an annoying feature
of the draw format). Artworks should have made separate objects for the
arrows in each case.

Crashes have also occured with loading and saving, so be careful!

Realising that this is version 1.000, Artworks is a great achievement of CC.
It's going to be really important for the ARC's future.

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|                            |                                           |
| Edwin Hautus               | Hofstadter`s Law :                        |
| ttgrf@info.win.tue.nl      | It always takes longer than you expect ,  |      
|                            | even when take into account               |
|                            | Hofstadter`s Law                          |
|                            |                                           |   
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