Donald Wardlaw

I do see a problem with some fonts where, for example, 'Arial Narrow Bold' becomes 'Arial Narrow' after exiting text edit mode. This is what I refered to as the PROBLEM. I will look at what is happening here. I don't see any problems when using the style menu to make text bold. This is what I refered to as not the problem. Apologies, Donald

Sorry about that last post, hope you can fill in the blanks. The items I put in side the less than/greater than symbols, a traditional method of quotes, was omitted by the board. Donald

Hello Robert, Appreciate you taking the time to look into this. < Yes, definately. I had no problem with any version prior to 10.5. < I don't understand this question. "Mapping" is basically transparent to me unless you mean: a. Whether I have problem with fonts showing up in the fonts menu; or, b. Whether you mean I have problems with fonts in the drawing which might give rise to a dialogue about substituting fonts. The answer to "a", is no, all fonts are showing up in the menu, even the ones that are being messed with in the drawing. (But to do this the fonts must be in the Library/Fonts folder. If they are in the MacOS9 "System Folder/Fonts" then VW no longer see them. OSX recognizes fonts in multiple locations. So if I need the font for a Classic application, hopefully not much longer, I have to keep copies of the font in different locations, which Font Doctor says is not so hot) The answer to "b" is that I am not getting any dialogues for substitutions. The drawing will display the bold variety and the font menu will report it correctly, *until* you edit the text block, then it changes. Problem is that files I am working on now have two varieties of my main font. <> THIS IS THE PROBLEM. This is what needs fixing, is broke, etc. < This is not the problem. I want to be able to use bold versions of font not the pseudo bold versions created by the style menu. The real bold versions of post script fonts are typographically different. Nicer. Just want it to work like it used to which was better looking and took a lot less time in drawing management. Hope this helps, Regards, Donald

I'm here for the thread title. I wanted to note that for me, 10.5 is also crashing. Boom, out of the blue. Twice today. Approximately once a day since I upgraded to 10.5. For me, 9.5 and 10.1 crashed so rarely, maybe once every 3 months. I'll watch and see if I can see a pattern. Just a minute ago, it crashed when I had two files open, each on a different screen, and I switched active files and changed a layer and goodbye. That is not repeatable. Regards, Donald

Katie, Looking at the evidence, Bold fonts changing to light fonts on both macs and pcs Problems occur with issue of 10.5 Problems not limited to a particular font, happens with most font that offer light and bold varieties. Same problem here on two differnent computers with different font installations, No font difficulties in any other applications, it is hard not to conclude that the problems are related to vw10.5. I did spend $70 and a couple hours looking into this, roughly the cost of the upgrade, and Font Doctor is a nice piece of work. But I learned that the font problems here were minor, correctable and did not involve any corruption of the font I am having problem with in vw. I also learned that vw running in OSX does not seem to recognize fonts in the System Folder even though OSX does. The font I use is not open type but post script so the problem is not limited to open type. After letting Font Doctor do its thing, repair permission, there is no change at all in the font behavior in vw10. Regards, Donald

does yours work under VW 10.1.2 ? Yes, like it always has. Did you purchase the font suitcase? With Illustrator. I've been using it for years. Have you tried running Font Doctor to see if the suitcase is missing a component? No, I don't know why you are worrying about suitcases. Is that significant? I never pay attention to fonts. They existi in many locations including the top level library, the library in the system X folder and the extensions folder in the os9 folder. I must repeat I have no problems with any other application other than vw10. Is vw 10 more particular about where fonts are than it was in previous versions? I don't see anything that looks like suitcases. I note that others are having this problem on pcs. A MM font is not supported by OS 10 and you should contact Adobe to purchase an OS 10 compatible font suitcase. MM fonts have not worked right in vw since 9.5. The present problem is different. My problem font is not a MM. I guess I could see if there is odd behavior with other fonts. Did that. Yes there is. The problem is that vw is not accepting bold fonts. I can change to a bold font after creation. But anytime I edit a text block or create one, it slips back out of bold. This tells me that we are not dealing with a problem of a single corrupt font, since it seems to occur with more than one. See for yourself. Regards, Donald

Yup me too. Post script type I font, bold version, switches to book (a light version.) This on Mac, latest OS. It looks very likely that this was a bug introduced in 10.5.0. Regards, Donald

<> Katy, I think this is simply a bug. The font works fine in 9.5. It works fine in all other applications. It even works fine in 10.5 dimensions. It just is messed up in text creation with the text tool. Donald

<> I don't know what you mean by this. I simply suggest that true transparency would add useful graphic power. Here are a few more observations. 12. Still can't do custom selection on text attributes. 13. Smart cursor still does not function for object generation with the free hand tool. 14. Selection of symbols from the resource pallete when in list view has a bug. If you click on the name of the symbol, it does not select the symbol tool and the symbol. If you select in the column where resource types are listed, next to the name of the symbol you want, it then selects the symbol tool and that symbol. Clicking on the name of the symbol itself to select the symbol is what I think NNA would want. 15. I am having a problem with a post script type I font, ITC Tiepolo. This font has been included with Illustrator many times over the years. This font has a few differnent sets, bold, black, book, bold italic, etc. I use bold in drawings. It worked fine and predictably in 9.5, under OSX 10.2.6. In VW10.1, however, there is a problem. If "Tiepolo Bold" is the selected font, it will show that font while creating text. As soon as the operation is done, it deselects to Tiepolo Book. They are not reversed, as selecting book will give book. It is possible to select the book text blocks and change them to bold via the font menu, but this is extra work and not the expected behavior. Here is an example of where custom selection of text attributes would be useful. Regards, Donald

Transparency would apply to fills, gradients and images. Like in photoshop or illustrator. If a rendering is a raster image, it could apply to that. The benefit is more flexibility in the presentation of graphic information I also forgot one other real cool thing... 11. Battery life on a G4 laptop is improved pretty fabulously. I would say somewhere between 40 min. and 1 hr. 20min. per battery.

I have been collecting a few impressions after upgrading to v10 very recently. 1. It was a fast upgrade. First one I can remember that did not require me to rebuild my workspace. This made the upgrade much more economical than previous ones. 2. Seems to work pretty well. Stability is good. 3. I like the favorites feature of the resource palette. But I think the interface design at the top of the palette is not very good. It could be more compact and more intuitive. Now it is cluttered. I don?t see a need for two separate drop downs for folder locations. The old model of putting both realms in one drop down with a separator worked fine and did it all with one control. Perhaps some other idea would work also. And why not place the Resources and Files and Folders buttons on one line? Perhaps with, should I say it, icons instead of text? 4. Double clicking to get into groups was a great idea and works neat. Why not let us double click (off any object) to exit the group? 5. Scrolling the screen during object creation by dragging to the edge of the screen does not work nicely. You have to hit a terribly small sweet spot, especially in the upper and left edges where there are no scroll bars. It is an exercise in frustration. I think this worked better in 9, which didn?t work as well as 8. 6. There is still at least one anomaly with clip surface, which in my experience has been the buggiest feature (except until v10 the workspace editor). For example, if you hollow out part of a filled, maybe somewhat complicated polygon, by clipping the surface and then deleted the clipping form, the resulting object does something weird. Namely, if you use the trim command, say just to trim a line, anywhere within the bounding box of the polygon, (can be outside the clipped void) it will undo the clip, and restore the clipping object, and the clipping object will take the fill pattern of the clipped object. It does other weird things too when you do repeated clips on the an object. 7. Workspace editor seems to work as it is supposed to in this version. 8. I?m slightly disappointed that transparency is not supported. I asked one of the NNA folks at Macworld SF if it was supported, and heard ?yes.? This would be a cool feature to have (a slider for transparency of a particular object) as it would open new expressive graphic possibilities. Nice to see gradients though. Transparency would be a natural next step. 9. The format text palette is not much changed since 9. I don?t like the modality. In my opinion it would work much better as a tear off that could remain open and float. And it is way, way too big. What I really think would be best of all though, is if it were a context sensitive mode of the object info palette. Why not let all that text info show up there whenever any text is selected? Text is after all an object with attributes. 10. Taking this one more step, why not show all object attributes in the object info palette? Sure maybe we need the attributes palette to set attributes prior to creation, but why not also show info on the object info palette too? Would make it easier to alter fills, tweak gradients, and set transparency. Or access gradient libraries, color sets, etc. The attributes palette may be a bit of a misnomer since it is not much more than a vestigial subset of the attributes that are currently available in the program. Such is the crazy world as I see it now. Best, Donald

I'm using an HP250C which was a 1 year old demo unit when I bought it, maybe 6-8 years ago. I've spent about $900 on repairs/overhauls. It works well. Someday I'd like a printer with higher resolution since more and more my drawings contain image files. This is most desired on smaller prints. I used to plot from Mac OS9, but that was a pain. I now use X-Rip by Microspot. It costs, but it works fine in OS10. In fact, the neat thing about that software is that it supports pretty much the whole family of old HP inkjets. Only thing I don't like is that diagonal lines have a slightly exagerated thickness (sort of like how diagonal lines on screen seem slightly wider---I don't know where this problem comes from) so my drawings have a slightly heavier feel than I would like, but they communicate just as well. I too have gotten my money's worth from this machine, since I bill clients for its output. It probably paid for itself in two years, as would a new machine. When I do buy another machine, I will probably buy a new one, but I would want to see the output first. And of course, software support is a big issue. Donald

Dave, By you post it sounds like the limit has not changed with VW10 when used in OSX. Do you mean that? There is a workaround if larger images are needed I have found. If the image is larger than ~4000 pixels, duplicate it and then crop each one just a bit past the middle. Import each one and use the nudge tool to lap one over the other. This can be done very exactly. Of course if you need more than ~8000 pixels you'll need to use 3 or more copies. VW doesn't seem to care how many pixels are on a layer, just how many are in a given imported image. Donald

I have reported this before. From experiment I found that it had nothing to do with memory allocation. The limit was about 4000 pixels in width. (or maybe 3999, somewhere around there). Doesn't matter how much memory you use, 9.5 will not import a bigger image. So I have got in the habit of limiting the size of the renderings. Note also it has nothing to do with the resolution, it is just a function of the size of the array. I noticed reading some of the release notes and bug fixes for v10, that it seems this limit has been eliminated. It is one of the reasons I will upgrade at some point. Donald

Perhaps it is a related issue, this cpu usage. I use a G4 powerbook a lot for field work. Battery life for most applications is over 4 hours. With VW it drops to about 2 1/2 hours. So if VW could manage it's computer resources more efficiently, I would hope that longer battery life when using it could be had. Perhaps there could be a powersaving preference that would eliminate less than essential background checks and processes so that laptop battery life could be longer. Donald

No problem running 9.5.3 and 10.2.2 here. I think there is something peculiar with the set up on the particular machine. In fact, crashes are so infrequent (almost never in vw) that I forget it was not always like that. I also try not to run things in classic if I can avoid it. I also quit classic via the system preferences if it is not needed. Donald

<<Are some people waiting to purchase after the first maintenence update or the new FY Quarter?>> First update here. Past experience leads me to do that. But Giovanni has an interesting point that has not escaped my attention either. Where's all the pain and suffering? Donald

I'm using it with an older HP printer and it works well enough. Only complaint is that diagonal lines (like leader lines) are just a little bit heavier. The drawings have a slightly heavier look compared to what I was accustomed to with Powerplot. This can probably be corrected with a little fine tuning, like maybe dropping a mm or two from my basic line weight. Donald

10.2.2 is working fine here with VW 9.5.3. I'm printing to an HP250C via X-rip over USB. Macintouch.com has a good discussion on 10.2.2. 10.2.2 does break some printer drivers. There has also been an interesting discussion about the sensitivity of OSX to low grade RAM (i.e. the cheap stuff). Donald

Boy, I look a way for a while and NNA does things that enhance the program and nobody, not one of 'em, calls or writes to let me know about it. For example... VW9.5 imports Photoshop 7 files directly. Nice work! Donald

<<What do all of you beleaguered VW9 users think?>> I think the vast majority do not feel beleaguered. I think 9 is a good product. I agree the first version caused some pain and agony. But if someone has been with VW/MC since version 4, they would remember that the first version of every release had an assortment of problems. (Tell me please what software product, of all the products in the world, does not). I think a person who cannot affort to deal with those should simply not upgrade until 1 or 2 maintenance releases have been issued. If you upgrade on .2 or .3 typically, you get 18 months of solid software for your money. I think, finally, the upgrade cost is reasonable. What is it anyhow, $250? What is an archicad upgrade? $500? Seems like it is in the interest of those of us who use this software, the most economical of all alternatives, that NNA have sufficient resources to develop it. Some it seems want more that what is offered for less than what that takes. Without looking at the books, I don't see how one can conclude that greed is rampant. Donald

Multiprocessing, etc. I can't think of many things where it would be especially useful. Printing and working at the same time would be one. Image rendering would be another. Since lightworks is now multiprocessor aware I hear, maybe renderworks will benefit. I remember when MC was slow, when a 25mhz. processor was impressive. I used to want to have fairly current hardware because it really made a difference in usability and productivity. I think for most purposes here, the improvements I can get in terms of productivity with hardware upgrades (the other side to the performance question here) are no longer dramatic. Neat, but not overwhelming. To speed up the computer I think it makes more sense to get a faster processor. If NNA's resources are limited and must be deployed wisely, I think they should let intel, ibm and motorola handle the basic speed issues. On the other hand there are some things that can be done that would boost efficiency and productivity while using the program that only NNA can do. On this question, their priorities as stated in this thread make sense to me. Donald

As an older user, I should mention that Giovanni speaks eloquently but not for me. I've seen a number of MC/VW upgrades and there are always things I can use and things I cannot. I do not need at all for the program to be like autocad and archicad. The other night I saw another demonstration of VWA, and it looks to me still, like an autocad wannabe. I don't see how people can work efficiently and get things done with programs like those---so much goes into the organizational structure of the working file and managing that. And you'd better like the scheme because it all comes apart in the hands of deviants. So in the effort to make things simple, they have grown intricate. The basic VW package, on the other hand, seems to me to be such a versatile tool. Powerful and flexible. Those characteristics are what distinguished MC in the first place. Really, if I wanted a program like autocad why would I use VW? It is much easier to find employees who already know AC. Most of the engineers already use it too. Ofcourse, I don't want to use a program like AC. I have always wanted a program that let me do things and stayed out of the way. VW has done that far better than anything else I am aware of. When I hear that effort has been spent on making VW10 smoother and faster and easier to use efficiently, I think someone is playing the right tune. That has always been the core virtue of MC/VW in my opinion. It is what sets it apart from the others. I understand what NNA is saying about features and the resources available for a given release. That is nothing new or troublesome. I may wait for the "dust to settle" of VW10 also. But I will certainly upgrade. I have always enjoyed working with this software. It looks like VW10 will make it, for me, more so. I am not at all disappointed in advance. It was a pleasant surprise to hear of this release and the improvements it contained. Donald

<<Otherwise we would just have to put up a straight spreadsheet with all the possible upgrade paths. Would you perfer this type of an approach?>> Yes, I think that would be more straightforward. Pricing should be out in the open. If you are going to have different prices depending on version currently used, (i.e. if VW8 users pay more than VW9 users do---like auto-des-sys does) then those differences would be of interest, I think. For one thing, if NA's pricing policy is changing, long time users might like to see how. Some may prefer to upgrade say every other version, as I do with some software. As for my own case, yes I can work with the serial number. Thanks, Donald PS What about the testing?

Pricing is not exactly readily displayed on the site. I have to enter a serial number to find out what the upgrade price is? Donald PSThere are many appealing things in the feature set. Has the testing of this version been about the same, in terms of intensity, as the VW9 release was?