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== Soft-Logik Conference on Portal ==
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To announce some PageStream 3.0 news, an agreement with Digita, and their
move to Windows and Mac support, Soft-Logik held a conference recently on
Portal. It was attended by roughly 35 people, listed below...
John D Short (John D Short) soft-logik (soft-logik)
Harv (Harv) Izzy (Izzy)
HOWARD L GAZES (TheDuck) Jcompton (jcompton)
lbperez (Luis & Maria) devasoft (devasoft)
PKB (PKB) Voltar (Voltar)
Waylander (Waylander) Milestone (Milestone)
JeffH (JeffH) Amiga2 (Mike-SLslave)
DonM (DonM) Drakon (Drakon)
ScottJ (ScottJ) Michael A Radanovich
amiga1 (Deron-SLPREZ) JeffW (FPW)
CliffG (CliffG) Jumpdisk (Jumpdisk)
KyleW (KyleW) grog (grog)
AmiGadget (AmiGadget) HAWK (HAWK)
jraGRAPHICS (jraGRAPHICS) RickB (RickB)
SubDriver (SubDriver) Amiga2 (Mike-SLslave)
gsarff (gsarff) DrTed (DrTed)
SBurroughs (SBurroughs) sjn (sjn)
Lyonking (Lyonking)
This conference transcript is Copyright 1994, The Amiga Zone,
all rights reserved.
Amiga Report magazine is hereby granted exclusive non-commercial
distribution rights.
Commercial reprinting or redistribution of this transcript is
expressly forbidden without permission. Write to "harv@cup.portal.com"
if you are a commercial magazine who wishes to publish any or all
of this transcript.
Do not perform any further editing on this transcript without
first obtaining written permission.
Harv: SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO... PLEASE SIT BACK, RELAX, DON'T TYPE, AND
LET ME NOW INTRODUCE KEVIN DAVIDSON, OUR WUNNERFUL SOFT-LOGIK ONLINE
SUPPORT GUY HERE WHO WILL INTRODUCE TONITE'S WUNNERFUL GUESTS... KEVIN?
soft-logik: Thank you. I'm very pleased to have our two guests here
tonight. First wearing the Deron SLPREZ trunks, is Deron
Kazmaier (hope I pronounced that right) Deron is the President
of Soft-Logik Publishing and the principal designer and author
of PageStream and his slave, Michael Loader publisher of
Radical Type Magazine and author of the PageStream 3 manual and
other soft-logik documents Michael is the real brains behind
the support we offer here on Portal Gentlemen, would you like
to make any opening remarks?
Mike-SLslave: Sure. I'm going to post some stuff for Deron.
"Thank you for coming to tonight's conference. I'm glad to
have this opportunity to speak with you in person. We don't
have anything new to announce tonight, but we have made a
number of announcements in the last month that I'm sure you
will want to discuss. I know you all have a lot of
questions, and I'll answer them in a minute. First, I would
like to summarize our latest news.
PAGESTREAM3 AMIGA. Our main priority at this time is
PageStream3 for the Amiga. We are committed to finishing the
unimplemented features and fixing any problems remaining in
the program. We want to make it the best desktop publisher
possible. Version 3.0d is being released tonight and will
greatly improve the usability of the program."
PAGESTREAM FOR MACINTOSH AND WINDOWS. I hope that those of
you who are thinking about changing computers will stick with
your present computer until we release PageStream for
Macintosh and Windows. I can't tell you when they will be
available, but we have already begun work on them. We will
have a very affordable upgrade path from the Amiga and Atari
versions but pricing has not been announced. Subsequent
versions will add support for other machine specific
features. There will also be a Windows version of TypeSmith,
our font editor.
WORDWORTH AND DATASTORE. We recently signed an exclusive
licensing agreement with Digita International.
Soft-Logik is now selling and supporting Wordworth and
Datastore in the United States and Canada. Wordworth 3.1 is
the latest version of Digita's award-winning word processor,
while Datastore is a new personal database manager. We think
that these programs are the best in their class and will be
of great interest to all Amiga users. A document filter for
PageStream3 will be available early next year to load an
entire Wordworth document into PageStream to preserve the
document layout.
MOVING. We're moving to a new building at the end of this
coming week. Here's our new address and phone numbers:
OLD STREET ADDRESS NEW STREET ADDRESS
11131F South Towne Sq. 315 Consort Drive
St. Louis, MO 63123 St. Louis, MO 63011
OLD POST OFFICE BOX NEW POST OFFICE BOX
P.O. Box 510589 not yet available
St. Louis, MO 63151 St. Louis, MO 63011
OLD PHONE NUMBERS NEW PHONE NUMBERS
SALES 1-800-829-8608 1-800-829-8608
314-894-8608 314-256-9595
TECHNICAL SUPPORT 1-800-829-5816* 1-800-829-5816*
314-894-0431 314-256-9333
FAX 314-894-3280 314-256-7773
BBS (2 lines now!) 314-894-0057 314-256-8971
* for paid technical support only
That's all the latest news. I'll let Kevin take over again now.
soft-logik: Thanks Michael...
Before I turn the conference over for questions, I'd like to
take a point of priviledge and ask one opening question...
Could you summarize the highlights of tonight's PageStream 3.0d
release?
Deron-SLPREZ: Faster text, gradient fill onscreen, and more bug fixes than
you can shake a stick at :)
jcompton: Even though the Amiga situation isn't solved yet the Amiga will
need more going for it than ever before when it comes back out.
Packed-in DTP certainly couldn't hurt. How seriously would you
consider striking a deal to pack PageStream in with a model or
line of Amigas?
Deron-SLPREZ: Well, we have been bundles in England on the Atari in the
past (long time ago). We have always been interested, but
DTP has never been C='s target market. I can only offer, I
cant lead the horse to water even in this case!
CliffG: Does Wordsworth support tables and does it have end/footnotes? If
not will it?
Deron-SLPREZ: Wordworth supports tables and endnotes, but no footnotes.
Its on the wishlist, but who knows when.
soft-logik: [Note, I'll have a Wordworth and Datastore preview pack in the
Soft - Logik vendor area here by tomorrow]
ScottJ: Deron, given the unfinished state of PageStream 3.0, why didnt
Soft- Logik wait another quarter before releasing it?
Deron-SLPREZ: Not many more reasons other than the one in the readme when
you install...The program has almost ever feature that 2.2
does, and so many more, that to call it "unfinished" is only
a half truth anyway. Yes it doesn't do everything the manual
says it should, but it still does a whole lot... That 1 meg
program is 1 meg for a reason :)
Luis & Maria: how real will be the pantone supportga
Deron-SLPREZ: The pantone support is finished, so I'm not sure what your
asking. Could you elabrate?
Luis & Maria: yes will the display will be close to the color or it will be
like now that you see a different shade of blue when yuo ask
for process blu or yellow when yousk for orange
Deron-SLPREZ: We ask the system for the proper color. If your running a 4
color screen, you not going to get an accurate on screen rep.
Even at 256 colors it may not be 100%. The amiga is behind
the times when it comes to hardware calibration of colors.
Not much I can do about that.
TheDuck: more of a suggestion than a question, the font.spec template from
old version 2.2 doesnt load properlly, i guess because of tags...
will this file ever be updated? it is the most usefull of files
soft-logik: Howard, that should be fixed (3.0d?)
Deron-SLPREZ: The 2.2 document loader has been fixed so that the tag
problem is no longer a problem.
Harv: FOR THE BENEFIT OF OUR GUESTS, HOW MANY OF YOU CURRENTLY OWN
PAGESTREAM (ANY VERSION)? JUST SAY "YES" OR "NO" NOW PLEASE
soft-logik: yes CliffG: yes
TheDuck: yes Jumpdisk: yes
jraGRAPHICS: yes Michael A Radanovich: yup
Luis & Maria: yes grog: no
JeffH: yes RickB: YES
Voltar: no KyleW: yes
SubDriver: yes jcompton: Yes
FPW: nope HAWK: yes
KyleW: whenever I up versions I seem to loose the color palete as in I cant
type anytrhing that will show on screen.. is there an easy way to
keep this from hapening and fix it ??
Mike-SLslave: We're not sure what you mean. Color palettes with regard to
text not showing???
KyleW: yes text will not show up using the default after the instalation of
30b
Mike-SLslave: Compugraphic Intellifonts? Ensure you have the 1.0b CG.font
engine for PageStream3.0c and then choose Settings/Fonts.
Select the Intellifonts path. Click on Update. CLick on
Save.
soft-logik: [The FONT ENGINE update is here for downloading]
DonM: I'm a long time ProPage user that converted (trying to?) with PS 4.
Almost none of my PP and ProDraw files have converted successfully.
Is that being worked on, or is there something I didn't understand? ga
Deron-SLPREZ: About prodraw, we just found and fixed a problem with objects
coming in with no fill on and the line weights are ok now.
It should be close. About propage, we ask that simple files
that demonstrate the problem be sent in. We can only do so
much without the file format.
jcompton: Follow-up to my question...you said something like "C= never made
DTP a priority". You won't be dealing with Commodore. Are you
willing to give a new company a new chance?
Deron-SLPREZ: My point was that we have worked with everyone who has wanted
to work with us. Why wouldn't we?
Harv: Here's a non tech question: you guys pretty much own the Amiga DTP
market now, and you now sell a word processor. what kind of
competitive upgrade prices do you offer? If it's too complicated to
type in, please give the details to Kevin so he can post it here.
i.e. for owners of ppage, saxon, word perfect, prowrite, etc. etc.
Deron-SLPREZ: PageStream3 can be had for $250 direct, or $225 for "competitive"
upgrades.. Wordworth is $135 direct, $120 for softlogik owners.
Harv: are you going to sell some kind of "super bundle" and maybe put it on
cd-rom?
Deron-SLPREZ: cd-rom? Not likely. Bundle, probably.
soft-logik: A POLL: HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE CD-ROM DRIVES ON YOUR AMIGA? JUST TYPE
"YES" OR "NO"
Harv: yes Luis & Maria: yes
soft-logik: yes Drakon: yes
CliffG: YES Jumpdisk: yes
DonM: no JeffH: yes
ScottJ: Soon. Michael A Radanovich: no, not yet
TheDuck: as of monday :> SBurroughs: yes
sjn: no grog: no
RickB: OF COURSE SBurroughs: a fast yes
SubDriver: Yes
Michael A Radanovich: I bought a copy of Page stream 2.2 form a friend
(books, disks and all, even most of his hardware),
but not a registration card, because he had sent that
in will PageStream 3.0 be available to me as an
upgrade, adn if so how much $?
Deron-SLPREZ: You just need to send in a photocopy of the disks with the
reg numbers on them, and your name and address along with the
previous owners and they will swithc registrations and you
can upgrade. Just call sales at 800-829-8608 tomorrow for
more details.
DrTed: How does the PS 3.0 unimplemented feature count and bug count
compare to released DTP progs on other platforms...
Deron-SLPREZ: No doubt that the average release is not full of so many
unimplemented features, however, with the death of C= our
user base was beginning to believe that we would never ship
the program. We had to show everyone that we were still here
and still working on it. No doubt in anyones mind now what a
great program we are working on, and like I said before, it
still does so much more than anything else on the amiga.
Luis & Maria: will you disguise art epression to bring it to PS... or you
will make a nue progra...m please dont abandon art
expressionga
Deron-SLPREZ: Since PageStream3 does so much already that would go into a
new version of ArtExpression (like Pantone support, Arexx
Macros, import/export, etc. etc) We won't be doing a v2 of
AE, but we will be coming out with an AE extension for
PageStream that adds the 3 features that AE has. Such as
text on a path, text/objects in a shape, and blends. It will
be cheaper for us to make, and cheaper for you to buy :)
ScottJ: Any chance of PGS 3.0 supporting OS/2? If not, why not?
Deron-SLPREZ: Well, you can always run Windows programs under OS/2 (better
windows than windows, as IBM says :), and OS/2 is third on
our list, but we can only do so much at once.
RickB: I have been a loyal Pagestream user since 1.0 and have not been able
to use 3.0 because it is toooooooooo slow... I also am anoyed that
the only way I can get the patches is thru an online service. Why
aren't you sending out patches to 3.0 users as a regular service?
Deron-SLPREZ: Well, about the only thing slower than PageStream2 in version
3 is text and non-ps printing. In case you havn't noticed,
every version of pgs3 since version a has been at least twice
as fast as the previous for text. We even sped up graphics
in 3.0d! About the other part...as we have said, once
everything is finished, we will update all of your users.
But to mail disks to everyone every 3 weeks would cost way to
much. Mike, care to upload the notice on updates by mail?
Harv: comment: if you knew there was a new patch online, wouldn't you
rather just d/l it in a couple minutes right now than wait 3 weeks
for a disk to show up? I thought most people with modems preferred
online program patches. shrug.
Mike-SLslave: NEW PAGESTREAM3 UPDATE OPTION ---- Nov 15, 1994
A few people without modems have asked if they could buy a
subscription to all the minor PageStream 3.0 updates rather
than having to pay $10 for each update by mail (we always
offer the most recent minor update on disk to customers for
$10). Some people with modems have asked for a similar
option since their cost to download the updates is rather
high. For $30 ($40 outside of Canada and the United
States), we will mail you each of the updates (3.0d,
3.0e...) up to and including 3.1 (which will be mailed to
all registered owners of 3.0 automatically). We will send
you the current version immediately, and then each of the
updates as they become available.
These update disks will be identical to the update patches
offered here online. Most online users will find it more
cost-effective to continue to download each update, but for
users who have to call long-distance to get them, this
update subscription may be more affordable. Getting the
updates online is more timely, since those subscribing to
this plan won't get them until a week after the patches are
posted online.
Note: We're not doing this to make a profit. We're offering
the update subscription for those who are without modems and
for those who have to call long-distance to download the
patches.
HAWK: why is there no overwrite mode ?
Deron-SLPREZ: Not much real use for it in a DTP program. If you wish to
replace 3 letters with 4, overwrite doesn't buy you much.
Just hilight, and type over. Simple.
SubDriver: I just received a (second) mailing for upgrading to 3.0 saying
it was my "last chance".. and that the upgrade offer "wouldn't
last long" (or implying that) I'm a 2.2 owner. How long will
the upgrade offer last? ($125 , I think?)
Mike-SLslave: The $125 upgrade offer is not expiring. The expiration thing
was supposed to refer to the powerup upgrade offer expiring.
It wasn't clear, my fault.
Mike-SLslave: That mailing was sent to people who hadn't upgraded from 2.x,
and those who owned other SL programs but not pgs.
sike-SLslave: Let me post our current pricing...
Retail SLprice CompUp Direct
PageStream3: $395 $210 $225 $250
TypeSmith2.5: $200 $110 $125 $125
Wordworth3.1: $225 $120 $135 $135
Datastore1.0: $160 $ 85 $ 95 $ 95
Retail: suggested retail price
SLprice: for owners of other Soft-Logik programs
CompUp: competitive upgrades from qualifying programs
Direct: direct price to anybody
To order direct, call 1-800-829-8608. Shipping is $6 US,
$7 Canada, $20 Europe, $30 Other.
jraGRAPHICS: what direction will you be taking pagestream (and the company)
in these new markets (i.e., audience, features, etc.)?
Deron-SLPREZ: As far as audience goes, PgS3 has a very clean interface to
app.library, which is our Amiga specific library of
functions. So pgs3 really doesn't know anything about
screens, arexx, files, modules, etc. That is handled in
app.library. Same for the modules. So we just (like thats
an easy task :)) have to port app.library to new platforms,
and the core codes remains unchanged. So we can support many
platforms with less than normal effort. About features, I
can't really say right now. Why spoil the fun :)
soft-logik: Now that you're distributing WordWorth and soon Datastore, are
there any changes anticipated in these products, or PageStream
to make them work together better?
Deron-SLPREZ: We don't develop Wordworth or Datastore. We just import,
sell, and support them. We are going to be releasing a
document loader for wordworth that supports things like
graphics, but more than that is just a pure fancy at this time.
BTW, that is a pagestream document loader for loading
wordworth docs into pagestream.
Luis & Maria: are you going to make a filter for .cdr file
Deron-SLPREZ: Its on the wishlist, but until 3.1 its nothing more than
that. Thats our first and only priority right now.
DrTed: A year ago in VTU, you direct sold a Publishing Pack and a Power
Users Pack. I bought the Power Users pack thinking I was told there
would be a cheap upgrade to 3.0, even though not with the Pub.
Pack. Was I wrong??
Deron-SLPREZ: My memory is less than perfect. Let me look up the ad.. The
ad says on the bottom "Upgrade to PageStream3 (when
available) is $125.
DrTed: That was for both packages???
Deron-SLPREZ: I can't see how anyone might believe otherwise when looking
at the ad. What are you driving at?
DrTed: Just wanted to be sure... ..
HAWK: Is there any way to turn OFF!! that BLINKING CURSER ??? !
Deron-SLPREZ: Nope, and I might find a way to make it more annoying :)
HAWK: why! you can in Page LINER?
Deron-SLPREZ: Are you asking "might we be able to turn it off in the
future"? You know us programmers! (maybe is the answer).
soft-logik: A phone-in Question from Mike Williams: How about True Type
font support for PageStream 3?
Deron-SLPREZ: Well, since PageStream uses a modular font approach (heck,
delete iffdoc.dfilter and you can forget about loading/saving
documents)... Adding support for truetype "only" requires
writting a truetype module, but no one here has the time.
Like I said, 3.1 is our only mission right now. Can't start
promissing new features yet. However, we have asked Relog
(the authors of TypeSMITH) if they might be intereste d. We
shall all have to wait and see. Until then, typesmith works
just fine :)
Luis & Maria: what about the 2pt. problem when you draw a line they
aalways come out broken in pices
Deron-SLPREZ: I'm not familiar with that problem. I can try it out later.
When is the 2pt line "broken"?
Luis & Maria: every time a draw a line no matter if it is in PS or AE...
it prints in seg and if I cut the object i segments is worst,
always with HP 4M and HP 2P
Deron-SLPREZ: I'm afraid I can't reproduce your problem with PageStream to
ps or non-ps. Plese send in a printout and exact steps.
DrTed: Have you been surprised at the number of people who insist on doing
direct text entry in PS rather than using pageliner or other text
editor???
Deron-SLPREZ: DrTed, not really. Mike uses pagestream exclusivly.
Mike-SLslave: I wrote the whole 3.0 manual in 2.2 without any text editor.
HAWK: As I ask why not a overwrite mode in pgs. ? PGS2.22 did and its was
very usefull for me! I thought that PGS3.0 was to have all the
pgs2.0 stuff and new things? I find that there is a lot of things
that is not in 3.0 that was very useful
Deron-SLPREZ: OK hawk. I'll take it under advisement. GA.
RickB: So what is the target date for 3.1??
Deron-SLPREZ: RickB: Well, 3.0e should be out by christmas (probably
christmas eve). Our present to you. 3.1? You want to know
this from the man who guessed August 93 for pagestream3? I
really don't know. However, I see very little left to do in
PageStream3 to make it better than 2.x in every way. People
get to hung up on a version, and forget they have what we
consider the best software written for the Amiga already.
Luis & Maria: are you going to release a driver for the Epson Color Stylus,
and mi wife wnats to tell you how sorry she was for being
slow tyoing...and for her spelling errors ;) wooops...I am
sleepy ;)
Deron-SLPREZ: We support the Epson Color Stylus up to 360x360 already, and
soon as we get the docs from epson (soon?) we will support
that as well. No problem on the spelling and speed! (oops,
we will support 720x720 as well I should have said).
TheDuck: re: pageliner i am working on a rather large document, and i would
like to insert italics and bold into the document via pageliner
rather than in pgs, is there a way to do this? iv been waiting on
the updates to place my text into pgs
soft-logik: I can help you with that.
Mike-SLslave: Refer to appendix B for a complete list of text codes to use in
PL's function keys.
Deron-SLPREZ: We have macros already for normal and bold (choose
settings/function keys to see them), and you can easily add
italics.
TheDuck: must have missed it, ok, thank you
Harv: END OF FORMAL Q&A SESSION. I'D LIKE TO THANK DERON & MIKE FROM SOFT
LOGIK FOR JOINING US HERE TONITE. [APPLAUSE SIGN]
CliffG: Thanks Soft-Logik guys - good chat Harv and Jason and SL!
soft-logik: [applause!]