No Fragments Archive 10: Diskmags/nf_archive_10.iso/MAGS/INFO/IINFO51.MSA/TEXT_CALAMUS.TXT

Text File | 1991-03-14 | 16.3 KB | 335 lines

 Z*NET GERMANY - EXCLUSIVE
 =========================
 by Mike Schuetz, Contributing Editor


           CALAMUS SL - First impressions of the new DTP Giant
           ---------------------------------------------------

                        (C) Atari PD Journal 1991
                 Original article by Christian Strasheim
                 translated for Z*NET by Michael Schuetz


 Two weeks before the CeBIT, we had the chance to visit DMC, developers
 of the DTP program Calamus, at their office in Walluf, Germany, to get
 some first hand information about the status of the long awaited Calamus
 SL.  We became the first to see how intensively DMC is working on the
 completion of this product when we saw a sign at the office entrance
 showing in form of a countdown, the days left until CeBIT 1991.  The
 following report is based on a Beta-Version of Calamus SL, that was
 given to us by DMC for a first hand test in our editorial office.
 Needless to say that we were especially curious about the new program,
 since our whole magazine is done with Calamus ever since we started
 doing PD Journal in the summer of 1989.

 Up front it has to be said that Calamus SL internally almost doesn't
 have anything to do anymore with the old Calamus program versions.  Due
 to the multiple conceptional changes and new features like color
 separation, the adaptation of the old Calamus would have been enormous.
 DMC has also learned from the many complaints from customers about the
 program crashs, occuring with the old versions.  So at the development
 of the new version the avoiding of crashes and the interception of
 errors had high priority.  The program crashes that occured during our
 tests - after all it still was the Beta version - never led to a
 complete system crash, but where intercepted with elegance, so that it
 was possible to keep going without the need of rebooting.

 Modules
 ~~~~~~~
 The structure of the new Calamus SL is based completely on the principal
 of modules: The new Calamus is just the frame program for all the other
 modules, that give you the necessary functions to create and edit a
 document.  Even some of the functions, that were already integrated
 within the old Calamus are now called upon as modules (naturally these
 essential modules are still included within the whole salespackage).  If
 for example you have to prepare a series of documents, where you won't
 be needing any lines, you do not need to load the line module at all, or
 you can specifically remove it from the system memory, to make room for
 more working space and save loading time.  The concept of modules also
 brings other advantages: Additional functions that not everybody will
 need, can be offered as modules and in this way they don't eat up memory
 and money of the 'normal' user.  DMC plans to release several modules
 that can raise the value of Calamus SL and with this concept the user
 has the chance to 'build' himself a version of Calamus that fits his own
 needs in the best way.  Also, third party software developers will be
 offered the chance to receive the necessary information from DMC to
 produce their own modules for Calamus SL.

 Import & Export
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 The modular concept has also been transformed in the matter of drivers
 for the import- and export-functions.  In the old versions the routines
 for import and export of pictures and text files were integrated
 directly within the main program.  Now the equivalent conversion-
 routines are offered as external modules, too.  This is a very big
 advantage when a new format - be it text or picture - will be
 introduced.  It can be expected that either DMC or another developer
 will release new drivers for this format for usage with Calamus SL.
 This conecpt will proof to be very useful especially in the field of
 raster graphics, where already at the moment an almost chaotic variety
 of picture file formats exists.  When this article was written, DMC
 could not yet say, which drivers will be included within the basic
 Calamus SL version.  But it can be expected with certainty that the
 number of supported formats will be much higher than the one with
 Calamus 1.09, especially when it comes to the support of color graphics.

 View from the top
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 So much to the internal structure of Calamus SL.  After you load the
 program you will be greeted by an almost familiar looking screen.  On
 the first view not too much seems to have changed.  The user interface
 looks a lot like the old Calamus 1.09, but a closer look will soon
 reveal some changes: Many functions, that could be found in GEM drop
 down menus, have now been included in the icon orientated control panels
 (this way becoming external modules).  To save time that would be wasted
 by having to jump through several modules and function groups, you now
 have the possibility to place various function panels anywhere on the
 screen.  This feature is extremely useful when working with big screen
 monitors like the TTM194 or the Moniterm.

 Another new feature is the possibility to have seven different documents
 loaded at the same time.  In conjunction with the new file select box,
 that allows you to select multiple files, it now is even possible to
 load all needed documents at once.  The same naturally also goes for the
 loading of fonts.

 Let there be Color
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Before going further into details about some of the new functions -
 which there are a lot - we will focus our attention on the most
 important new feature: the color managment of Calamus SL.  Internally
 all functions are designed in a way, so that up to 16.7 Million colors
 will be managed - this is more than even the human eye is able to
 distinguish.  Each object, be it text, a line, a fill pattern, or a
 picture can take on one of these many colors.  To determine the colors,
 you either use the simple RGB-mixing-method, or one of the additional
 modules that offer the adjustment of HKS-, Pantone- or Palette-141-
 colors.  When the output is done on a Linotype (as in all those German
 Atari DTP centers) then Calamus SL will take care of the necessary color
 separation itself, producing four films per color-page, that can be
 worked with at the printing company in the next step.  Calamus SL even
 supports the usage of so called adornment colors.  These are colors that
 are not made up as a mixture of the basic colors and therefore Calamus
 will print one addtional film for the adornment color, if one is used.

 Colors on the screen
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Before the test we were a little sceptical about the display of color
 documents on the screen.  Naturally there exist many graphic cards for
 the Atari ST (and in the meantime also for the TT) that are able to
 display 256 or more colors out of the 16.7 Million possible ones; since
 those expansions (and especially the then needed monitors!) are still
 very expensive, the semi-professional user will at first have to be
 satisfied with what he's got.  During our test we used Calamus SL on our
 32 MHz TT with the regular TT color monitor in TT-medium-resolution
 (640x480 pixels - 16 colors).

 We were suprised by the good quality of the color display even with only
 16 colors!  Through mixing and rastering Calamus SL is able to produce
 a very good approximation of the selected color tones, that will be
 sufficient for most applications.  Even on a monochrome monitor - we
 used a SM124 on the ST and the new 19" TTM194 on the TT - the
 transformation into shades of grey is done so well, that one already
 gets a pretty good picture of how the document will look in final print.
 Apropos TT: Naturally Calamus SL runs flawless under all resolutions
 with at least 640 x 400 pixels on the TT.  The FastRAM is used in the
 process completetly, so that on our 8 MB TT, 6.5 MB of RAM where
 available for documents!

 New functions
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Even those who can do without the color separation features of Calamus
 SL will find a variety of new features.  Some we will list in the
 following paragraphs: The clipboard is now capable of accepting as many
 frames as you want, the number is only limited by the RAM available.
 The doublepage feature has been improved enourmosly, so that fast
 changes between single- and double pages are now possible.  The
 necessary conversion, where especially the frames situated at the border
 of both pages are very critical, is done by Calamus SL itself.  Certain
 components of a page, that belong not to the page itself - fitting
 marks, that are extremely important for color separation - can be placed
 on one of the master pages, where they do not distract one during work
 on the page, and if requested they can be shown during output.

 In the old version only text within a frame could be rotated, now the
 rotation function works with all kinds of objects, that can now be
 freely rotated and mirrored vertically or horizontally.  Only raster
 graphics can be rotated in 90 degree steps only; but that might be even
 a good limitation, any other availability of rotation for raster
 graphics could cause the creation of Moire-patterns.

 Additional to the old method where there were only virtual and physical
 copies, one can now even create multiple copies at once.  Even the
 horizontal and vertikal distance between the copies and the original can
 be entered.  This makes it possible to create certain constellations
 such as grids without big efforts.

 The zoom-value for the display on screen can still be selected freely,
 instead of one user defined display resolution it is now possible to
 create three different ones.  Additionally a zoom function has been
 added, that allows the enlargment of screen-parts.

 Typography
 ~~~~~~~~~~
 Besides the possibiltiy of coloring text, the font size can now be
 selected much more exact in steps of 1/1000.  An exactness not to be
 seen by the human eye, but for some printing products a necessity.

 Additionally the user got two more font-attributes, skewed and
 compressed, to play with.  Each font can now be italicised and expanded
 or compressed.  The degree of the italicisation can be entered again
 with upmost exactness.

 Even a simple attribut as underline can now be used as decoration tool,
 since color, thickness and position of the underline can be selected.
 The text shadow, as expected, can be colored too.

 In style
 ~~~~~~~~
 An important function of Calamus SL ist the managment of text styles,
 which allows, to save the style-features with a macro-like feature.  If
 you use headlines in 30 points Avant Garde Medium, bold, italicised by
 20% with a grey underline (no matter how bad it looks <g>), you can
 define this combination as text style and call it up later again via
 mouse click.

 Future features
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Not included in the beta version was the spell-checker and the
 separation-function, that is supposed to work online now, too.  Another
 feature we could not test yet, allows formatting of text around any kind
 of objects, that are made up of Bezier-curves.  Another problem, that we
 noticed during layouts of our magazine are constantly confronted with,
 is the placing of graphics within text frames.  Once you change the
 text, you had to rearrange most of the time the graphics too.  A new
 method that will allow automatic embodiment of the graphic at a certain
 text-position is supposed to solve this problem.

 S or SL?
 ~~~~~~~
 A lot of confusion was caused in the past by the mentioning of the two
 different versions S and SL.  By now it is definite that Calamus S, as
 predecessor to Calamus 1.09/1.09N will be distributed by Atari
 (Germany).  This version will also be situated in the same price range
 as the old Calamus (DM 700-800 which equals approx.$500-600).  Opposite
 to former specualtions Calamus S will be modular and expandable, too!!
 The features that will be missing in the S version are the functions for
 color display on the screen and the module Paint & Draw.  Also 10
 Linotype Fonts, that are included together with the standard fonts in
 the SL version will be missing in the S version.  Nevertheless it is
 possible to produce color-documents, but on screen you will just see
 shades of grey with the S version.  Calamus SL will retail for DM 1.498
 (~US$ 1.000).

 Upgraders from the old Calamus version 1.09 to SL will be charged DM
 898, and from 1.09N, DM 798 in Germany.  The price for updates from
 1.09/1.09N to Calamus S will be set by Atari and will be announced
 possibly at CeBIT.  A document-converter (the old CDK-format is not
 compatible to the new one) is included within the program package.

 About the usage of old fonts with the new versions the following can be
 said: Legally obtained and from DMC licensed fonts, that work flawlessly
 with 1.09N, will also work OK on Calamus SL.

 A look ahead
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
 This article only shows a smallpart of the new possibilities and
 capabilities of Calamus SL.  Functions such as the free generation of
 patterns and the possibility to work with raster- and vectorgraphics
 were left out and will be picked up at the review of the final version.
 Also the concept of virtual memory managment, the new macro option and
 many other small goodies were not mentioned here yet.

 A beta version never allows one to draw a final conclusion about a
 product.  But it can be stated in any case, that Calamus SL has already
 very much advanced in its development process.  Even the completely new
 designed 600 page long (German) manual is already running through the
 printing presses as you read this.  The version we were able to review
 makes us confident that the wait for the final version of Calamus SL
 will be over very likely in the nearest future.

 Modules for Calamus:
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Here a quick overview of some of the modules that will be available for
 Calamus SL:

 Job Manager
 Expanded module for Linotype DTP centres for automatic exposure of
 Calamus documents.

 Mount & Print
 Module that allows splitting up large documents into smaller pieces,
 thus allowing printout of large documents on small printers, so that for
 example, a DINA3 document can be printed out as two DINA4 pages.

 4 Color HKS, Pantone and Palette-141
 Three modules to define colors based on standard color palettes.

 Paint & Draw
 Raster- and vectorgraphic module (belongs to Calamus SL package) can be
 bought additionally to Calamus S.

 Curve & Line
 An auto-tracer module.  We got a brief look at the beta version, that
 looked already very promising especially speed-wise.

 Logo Art
 Special vector-editor for company logos etc.

 Data Former
 A collection of export-modules for certain fileformats especially in
 the field of vector graphics.

 Type Art
 A new font-editor with several new features, possibly with integrated
 vectoriser.

 More modules are already being worked on.

 Note:  In the US and Canada Calamus 1.09(N) and Calamus S(L) are being
 distributed, of course, by ISD Marketing.




 CALAMUS FONT RESOURCE GUIDE
 ===========================                           Press Release


 Page Design is proud to announce the release of the latest version of

    T H E   C A L A M U S   F O N T   R E S O U R S E   G U I D E

 This latest version features font samples of every font currently
 available in North America for use with Calamus or Outline Art (over 500
 fonts).  All currently available Calamus fonts from Cherry Fonts,
 Compugraphic, DMC (Calamus Designer Fonts), FontAbility, Fonts By Guber,
 Ideal West, Mainstream Fonts, Mirthful Fonts!, MS Design, Dennis
 Palumbo, Safari Fonts, and pd/shareware fonts are displayed.  The Guide
 also contains information about all Calamus products distributed by ISD,
 GENUS (formerly TypeCad), FontVerter, Font Designer, The Calamus Font
 Utility, and WP to GEM.

 Whether you use Calamus, Outline Art, or FontVerter (to convert to the
 PageStream format), the Calamus Font Resource Guide is an indispensible
 tool.

 The Calamus Font Resource Guide is distributed by:

 PDC (Public Domain Corp.)
 4320-196th SW
 Suite B-140
 Lynnwood, WA  98036-6721
 1-800-255-8220

 The Guide is available directly from PDC or from your local Atari
 dealer for $19.95.


                   ---===< * >===---