FARALLON INFORMATION FROM VISUAL BASIC PROGRAMMER'S JOURNAL
Several of the files in the Sheridan Directory (and elsewhere) were produced using Farallon's new Replica format. This is an application that produces documents that can be read on either the Macintosh or Windows platform. We've received permission to distribute a trial version of this program which allows you to read unlimited numbers of documents. (It allows you to create five of your own documents before it expects you to call Farallon and register it).
You must load either the PC or the Macintosh version which are located in the REPLICA directory before trying to read any of these documents. You can tell Replica files because they end with .RPL.
Why did we choose Replica? Well, many of our (and our advertisers) documents are produced using QuarkXPress or Aldus' PageMaker on the Macintosh or similar programs on Windows. Most of our readers don't have these applications on their Windows machines (since they cost about $500 and require some expertise to run). Also, if you don't have the fonts that we use our documents would be unreadable and unprintable. So, we've been looking at several applications like Acrobat; Common Ground; and Replica.
Adobe charges for its reader ($25 street price) which makes it prohibitive for a CD that we are giving away. That left Common Ground and Replica. I decided on Replica because it had more experience on the Windows platform than Common Ground and because they let me beta test their Macintosh version.
Is it perfect? No. This is version 1.0 software, but we put up with some idiosyncrasies because of its ability to let us cheaply distribute documents. For instance, this CD costs less to publish than a printed version of our magazine. We can fit several issues on one CD which will let us publish the back issues of the magazine electronically.
For programmers, getting the issues electronically is pretty cool. You can cut code right out of a Replica document and paste it directly into Visual Basic and run it. No retyping of long code listings. Try it out.
REPLICA TROUBLESHOOTING AND TIPS
Some text doesn't look proper on some computers. (Due to the differences between the way the Macintosh and Windows systems deal with fonts and graphics). We've found two things that help:
* If the type in a document is unreadable, uncheck the AUTO JUSTIFY selection in the View Menu on the Windows version.
* If the fonts look strange (most of the fonts should be Times New Roman or Times Roman or Times) change the FONT MAPPING selection in the Edit Menu on the Windows version. For best result make sure Times New Roman (or the closest alternative loaded on your system) is selected in the listbox on the right of this dialog box.
Some graphics won't look right. That's to be expected with this version of Replica. Some text (especially that text which was given special treatments like small caps) will not work properly in Replica. That's a bug that lso included.to fix. If you have any other questions with the documents on this CD, please write me on CompuServe or America Online. If the problems are with Farallon itself (crashing, etc.) please call Farallon.
