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- RELEASE NOTES FOR PSPORT
-
- This is a utility of the 'one dumb job' variety. It does one job, and
- does it fast and with minimal hoorah.
-
- PSPort is System 7 and above ONLY. Its only interface is Drag and
- Drop, so you cannot use it with earlier Systems. If you double-click
- on it from a System 6 machine, you will get an error message and the
- software will quit gracefully.
-
- PSPort does this: it filters PostScript files originating on MS-DOS
- or Unix systems and converts them so that they can be downloaded
- from Apple Macintosh computers. The conversions are these:
-
- Control-D (ASCII 4) is thrown away.
-
- Control-Z (ASCII 26) is thrown away.
-
- CR (ASCII 13) is passed unstranslated.
-
- LF (ASCII 10) is thrown away _if_ it follows a CR. If not,
- it is converted to a CR.
-
- That's it. PSPort has been tested to work on ASCII-encoded
- MS-DOS-originated PostScript files. I surmise it would be a
- Real Bad Idea to use it on Binary-encoded PostScript files...
-
- To use PSPort _with_ System 7, simply select the files you want to
- filter and drag them on the program's icon or an alias of it. New
- files will be created, and your original source files will remain
- unaltered.
-
- Greg Swann
- 9/16/92
-
-
-
- ADDENDUM REGARD VERSION 2.0.0
-
- There are only two changes in this version:
-
- 1. PSPort is _massively_ faster. Of my utilities, this is the one
- that has been most annoying to me to use, simply because PostScript
- files are so large. Version 2.0.0 makes use of the Lizzie
- Border/Amanuensis/Mark My Words read/write logic to do the same
- 'one dumb job' many orders of magnitude faster.
-
- 2. In keeping with the spirit of the season, PSPort now sports a
- festive icon.
-
- Happy Holidays to all!,
-
- Greg Swann
- 12/16/92
-
-
-
- ADDENDUM REGARD VERSION 2.0.1
-
- If you want, we can call this one BirkensPort...
-
- DTPForum member Jim Birkenseer dropped me a note regarding version
- 2.0.0. He had what I thought was a good interface idea, so I've
- distorted it beyond all recognition through the lens of my mind and
- implemented the mangled version here (grin).
-
- What Jim wanted was for PSPort to save the newly created files in
- its own home folder, rather that in the home folder of the original
- files. He D&Ds directly from DOS floppies, so saving to PSPort's
- folder would save him time and headaches. I thought that was a
- little non-intuitive as a default, so what I've done is add two
- keyboard overrides.
-
- 1. If you D&D on PSPort, it works as it always has, saving the new
- files in the same folder as the originals.
-
- 2. If you hold down the Option key as you D&D, you will be prompted
- for a volume/folder to save the new files into. As with Amanuensis,
- the highlighted prompt string is meaningless. We're simply looking
- for a target folder.
-
- 3. If you hold the the Command key as you D&D, the new files will
- be saved into the folder where PSPort itself lives.
-
- This is the only change implemented with this version.
-
-
-
- However... Jim was raving about how great PSPort is and how he wants
- to send me money for it. In truth, it's not great - just a little
- hack involving less than an hour of work to date - and it's free.
- But I _do_ have for-pay products that are eminently of interest to
- service bureaus and type shops, PSPort's primary audience.
-
- These are:
-
- XP8 - a very intelligent file filter that cleans up and makes the
- filthiest text QuarkXPress-ready. Among many other features, it offers
- DOS-file reformatting, financial-text clean-up, garbage disposal,
- typographic quality enhancement, and the best quote conversion we know
- of. The ShareWare version of XP8 (v1.0.0) can be found in CompuServe's
- Desktop Publishing Forum (GO DTPFORUM), Library 5, under the name
- XP8.SEA or in the Info-Mac archives as GST-XP8Demo.sit. The
- current commercial version is v1.0.7 and offers a great many
- enhancements over the ShareWare version.
-
- Torquemada The Inquisitor - batch global search and replace software
- with wildcards, pattern matching, string substitution, et very
- cetera. With Drag & Drop under Systems 7 or 8, you can run up to 640
- searches on up to 128 files in one batch. Features the most
- intelligent case-conversion we know of. The most-recent FreeWare
- version (1.1.0) can be found under the name TORQUE.SEA in Library 5
- or in the Info-Mac archives as GST-TorqueDemo.sit. The current
- commercial version is 1.3.0, offering a great many enhancements,
- including new "wildthings" and a _lot_ of new User Interface power.
- The commercial version ships with Torquemada's Ghost, a scriptable,
- backgroundable Torquemada. A DemoWare version of Torquemada's Ghost
- is available as TGHOST.SEA in Library 5 or in the Info-Mac archives
- as GST-TGhostDemo.sit.
-
- Shane the Plane 2.0.2 - file and font attribute editing utility.
- Interactively or in Drag & Drop batches, permits you to change the
- Creator/Type of files, their created/modified dates and times, a
- host of significant Finder flags, plus a lot more. Makes files
- invisible/visible, makes fonts behave like files by removing their
- BNDL resources, batch "pastes" custom icons, intelligently renames
- and/or "slugs" files, et very cetera. A demonstration version (fully
- functional but limited to 32 launches) can be found in Library 12
- under the name SPDEMO.SEA or in the Info-Mac archives as
- GSU-STPDemo.sit.
-
- Mark My Words - a very elaborate MS-Word binary to QuarkXPress Tags
- text filter. It eats Word 4.0, 5.0 or 5.1 files, interactively or by
- Drag & Drop, and converts the binary to QuarkXPress tagged text. You
- can elect to include or omit any feature of Word's styling, and many
- features can be converted from their WP-like form to their DTP-like
- form (e.g., underscoring to italic). With Em Software's Xtags
- Xtension, picture and text boxes (including Word's tables) can be
- retained. A demonstration version (fully functional but limited to
- 32 launches) can be found in Library 12 under the name MMWDEM.SEA or
- in the Info-Mac archives as GST-MMWDemo.sit.
-
- (While I've vectored all the files toward CIS and the internet, my
- primary haunt, they are also available on other services, and on any BBS
- which has the most recent version of AMUG's BBS-In-A-Box CD-ROM on
- line.)
-
- All of these programs are sold on the same terms: (US)$50 each, per
- license. Two to 10 licenses are $45 each. For 11 or more licenses you're
- better off buying a site license. All of this is explained in the
- registration software supplied with this archive.
-
- Of course, if you just want to send me money - for PSPort or one of
- my other freeware hacks - go right ahead (grin).
-
-
-
- (More) Happy Holidays to all!,
-
- Greg Swann
- 12/20/92
-
-
-
- ADDENDUM REGARD VERSION 2.0.2
-
- Two small changes:
-
- 1. New icons. Not necessarily better, but new.
-
- 2. When you actually save into a different folder with Option-Drag &
- Drop, the destination filename is not changed. That is, instead of
- "myFile.PS!", you get "myFile", albeit with a PSPort icon. We're
- checking to make sure you really did target a folder different from
- the source file's folder, and, either way, a pre-existing file with
- the exact same name as the new destination file will be deleted and
- replaced. What you get--and I admit this is a feature of dubious
- worth--is the same name you started with.
-
- Also: My friend Shane Stanley, and AppleScipt fanatic, is telling me
- about live folders, to be implemented in OS 8.5. In this scheme, a
- folder could have an AppleScript attached to it that would operate
- on each and every file that arrives in it. PSPort is useful for more
- that just PostScript: We are making all DOS/Wintel and Unix files
- Mac-like as a side-effect. An Applescriptable PSPort could be
- attached to an Incoming folder on a file server. It could
- Mac-process and redirect every alien file that came its way. This
- amounts to woolgathering at the moment, but that's where all the
- pretty sweaters come from, ain't it?
-
- Greg Swann
- 8/1/98
-