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- Copyright (C) 1990, 1992 Aladdin Enterprises. All rights reserved.
- Distributed by Free Software Foundation, Inc.
-
- This file is part of Ghostscript.
-
- Ghostscript is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
- WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. No author or distributor accepts responsibility
- to anyone for the consequences of using it or for whether it serves any
- particular purpose or works at all, unless he says so in writing. Refer
- to the Ghostscript General Public License for full details.
-
- Everyone is granted permission to copy, modify and redistribute
- Ghostscript, but only under the conditions described in the Ghostscript
- General Public License. A copy of this license is supposed to have been
- given to you along with Ghostscript so you can know your rights and
- responsibilities. It should be in a file named COPYING. Among other
- things, the copyright notice and this notice must be preserved on all
- copies.
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- This file, readme.doc, describes problems and new features in the
- current release of Ghostscript. This file describes version 2.4.1 of
- Ghostscript.
-
- For an overview of Ghostscript and a list of the documentation files, see
- README.
-
- New features
- ============
-
- Note: this is not a complete list of new features. See the most recent
- section of history.doc for full details.
-
- The SunView driver works again.
-
- The SuperVGA drivers, except for the VESA driver, now work with the
- 32-bit MS-DOS executable.
-
- You can use \ in file names on the command line on MS-DOS.
-
- You no longer need to set GS_RUN_EXE=dos4gw when using the Watcom
- compiler.
-
- Dictionaries expand automatically when they fill up. (No more dictfull
- errors.)
-
- There are new drivers that produce all six types of Portable Bitmap /
- Graymap / Pixmap output. (writeppmfile is still supported, but it
- will be removed in the next release.)
-
- There are new drivers that produce three flavors of PCX files
- (black-and-white, EGA/VGA-style 16-color, and SuperVGA-style
- 256-color), and two flavors of GIF files (black-and-white and
- 256-color).
-
- Known problems
- ==============
-
- Interpreter
- -----------
-
- The interactive interpreter requires that every statement fit on a line,
- i.e., you can't have an unpaired ( or {.
-
- On a MS-DOS system, interrupting Ghostscript by typing ^C doesn't restore
- the display mode.
-
- Operators
- ---------
-
- The Ghostscript language does not include the following operators of the
- PostScript language:
-
- resetfile
- banddevice, renderbands
-
- The following are not implemented completely:
-
- %statementedit (file name): interpreted as equivalent to
- %lineedit.
-
- Most of the new color operators, particularly those that support the CMYK
- color model, are implemented as Ghostscript language procedures, and they
- essentially emulate CMYK using RGB.
-
- The following operators that expect arrays won't accept packed arrays:
- definefont (Subrs (type 1 fonts))
- setdash (dash pattern)
- setcachedevice (bounding box)
- makeimagedevice (palette)
-
- The file operator only recognizes modes r and w, not the newer modes r+,
- w+, a, and a+.
-
- Limitations
- -----------
-
- Floating point exceptions terminate Ghostscript, rather than producing a
- rangecheck error.
-
- Some access checks aren't implemented.
-
- copypage does nothing in the MS-DOS implementation, and merely
- synchronizes the X connection in the Unix implementation. showpage is a
- procedure that does a copypage and then beeps the bell and waits for the
- user to hit a key. (copypage does do the right thing for printers.)
-
- Graphics bugs
- -------------
-
- strokepath produces incorrect output for dashed lines.
-
- The implementation only looks at the PaintType of the font when doing
- show, not when doing charpath. Because of this, stroked fonts don't work
- correctly with charpath.
-
- arcto gives an error for negative radii.
-
- Halftone screens that aren't parallel to the coordinate axes may produce
- incorrect output: the cell is rotated, but not the tiling pattern.
-
- Changing the contents of the Encoding array or the Metrics dictionary of a
- font dynamically doesn't produce the expected result (may have no effect)
- if character caching is enabled.
-
- Halftone patterns "flip over" at the 50% coverage point, producing
- anomalous visual effects on some color devices.
-
- We have not been able to test 2-, 4-, and 16-bit memory devices as
- thoroughly as 1-, 8-, 24-, and 32-bit devices; please report any
- problems.
-
- Non-graphics bugs
- -----------------
-
- restore doesn't properly undo currentgstate.
-
- copy doesn't handle gstates.
-