At our next meeting Gareth will demo the latest release of Mac OS X, version
10.5 codenamed Leopard.
From new features designed to improve productivity to foolproof backups;
Leopard is an ideal system in today's busy world.
We will also look at the iLife '08 suite of applications, for managing music, photos, video, web and more.
The evening will I hope be hands-on and interactive, and we should have time to create projects in a number of the applications on the night!
Do please come along for this meeting which promises to be very entertaining and informative about the this application suite.
Frank put in a lot of work for this review and demonstration of the development of Vector graphics.
Frank had used !Artworks as a presentation package for his talk using text overlays to background images. The latest version shows the layer control window which helpfully stays open now all the time instead of closing after a selection.
He began by saying that !Artworks was the end of a long line of various packages on RISC OS from !Draw, !Drawplus !DrawWorks and !Vector. !Photodesk also got a mention. They showed increasing sophistication . Alongside the drawing features was the ability to present JPEGs and display slideshows. In this area are !SwiftJPEG, !Variations , !Thump in v. 1.4.9 . and !OHP2 which is similar to Powerpoint. John Rye mentioned that in Select 6, !Variations is broken, but a new version is expected soon.
!Artworks 2 is now developed by Martin Wuerthner and comes on a CD (no longer requires a dongle. ) There is a comprehensive electronic manual but no printed version.
Frank was using text areas in Artworks to show notes for his talk. Selecting the text with the mouse shows the text area. The text area is backed by a rectangle with rounded corners. There is a choice of different corners available. Using the ordinary text tool only allows you to change the text in line by line; but with a text area you can put the caret back into text to edit it later and edit it continuously. The text may be spellchecked as well.
You can make random shapes and close the figure by dragging the last point. You can then apply radial or gradient fills. Another useful feature is transparency. You can also generate locked horizontal lines. You can also generate multiple copies of a shape via the pasteboard selected by lassoing . These can then be synchronised and rotated together.
There is also a perspective tool and an autopaste function which places a new object for each mouse click. Another interesting feature is to be able to have textured fills particularly with cross hatching which is frequently used in engineering drawings. Also shapes can be profiled by interpolation of images. Text can be added to objects which can then be distorted whilst still leaving the text editable. It is a very comprehensive package.
In addition to his work on Artworks2 Martin Wuerthner has also worked with Icon Technology with Techwriter one of the best technical desktop publishing programs for handling equations and formulae- the big brother of Easiwriter Professional Plus which I am using here. He also worked with Computer Concepts (the original authors of Artworks) in order to provide similar features to Artworks2 for Windows users with Xara 1.0.
A very good talk, difficult to describe adequately without graphic examples and sadly I don't have Artworks 2 to do this. Many thanks to Frank for all his work.
I thought I would add a small piece on the distinctions between vector and bitmap graphics.
In Bit map graphics each pixel in a screen defined by its colour. Initially all pixels are white RGB (0,0,0) and drawings are made by changing the pixels to a different colour with various tools like pens, spraycans, cloning tools fills, etc. By contrast in vector graphics lines and shapes are defined geometrically by various tools such as pens and selecting pre-defined items like lines, curves, rectangles, circles/ellipses, polygons etc. and freehand drawing tools. These shapes can be drawn with a defined line colour and thickness and then filled with a colour which may be different to the line colour. Shapes may also be drawn with line segments where each segment has handles and can later be manipulated to alter the angle of the lines at each joint. Vector graphics is essentially much less memory intensive compared to bit map graphics.
Prime examples of Bit map and vector graphics are !Paint and !Draw respectively.
At the next meeting I am expecting us to have several visitors. The Mid Suffolk computer Club are due to pay us a visit. They are interested in the possibility of a merger with our Club. I am also hoping that an electronics engineer interested in renovating old acorn machines like the BEEB will come to see us. He is also interested in any original Acorn memorabilia and magazines which may help him in this task.
The Committee will be having a meeting very shortly to discuss the AGM and future programme. Please would you contact us if you have any suggestions for future meeting topics.
| 2008 | ||
| March 5th | "iLife08 Managing your digital world" | Gareth |
| April 2nd | AGM + TBA see below | All |
Talks with Visiting speakers are shown in Red. We will give more details as soon as they are confirmed. We are having a committee meeting this month to revise our programme so the above topics will probably change.
Our meetings are held at the Bourne Vale Social Club, Halifax Road, Ipswich IP2 8RE , for a map and other details please see the website. http://icenicomputerclub.users.btopenworld.com
The first visit is free and subsequent visits for non - members is £2·50. The membership fee is £20 due from the AGM date in April, but may be reduced for those joining late in the year.
Continuing our publicity for EAUG events - please see their Website for details of their next meeting.
Meetings are at the Great Baddow Village Hall, on the second Tuesday of the month
opening at 7:30 p.m. for a start at 7:45 - 8:00 p.m.
For directions see below (note the new web addresses)
http://www.eaug.org.uk or 'phone one of the contacts on http://www.eaug.org.uk/ppl.htm
"ICENI does not have any Insurance cover for computers or other equipment so please be advised that you bring machines to the club at your own risk."
P.S. My insurance company have added my computer cover away from home with no extra premium required, yours might do the same.(Ed.)
If anyone would like a copy of the CD of our old newsletters this could be arranged.
I am open to suggestions on what people would like to have included in the website.
Our website URL is
http://icenicomputerclub.users.btopenworld.com as a virtual domain,
it can also be reached using http://www.btinternet.com/~icenicomputerclub
Email to: iceni@woolridge.org.uk
1. Apologies for Absence
2. Minutes of the last meeting
3. Matters arising
4. Chairman's Report
5. Secretary's Report
5. Treasurer's Report
6. Election of Officers and Committee
7. AOB
If anyone wishes to stand for the above posts please contact the Secretary (currently Peter) before the meeting. The minutes of the last meeting will be sent out before the meeting and further paper copies will be available at the meeting.
Please note that subscriptions are also due at the AGM for next year £20.
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