[3081] in comp.os.os2.announce archive
BETA: DEMO: IPAD v0.2.3 (Beta) Intelligent vector drawing package
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sergio Masci)
Tue Jun 24 02:58:25 1997
To: os2ann.DISCUSS@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Date: 23 Jun 1997 23:01:00 -0400
From: sergio@titan.demon.co.uk (Sergio Masci)
Reply-To: sergio@titan.demon.co.uk (Sergio Masci)
Reply-to: sergio@titan.demon.co.uk (Sergio Masci)
[Followups directed to comp.os.os2.apps]
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Announcing IPAD V0.2.3 (Beta) for OS2
Although IPAD is a COMMERCIAL product, the evaluation version is available for
download FREE of charge.
IPAD is the multiplatform front end to a special tool to be completed some
time in the future. It currently provides most of the functionality of an
interactive GUI vector drawing package, together with some bit mapped image
handling. It allows easy editing across files using multiple overlapping
windows. The graphics objects drawn and edited by IPAD have built in
intelligence. They react to the mouse and each other so as to maximise user
productivity and reduce tedious repetitive setup sequences.
With most other packages an object must first be selected and placed into one
of many modes in order for the package to provide handles through which the
object must be manipulated. With IPAD however, simple rules govern the
behaviour of an object depending on what other objects it is touching and how
it is approached and grabbed.
Any object may be picked up and moved or its shape changed without it first
having to be selected, and if its edges are touching any other object, IPAD
will intelligently manipulate those objects in order to reduce the knock on
effects of the change. With most other packages a simple change can require a
lot of rework.
A very powerful feature of IPAD is the way it is able to manipulate groups of
selected objects. A group is not just a collection of objects, it has
properties of its own. A group can be edited like any other object. Objects
can be very easily picked up or dropped from a group. Groups can also be
opened and their contents edited in their own windows.
IPAD also has a catagory system that allows the user to define the properties
of an object and to override those properties in a derived object. Complex
objects can thus be built by grouping simpler objects and assigning them
properties. This makes it a very simple matter to create a set of component
objects which can be held in a template window, copied across into the working
drawing and the properties modified to suit the working drawing.
IPAD supports printers using PCL 5 (most HP), ESC-P2 (most Epson), PostScript
and anything else via ppm or png. It has been designed from the ground up to
be fast and responsive. The base system is a 486DX 33MHz + 8MB RAM + ISA video
card.
IPAD will (in the future) provide a mechanism to drive third party backend
software (e.g. code generators, state machine generators etc.) For now you are
restricted to just drawing with it. Since IPAD is a COMMERCIAL product, its
source code will not be made available.
IPAD currently provides the same GUI interface on Linux 2.0.x, MSDOS 6.2, OS/2
Warp, Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51
IPAD is available from
http://www.demon.co.uk/titan
Send feedback and questions to
sergio@titan.demon.co.uk
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