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Date: Sun 21-Nov-1991 23:40:03 From: user_groups@NeXT.com (NeXT User Groups) Subject: BANG - Oct 16 meeting summary (posted for Dick Benster) This is Dick Benster's posting of the October 16th BANG meeting... BANG (San Francisco Bay Area NeXT Group) 16-Oct-91 Meeting Summary by Dick Benster - BANG volunteer A Look at Some New Third-Party Software Approximately 140 people (including 30 new attendees) gathered at Stanford University to hear about some of the latest software offerings for NeXT machines, and to eat So Yong's amazing cookies. Announcements Andy Vyrros and crew have completed the BANG fall newsletter - its outstanding! Congrats to all that worked on it. BANG is looking for writers for future newsletters, especially people with alternate views on NeXT-related issues. If you want to get involved, send your email to BANG-request@BANG.org. BANG is considering starting a graphics SIG for informal get-togethers regarding graphics on the NeXT. If interested, please respond to graphics@bang.org. Appsoft Introduces Itself to BANG Dan Rines of Appsoft briefly addressed the audience, mentioning that Appsoft had taken over WriteNow, and is shipping release V2.1 ($199 retail, $99 student), ClipArt, and five Adobe type fonts. Appsoft also announce Pixel, a product that will go far beyond Icon in its capabilities. Appsoft also needs engineers, so polish up those resumes. Appsoft is totally separate from NeXT, this is not an Apple/Claris relationship. To contact Appsoft, email to dan@appsoft.com. Juan Pineda Introduces enTar for Your Backup Pleasure "enTar" is a program for doing backups to tape via a NeXTStep front-end. It is based on unix tar and compress, and is available for $89 ($69 thru Nov '91). It automatically configures to use the tape drive you have, including 150mb streamers, DAT, Exabyte 8mm, etc. "enTar" will let you create an archive, as well as open a tape and select files thru a browser for saving and restoring (note that the widely available demo version will do saves but not restores). It does not support multiple volume backups, but does support multiple backups to one tape. The demo version is available on the purdue archives for your trial, from BANG members, or from Impact Software (hhsu@impact.shaman.com) . You can buy the product from Impact. Vivid Publishing World Premieres TypeView Ken Fromm, who organizes BANG's developer SIGS, and has given his time most generously to all BANG affairs, showed that he does indeed do more than volunteering. Together with marketing partner Sterling Hutto, Vivid Publishing gave the first public demonstration of a unique and useful program, TypeView. TypeView is a companion product that supplements word processing, DTP, DT illustrating, DP Presentation, etc. Via the services menu, TypeView allows the users to rapidly view all features of any font family on the machine (note that it is a viewer, not a font editor nor a drawing program). You can select a particular character in a font that has the precise appearance you require, copy, then insert where desired in your running app. Additionally, TypeView can create permutations of fonts for comparison viewing and selection, so you can make the best choice for a font with all options visible. It also has a very useful "link" facility, whereby you can show multiple fonts in multiple windows, and have a feature track the same in all windows - e.g., click on an 'A' in one window, and it will show all the 'A's in the other windows that are linked - this is very elegant for multiple font comparisons. Current pricing is $60. For more information, contact sterling@vivid.com. Bambi Fernandez Takes a Bow Bambi Fernandez, NeXT Developer Advocate, and renowned in the NeXT Developer's world as the "Advocate Mom", was introduced to BANG. Bambi is one of the most diligent and effective people in supporting the developer community, and has saved many developers' hinnies. Bravo Bambi! Right-Brain Keeps Cookin' Up Great Software: LockScreen and PasteUp Right-Brain Software is no longer just Glenn Reid. Now a growing, four person company, Right-Brain introduced two new products. The first, LockScreen ($59), is a screen-saver with great flair. Besides the usual monitor burn-in protection, it also provides optional password protection, so you can leave your screen unattended without logging out, preserving your screen context without compromising security while you're gone. It will also notify you by mail after 5 unsuccessful login attempts. You can drag in your favorite tiff or EPS files and have them bounce around the screen. But by far the most popular feature is its random word mode, where LockScreen chooses and displays different lengthy words from the unix dictionary - its amazing how captivating it is to watch the software protect your monitor as it improves your vocabulary with entertaining and byzantine new words. A great product in a seemingly mundane niche! Right-Brain's second announce product is a work-in-progress page-layout program called PasteUp. It is approximately six months away from being released - pricing is undetermined at this point, but may be in the $795 range. Glenn describes it as an industrial-strength application. One of its many strengths is its speed - for instance, launching requires only two seconds. PasteUp supports shearing, scaling, and rotating layout elements, and handles multiple pages. It will also import from TouchType, etc. Enormous attention is being paid to production details - rather than having the ubiquitous fixed rulers, PasteUp's ruler floats to where you want it and can have tick marks on the top or bottom, can be centered on 0, and can construct a 'T' from horizontal and vertical members. Additionally, the tools menu may be reordered so it supports what you do most frequently. The program's main purpose is to provide fast design capabilities as well as good color separation for production. It is meant to be so easy to use that you will use it on one-pages FAXes as well as top-quality layouts. In Glenn's words, "it will be the coolest." Right-Brain Software may be reached at (415) 961-4400/1-800-472-7246. NeXTWorld Conference Targeted for End-January Dan Lavin of NeXTWorld strongly hinted that everyone reserve end-January for a NeXTWorld Conference (since confirmed for 22-Jan thru 24-Jan in San Francisco). There will be a major coming together of NeXT users, developers, NeXT and related third-party vendors, and the first international user's group meeting, which BANG will host. Check it out! Lighthouse Design Shows Off Two Products: VOID and Concurrence Ray Ryan from Lighthouse Designed (a real company with seven NeXTHeads) dropped by to briefly demo two fine-looking pieces of software. Ray's title with Lighthouse is "Lead Vocals," which automatically makes everybody's expectations very high! First was VOID, a space shoot-em-up game that can be played by one player on a single machine, or by two or more players (one per NeXT) on a network. The game runs best on '040 mono systems, but is more visually impressive (although slower) on color systems. It features spectacular use of CD-quality sound. The single user mode is like Asteroids, in that you shoot asteroids and alien space-ships. The multi-user game is where the game really sparkles, as it pits players against each-other in spaceship combat while displaying concurrently on all machines involved. You can also send text messages (taunts, warnings, admonitions,etc) to co-players while you prepare for battle, adding a humorous touch. The game is available through NeXTConnection for $99 for a three machine license. A less expensive, single machine license is being considered. Lighthouse's real ground-breaker, however, appears to be its Concurrence app, a presentation outliner and editor of structured documents. The software allows sound (music and speech) and text/graphics displays to be synchronized, providing a highly professional "slide-show" capability on the NeXT, via the "concurrent" editing of both the outline and the presentation itself. The display postscript output can also be directed to any postscript device - 35mm slides can be produced if desired. A master slide may be set up that can control the formatting of subordinate slides. The hierarchical structuring of your presentation allows hiding/exploding out details, and different views of the same information - a View Browser allows the user to coordinate and present the same information in different ways for related but different presentations. You may drag in .eps, .tiff, etc., plus a draw package is also provided. Additionally, impressive transitions from slide to slide (dissolves, etc) are possible. The presentation may be mouse-driven or self-driven. This product is expected to be shipped Q4 1991, with the full-documentation package probably priced under $800. Lighthouse may be reached at 1-800-366-2279. Honored Visitors from Japan! The meeting was additionally graced by a visit from two distinguished members from NeXus, NeXT User Society in Japan. Kazunori Shioya (shioya@sra.co.jp), and Hironobu Suzuki (hironobu@sra.co.jp) were very warmly greeted and presented with BANG T-Shirts, which are beginning to get rare! NeXus has been very visible on comp.sys.next.*, with outstanding meeting minutes posted monthly. We thank Kazunori and Hironobu for attending, and encourage other NeXT users from beyond the Bay Area to please come visit! Another Mighty BANG Auction Our sincere thanks to the following for their generous donation of software/materials for BANG's on-going fund-raising: Juan Pineda for a copy of enTar Lighthouse Design for a copy of VOID Stone Design for Stone T-Shirts Vivid Publishing for the #1 copy of TypeView, and a Vivid T-shirt WordPerfect for 2 WordPerfect pens We had great fun, and raised big bucks. Thanks to all! See you at the next meeting!
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.