SimpleView was written with a number of purposes in mind (which is probably a bad sign): primarily it is a viewer for QuickDraw GX Portable Digital Documents (PDDs). It can also act as a bridge between the worlds of the old QuickDraw and the new QuickDraw GX, by providing basic conversions between their respective graphics formats. It was an exercise in learning about QuickDraw GX graphics, typography and printing. And finally, it was a testbed for my reusable, non-object-oriented, Modula-2 application framework.
Warning: SimpleView is a work in progress—USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. This version has some known problems, and doubtless you will find others. If you hit one, let me know (my contact information is at the end of this document). If SimpleView behaves strangely or crashes, then the more information you can supply about the circumstances that led to the problem, the better the chances of my finding the bug and fixing it.
I also welcome comments and suggestions for improvement. My idea is to release a future version as shareware at some point: what features would you like to see in a utility worth paying for?
To run SimpleView, you will need a Mac with System 7.5 or later, and QuickDraw GX 1.1.1 or later (the current GX version as of the time of this writing is 1.1.3). In order to be able to drag or copy GX graphics into GX-unaware applications, you will also need some version of QuickTime installed (the current QuickTime version as of this writing is 2.1).
• Basic functions
SimpleView can open, view and print PDDs, pretty much like Apple’s SimpleText. (Of course, SimpleText does a few other things as well, but never mind.) Unlike versions of SimpleText at least up to 1.3, SimpleView tells you how many pages are in the document when you bring up the “Go To Page...” dialog. You can also zoom in to a page for a closer look, or zoom out for an overall view, using the zoom buttons at the bottom-left of each window. Zooming works similarly to the way it does in MacDraw II/Pro: click anywhere in the window, and that point becomes the centre for subsequent zooms.
• Interchange functions
SimpleView lets you copy the entire contents of a page of a PDD to the clipboard, or drag a copy of the page to another application. Such graphics can be brought directly into a GX-savvy application like Lightning Draw; if you have QuickTime installed, you can also paste or drag them into GX-unaware applications that will accept a regular QuickDraw picture. The nice thing is, these graphics remain 100% GX graphics, and will view at full quality on-screen at any magnification, and print nicely through the GX printing system, even from within the GX-unaware application.
SimpleView can open QuickDraw PICT files, and convert their contents to QuickDraw GX shapes. It can also open GX graphic files containing a single flattened QuickDraw GX shape in their data fork. The type of these files is “qdgx”, and they are basically the same as the documents created by Lightning Draw 1.0x, if you ignore the extra information that Lightning Draw keeps in the resource fork. I have enclosed some samples, to show you the kinds of graphics you can create with just a few calls to QuickDraw GX. These samples can also be used to test data interchange with other GX-savvy applications.
• Scripting
If you have AppleScript installed, you will find that SimpleView is scriptable and recordable, and supports the AppleEvent Object Model. Just about every function that the user can perform, that it makes sense to script, is scriptable. Most of them are recordable, too.
I have enclosed a couple of example scripts demonstrating the text-extraction and slide-show features.
SimpleView’s dictionary only lists its custom AppleEvents: it also supports the required events (except it currently cannot print a file, only the contents of a window), and several of the core events. To find out what these are, just turn on script recording and run through a few actions.
There are also a few extra things you can do via scripting, that I have not (as yet) provided a way to do interactively. You can open a PDD file read/write, whereupon the “Custom Page Setup...” function becomes available, to let you change the formats for individual pages. You can also add and delete pages. Note: this PDD hacking feature is still experimental.
Hint for AppleScript/GX hackers: zooming and scrolling is all very well, but for added enjoyment, you can set the “viewport mapping” property of a window to any QuickDraw GX mapping. This property is a record of type “Mapping”.
Have fun.
• Version history
Z-0.5d3 of 1996 June 28: Changed QuickDraw encapsulation to new-style GX 1.1.x QuickTime-based method instead of old-style GX 1.0.x picture comment method. Scrolling is now flicker-free. Scale factor display is now lineal rather than area. Page boundaries are now more obvious. Printing of a GX graphic file is now automatically tiled onto as many pages as necessary. Used a slightly more readable font in the about box.
Scripting enhancements: a great many, including the ability to examine and change the default desktop printer, extract text from a GX shape, and run a simple slide show. The old “save shape” event (which improperly used the same ID as the Core Suite “save” event!) has been replaced with a new “write shape” event—you will need to modify your scripts accordingly. The FixedRectangle, GXColor and Mapping types are now records, instead of atomic blobs.
