This is a Release version of Dock'Em™ for the Macintosh. Dock'Em™ will run on the PowerPC and on the 680x0 machines. Please contact MetaMind for a copy of the correct Editor, if you have the wrong one.
A Dock'Em™ Viewer is useful when you need to give your friends Dock'Em documents. They may read, but will not be able to edit Dock'Em documents. You may also find a Demonstration version of Dock'Em™ on our Web site.
IF IT DOESN'T LAUNCH:
Sometimes OpenDoc will indicate that it cannot find or launch Dock'Em™ even though it is correctly placed in the Editors folder. This may be due to several reasons:
(1) This version of Dock'Em™ requires at least the ODFLibrary version 1.2. If you are using an earlier version, or if there are several versions of ODFLibrary in your Editors folder, remove all other versions and install version 1.2 or later. As of this writing, version 1.2.2 is the current version.
(2) In versions earlier than 1.0.3, Dock'Em experienced some problems when the computer was a new one, or had a recently installed System in which the older version was completely removed before the new one was installed. In these cases, printer drivers and specifications may not have been available. This caused Dock'Em to abort launch. The current version rectifies this problem. The solution on the older versions is to choose a printer in the Chooser control panel.
(3) Be sure to remove older versions of "Page Composer" and of "Dock'Em" from your Editors folder. Dock'Em™ is a replacement for Page Composer, the name which was used during development.
WARNING:
In November 1996, Apple announced that the Code Fragment Manager Enabler for the 68k machines (the "CFM 68k Enabler") causes intermittent crashes of the operating system, leading possibly to loss of data. This means that on 68k machines any shared library will have difficulty maintaining as high a level of stability as it might have on the PowerPC. Consequently, since OpenDoc parts make use of this enabler, Dock'Em™ for 68k may not be as stable as it is on the PowerPC. The cause is in the CFM Enabler, not in the 68k version of Dock'Em™. This problem will continue until Apple publishes a fix for the problem. MetaMind will keep its users advised of progress on its web site.
The Vision
The way we communicate affects the way we think and the way we imagine. The medium and the message are so intertwined, that when our methods of communication remain limited, so do our thoughts, ideas, and imagination. As methods of communication improve, our tools for creating printed and electronic documents must keep pace, so that we can truly experience the freedom of expression that the "Wired Age" brings.
Our old communication metaphors, the linearly paged book, the slide presentation, the scrolling text editor, and the page layout editor, are solutions that primarily suggest the printed medium. Using them, our thoughts and imaginings remain two dimensional, just like two dimensional printed paper. Using these metaphors, our imaginations also tend to remain localized for the most part, to two dimensions.
Our mission at MetaMind Software is to transform the process of constructing printed and electronic documents and to establish new media authoring techniques based on component software technology. Our tools help you construct environments for conveying ideas in ways which are best for you. No longer will your expressions of thought be limited to two dimensional metaphors, when really you want to move far beyond traditional modes of presentation. You can begin to do that now with Dock'Em!, and soon, far more aggressively with Dock'Em! Grand.
The latest version of Dock'Em! will always be available through our web site and selected internet distributors (www.MetaMindSoft.com) which we hope you find useful and will continue to use until you really discover the power of communicating in documents constructed on your own terms. When that happens, try Dock'Em!Grand, coming to you in mid 1997. You'll be in for a real treat!
About Dock'Em™!
Dock'Em! is a completely flexible, OpenDoc™ compliant tool for constructing contexts within which meaning can be conveyed in any form. It currently supports linearly paged, single sectioned, electronic documents of any length. Grand will support complex, multiply sectioned, hyper-connected, electronic documents. and will move us further away from the printed standard of communication. Think of Dock'Em! as the Docker of choice for OpenDoc compliant parts. Drop those Live Objects™ into Dock'Em! and go about your business creating the kind of documents you want. Using them and the features you find in Dock'Em!, you will be able to construct any environment you want for conveying the thoughts floating through your imagination.
Because it is OpenDoc™ compliant, Dock'Em! gives you the flexibility to embed specialized parts that do what you want: Virtual Reality viewers, 3D editors, data and graphing analyzers and so forth. OpenDoc’s linking mechanisms allow these conveyors to communicate among themselves, synergizing meaning in ways that simply were not possible in the old pre-wired age.
Dock'Em! is intended to give users the power to convey meaning in the Wired Age.
Dock'Em! is being developed by MetaMind Software, Inc in cooperation with The San Diego State University Foundation and The Physics Learning Group at The Center For Research in Mathematics and Science Education at San Diego State University.
Early OpenDoc™ development at MetaMind Software was funded in part by a grant from Apple Computer.
How To Install this Part
Drag the "Dock'Em™ Viewer PPC 1.0.3" editor and the "ODF Library 1.2.2" to the Editors folder of your hard drive. Drag the stationery document, "Fresh Dock'Em™ Stationery" to the Stationery folder on your hard drive. Actually the Stationery may be placed anywhere on your hard drive or desktop.
What can you do to help?
We would appreciate any comments on the human interface and on features. which you find interesting, left out, or broken. Please contact us through our Web Page or by e-mail.
