Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-07-22 | 117KB | 168 lines
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INFO!Title : Magnetic Pages v1.3
Author : Mark Gladding
Country : New Zealand"Conditions : Shareware - $25 USA.
(About $50 NZ)
Category : Application
Released : 1992
Opinion : 82%
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1
Memory :
meg.
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES
A600 wb 2.05 : YES
Multi-tasks : YES!Display : PAL or NTSC - PAL% screens scroll under mouse control! on an NTSC screen - thanks for that A500 boot bug Commodore.& Magnetic Pages is the shareware&software used to put this magazine&together. The review will concentrate&on how easy or otherwise it is to&compile a disk magazine using Magnetic&Pages as you can judge for yourself&how satisfactory the end product I
produce with it is.& Magnetic Pages (MP for most of the&rest of this article) is a suit of&three programs - the Editor, Organiser&and Displayer. The Editor is for&compiling pages of text, graphics,&animations, sounds and music into&single articles. The Organiser is for&linking all these articles together in&the form you want the magazine to take&and the Displayer is the program that
runs the final magazine.
THE EDITOR
& The Editor is where you compile the&articles for your magazine and is&where most of the work is done. An&article consists of up to a hundred&pages and there are essentially two&types - graphic and text pages. Text&pages, just to confuse the issue, can&include graphics as well as text. All&the text, graphics, animations, music&and sounds you want to incorporate&into your magazine has to be produced&with other software. There's only&rudimentary text editing in the Editor&and no graphics, music or sound&editing at all. Animations however are&made from a group of brushes - you&don't need an anim maker or player as
this is done within the editor.& So to make a half-decent magazine&you also need a good text editor or&word-processor able to output ASCII&format text and a paint program such&as Deluxe Paint. A HAM-only paint&program wouldn't be enough as pictures&on the text screens need to be in8
[3mThe Picture And Animation Box Editor
[23m&sixteen colours or less. For music you&need MED for composing it or for&converting Soundtracker music modules&into the MED format used by MP and&perhaps some sound samples in IFF or&RAW format or a sampler to grab your&own. MED is available in the public&domain. Paint programs, sound samples&and good text editors can also be&found in the public domain if you are
missing any one of them.
Graphic Pages
& A graphics page can display any&non-AGA IFF Amiga picture and also&play a piece of music or a sound&sample when first entered. And that's&all you can do with them. No buttons&or text can be added which is why you&have to use the keyboard or a menu&selection to move out of them. For an&example of a graphics page see the
front page of this magazine.
Text Pages
& Text pages are where you spend most&of your time in the Editor. As with&graphic pages you can also play music&or a sound sample when a page is first&entered. These pages are all in&non-interlace, non-overscan hi-res&format and can be of either eight or&sixteen colours. Graphics used within&them can have less than these maximum&numbers which helps to save on disk
and memory space.& Text pages unfortunately is where&the only major design fault in MP&lies. Text, graphics, buttons and&animations are all called boxes in MP&and are oblong in shape (defined by&the graphic's size or by the user in&the case of text boxes) and they can&be anywhere on the screen. To place a&new box on the screen you select the&appropriate option from a menu which&is how things should be. To edit a box&however you also have to select a menu&option and then using the mouse you&click on the box you wish to edit. And&it's the same also for moving, sizing&and copying boxes. This is back to%
[3mThe Text Box Editor
[23m&front for those who are used to using&the Workbench and it gets very&tedious. There are keyboard&equivalents but you still have to use&the mouse to select the box you want.&This should of course be the other way&round. My ideal would be for a single&click on a box to bring up moving,&sizing and copying gadgets around it's&edges and a double click to enter the&editor. Even now, after using this&program constantly all this year, I&still sometimes instinctively double&click on a box and expect it's editor&to come up. You do sort of get used to
using it - but only sort of.& Text and graphic boxes each have&there own editors. Both give you the&options to have a border or shadow&around the box and for them to act as&buttons when clicked on for starting&music or sound samples and for jumping&to other articles. One minor problem&with jumping to another article is&that there's no way to jump to a&specific page - it will always open on&the first page. This is why in APDR&you always go to the first page of the&Index when ideally it should be to the&page with the button on for the&article from whence you've just come.&Both editors also allow you to place&your boxes at a pixel-perfect position
on the screen.& The text box editor also allows you&to define the text colours and the&number of rows and columns of text in&the box. You are stuck with Topaz 8 as&the font though but at least there's&ANSI formatting such as italics etc.&There's also very simple text editing&and formatting available and again you&always have to first select these from&the menu. Only one line of text can be&edited at once - as I said - very&simple. Formatting options available&are centering, justifying, and&re-formatting, the latter returning&your text to normal left-justified
with a jagged right edge.& I like my text justified but it's a&pain to use here. Every paragraph has&to be done individually with a&selection from the menu for each one.&For the first two issues of this&magazine I was following my usual&habit of putting two spaces between&sentences and this really made a mess&of things when I tried to format the&text in MP. I now only use one space&and getting the text looking right has&gone from a hair-pulling exercise to
just a chore.& I suspect your text editor or&word-processor will determine how you&feel about the use of text in MP. I&use KindWords3 as it contains the&easiest to use spelling checker I have&but it doesn't save ASCII files in the&format I would like. (KindWords also&hangs up if you try and load in&KindWords-normal files when the word-$
[3mClick To Animate
[23m&processor is in ASCII format. I crash&KindWords on a regular basis because&of this, something I seldom do with&MP. So much for commercial software.&And other KindWords users, ain't it&fun when you miss selecting the&thesaurus or spelling checker and%choose the user dictionary instead?) & I get the feeling that some of the&text options were added on after MP&was designed and are there as a result&of the author or his customers needing&them. Mark Gladding is the editor of&"Amsmag", the NZ Amiga User Group's&monthly disk magazine which MP was&originally created to produce, so he&knows as well as anybody what's&required for producing a disk mag.&Text editing is a bit of a luxury here&and I think if it wasn't included I&wouldn't miss it, as I don't miss a
graphics editor.& There's one other minor problem&with text in that only one text file&can be used per article. This is&annoying if you want to use text as&picture labels or such as an edit at&the beginning of the text alters all&text further down the article.&Sticking with the same column widths&throughout an article makes this a bit
simpler.& The Graphics box editor allows you&to display pictures or animations.&Pictures, like music and sounds, are&first loaded into the article. You are&then able to use the same one as often&as you like. When in the article they&are then selected using a nice&requester. For some reason known only&to the programmer your music, sound&and picture names have all disappeared&when you re-load in an article at a&later date and have been replaced by&picture1, picture2 etc. This makes&selecting the ones you want a bit of a&hit and miss affair. So it's best to&get your article as near finished as
possible at the first sitting.& Animations are simple to set up but&a little bit tedious. It's a visit to&the requester for each frame you want.&There's a bug here too. If you don't&also have the box set up to play music&or sound or to jump to another article&it resets to just displaying a&picture. For the example animation&here, (click on the metronome picture&elsewhere in this article to see it -&and yes, I know it has a flaw in the&first frame and it's my fault, not&MP's. Anims can of course be in colour&too), a silent sample plays also. I&made it in MED by just cutting stuff&out of a music sample until there was&practically nothing left. You always&have to click on an animation for them&to work too as there's no way to make%one start when a page is first shown.& Other features of the Editor&include comprehensive menu options for&aligning your boxes on the screen and&ways to view the pictures and hear the&music and sounds in your article. The&music can be set to play once or&continuously. A palette editor is also&available and you can choose any&picture's palette as your page's&palette. One problem I've encountered&with palettes in MP is with the&shading of it's built-in windows such&as the Help file and the Text Search&requester. I like to use a light&coloured screen as the background for&text pages with the same coloured&borders. Dark text on a light&background seems to look better on a&TV too. MP's windows however use the&background colour as the dark shading&for buttons and suchlike which makes&them look back to front. There doesn't
seem any way around this.& Text and the article's page number&can also be displayed in the menu bar.&This is only semi-automated and you&can edit the contents after the&numbers have been added. In theory&this is a very flexible way of doing&it but in practice it's a pain and all&too easy to forget. If you add or&delete a page after the article's been&numbered you have to title the menu&bar again, copy this to all the pages&(only one menu selection thankfully)&and then auto-number the article to&get it correct again. I would happily&go without this feature's flexibility&in exchange for a hard-wired auto-&numbering system. Better still, have&it optional. When in doubt of what to&include, give the users the choice. If&you've ever used a MP magazine with&inconsistent page numbering then this
is the reason for it.
THE ORGANISER
& The Organiser is a very simple and&effective way to link up all your&articles into a finished magazine.&It's just a numbered list of your&articles with each one having another&number which points to the article&that will load when you click on the&"Contents" button in the menu bar -&called "Parent" by me in this magazine&as I consider calling more than one&article "Contents" to be a bit&confusing. Once you've set up the&structure of your magazine in the&Organiser it's just a case of&inserting new article names in their&appropriate places into the article's&list. The Organiser does it's job
well.
THE DISPLAYER
& From the point of view of producing&a magazine The Displayer needs hardly&any thinking about at all. The Icon on&the Workbench used to launch the&magazine, (it's a Project icon for the&file saved by the Organiser), just&needs it's Default Tool's path set for&using the Displayer. If you want your&magazine to auto-boot then it's just a&case of adding "Displayer Organiser-&file" to the disk's startup-sequence.&Amy PD and Shareware Review's&startup-sequence first CDs to the&magazine's directory before starting&it. I can't remember if I did it this&way because it was necessary for&running the magazine or was just!easier. Either way it works well.& The Displayer controls the&interface of the magazine. It's&Displayer that's responding when you&turn a page or click on a button. As&you have no doubt found out by now it&works very well. I do wish the sixteen&colour text pages would fade in a bit&more quickly though. In the Editor&there's no noticeable difference&between turning eight or sixteen&colour pages - but then it doesn't use&a fancy fade in either. The only other&fault in the interface I can think of&is in the Help pages. You can use the&cursor keys for turning the magazine's&pages but not the Help pages. Just&forgotten to be programmed in I guess.& There's one major stylistic problem&here though and that's the menu bar at&the top of the text screens. No matter&how you wish your magazine to look&it's always going to have that flat&looking bar of text and buttons at the&top of the screen. I would much prefer&a hidden menu bar like on the graphic&screens and the text and cluster of&buttons to instead be a graphic's&brush defined by the user, (and loaded&in with the Organiser file?), so they&could be placed anywhere on the
screen.& One thing you have to take into&account when deciding on the palettes&you will be using for your pages is&the text colours in the menus. To&avoid having unreadable colour mixes&requires some learning. An alternative%
[3mThe Contents Page Of "Amsmag"# Edited By Mark Gladding
[23m'
[3mNot The German Edition of Amsmag% But A Club Magazine Called "Freizeit# Technik Treff" And Produced With
Magnetic Pages
[23m&menu palette as in Deluxe Paint would&have made life a lot simpler. See the&Producing APDR text in the Magazine$Reviews article for more about this.
CONCLUSIONS
& Overall MP is an excellent piece of&shareware programming. I may have&seemed a bit critical with some of my&comments but when you are using a&program every day you tend to notice&the bad parts and overlook the good&ones - and there's plenty good about&MP. For one, all the articles can be&PowerPacked. This usually means&savings of thirty to fifty percent per&article so much more can be crammed
onto a disk.& MP is also very close to a "what&you see is what you get" program and&thanks to the Amiga's multi-tasking&the magazine you're compiling can be&running at the same time. Just save&your article, switch screens and you&can test the finished product. While&the Editor is running I regularly have&KindWords, Deluxe Paint II and the&magazine itself running as well, not&to mention a swarm of other little&programs like PictSaver and TinyClock&also alive. And all in just 2 megs.&Great. The Editor loads very fast as&well and the Organiser in just a blink"of the eye. Very tight programing.& Since starting to use MP I haven't&once considered looking for something&better. This, with refinement, is the&way disk magazines should be put&together so I'm sticking with it. Most&of my time in making this magazine is&spent not with MP but with word-&processing and the manipulation of&graphics. Putting them all together in&MP is one of the more enjoyable parts
of the process.& There are other possible uses for&MP other than as a disk magazine&compiler. One that springs to mind is&as an interactive book. A nephew of&mine a few years ago was very keen on&books which he called "twister plots".&These had parts where the reader had a&choice of moving to a different page&which would alter the outcome of the&story. With MP's ability to use&sounds, pictures and animations these&could be great fun on the Amiga.&Anyone remember C
sar's Travels on the
C64?& There's no variables yet in MP so&your story would have to be hard-&wired. (Variables would send the uses&for MP skyrocketing.) This makes&adventure games of any complexity&unlikely - and it would be too easy to&cheat anyway with every page available&- no... just changed my mind. I've&thought of a way to do it! Subscribers&can see proof of it in this month's PD
disk.& All the menu texts, help file and&system messages are customisable so&foreign language versions are&possible. There's an article in the&demo magazine that comes with MP taken&from a Spanish (I think) magazine&called Amiga Hoy. I've also seen a&German magazine produced with it. Also&of interest in the demo magazine are&articles by Simon Frantzen on using&Deluxe Paint. Well worth a read. Simon&produced most of the pictures in the&demo and designed MP's icons - now&shaded incorrectly for Workbench 2.
Tricky, this shading business. & If you are intending to make a&magazine or need a program for&displaying interactive text, graphics&and music then Magnetic Pages is a&program you must consider. I can&recommend it unreservedly to anyone&who doesn't mind a menu bar across the
top of their text pages.& See also the Revamping APDR and&Producing APDR articles in the&Magazine Reviews section for more
about using Magnetic Pages.
Footnote...& Mark Gladding, the producer of&Magnetic Pages, has seen this review&and considers it fair comment and&didn't ask for a single change. All&that's left to be said is that I've&received excellent support from him as&a shareware producer and I don't think&anyone will regret paying out the
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