[Mac OS X TeX] WARMreader and the Marked Objects Adobe Illustrator plug-in
Francesco Costanzo
costanzo at engr.psu.edu
Fri Jul 27 12:21:36 EDT 2001
<x-flowed>Ross (or anybody that can help):
Before we even begin, we want to thank Ross and Wendy for taking the
time and effort to create WARMreader as a tool for including labels
in graphics. The comments and questions below are things that we hope
will help others in using WARMreader and provide feedback to the
authors so that WARMreader can be improved.
After taking the time to learn about WARMreader, Gary Gray and I have
the following comments to report:
[1] The help available (paper: W. McKay and R. Moore, "Convenient
Labeling of Graphics, The WARMreader Way; and the examples available
on line) does not tell the whole story. For example, we had to look
in the file warmread.sty to understand that
- the default reference point for text labels is the lower left
corner of an enlarged text box, as opposed to the center of the box
(default for math labels).
- there are a multitude of "formats" for .bb files which have to be
selected using commands of the type
\let\xyWARMprocess\xyWARMprocessMo
\let\WARMprocessEPS\WARMprocessMoEPS
- many of the commands that are placed in the preamble of the LaTeX
files provided as examples by Ross Moore at:
<http://www-texdev.mpce.mq.edu.au/WARM/WARMhome/ILLUS902/>
are not essential for using WARMreader. In this sense, said examples
are not good examples to get started. We would consider them advanced
examples provided that a few comments lines be added to explain the
effect of the WARMreader commands used.
It would be nice if there were some documentation that would get
people like us (people that have used TeX/LaTeX for years but are not
interested in deciphering style files) started (i.e., covering the
bare essentials) with the bare essentials (for example, describing
why $$ ... $$ (displaymath mode) are used to make sure that the
imported figure is centered) of the package and then point to
documentation for more advanced usage.
[2] Why is the .bb file format generated by the Marked Objects
plug-in in Illustrator 9.0.2 different from the default format of .bb
files? Why have more than one format? With only one format the "\let"
commands shown above are not necessary.
[3] Instead of the commands
\let\xyWARMreader\xyWARMreaderMo
\let\WARMreaderEPS\WARMreaderMoEPS
placed in the preamble of a LaTeX file to instruct WARDMreader to use
the Marked Object plug-in syntax in reading the .bb file, why not
define an option to the warmreader package? That is, something along
the lines of
\usepackage[AIMarkedObject]{warmreader}.
[4] Depending on how the .bb files is created, the internal numbering
scheme used by WARMreader to identify the entries in the .bb file has
NOTHING to do with the "number" labels placed in the .bb file;
[5] Provided that we understand why, for example, !D moves the text
UP instead of DOWN, would it be difficult to change the internals of
WARMreader so that the nudging commands become intuitive (e.g., U
mean UP and D means DOWN)?
COMMENTS on the Marked Objects plug-in for illustrator, which can be found at
<http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~wgm/WARM/reader2001.html>
[1] Would it be possible to contact Tom Ruark (the author of the plug
in) directly to give him our feedback?
[2] Will the Marked Objects plug-in for Adobe Illustrator 9.0.2 work
with the forthcoming release of Illustrator for MacOS X?
[3] The way the plug-in renumbers objects is such that if you have
more than 9 objects, the objects will not appear in a sequential
order in the resulting .bb file. This is because of the fact that it
orders objects in the following manner:
1
10
11
12
...
100
...
2
20
...
200
[4] In the Marked Objects plug-in dialog window there is a pop-up
menu with the following items:
- point
- rectangle
- polygon
- ellipse
- oval
The selection of one of these items seems irrelevant from the
viewpoint of the .bb file creation. Is there an explanation as to why
said menu is available?
[5] Why are the "Character" and "Paragraph" pallets always attached
to the Marked Objects dialog window? We have to keep removing them
... and it gets a little tedious after a while.
[6] We have found that with certain files (it appears to only happen
when we begin with pre-Illustrator 9.x files, although we are not
100% sure of this) the bounding box which is reported in the .bb file
does not have the format %%BoundingBox: 0 0 xxx yyy
but it has the format
%%BoundingBox: xx1 yy1 xx2 yy2
(I hope this is not confusing)
Is this a problem for WARMreader?
[6] We have found that with certain files (it appears to only happen
when we begin with pre-Illustrator 9.x files, although we are not
100% sure of this) the coordinates of some of the marked objects (but
not all), AT SOME POINT, start looking like (12200, -11971) (meaning
COMPLETELY OUT OF RANGE WITH RESPECT TO THE FIGURE), although
appearing in the right position in the Illustrator file. One can
re-enter the right coordinates of the and "update" the marked object
record (by using the "Transform" pallet for example). However, after
saving the file and re-opening it, the updated coordinates go back to
taking on the absolutely screwed-up values.
We would be more than glad to work with Ross, Wendy, and/or Tom to
improve these tools and/or fix any of these problems.
--
Best Regards,
Francesco Costanzo
Associate Professor
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mailto:costanzo at engr.psu.edu
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