46 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
46 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
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°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°REVIEW: SHOWRIP v3.01 by Chuck Warrix°°°°°°°°°John Kwasnik
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ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß
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a stand-alone RIP file viewer/debugger
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Finally got a hold of this gem, even though I had to phone long
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distance to do so. SHOWRIP is a command-line RIP file viewer like
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DEADVIEW and VIEWRIP. As such, it can be patched into offline mail
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readers that support shelling to external programs.
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But it is distinguished by its ability to display ANSI text in
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the defined text window ... so far, this has only been possible
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with a RIP terminal online. Limitations are that only the 8x8 text
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font is supported; the other 4 fonts are noted by increasing the
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inter-character spacing. Horizontal and vertical scrolling are also
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lacking. But at least you can get an idea of a text window's
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contents.
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SHOWRIP also includes command-line switches that can be used to
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debug a screen. One can step-through a screen one RIP command at a
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time, and optionally display that command at the bottom of the
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screen, or choose a text-only, verbose command listing that
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translates each RIP command into English.
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Bugs include the omission of a couple of graphics primitives:
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the RIP |V elliptical arc and |l polyline don't display at all ...
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which can lead to leaked fill in a RIP screen that uses them ...
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like the copy of Art Deco graphic artist Paul Colin's Josephine
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Baker poster I did a few weeks ago.
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Annoyances include a VERY slow Bezier curve routine, and the
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famous 15-second delay for each screen in the unregistered version.
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Also, only the first 5 of the 11 graphics fonts are included in the
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program. SHOWRIP can use the standard RIP *.CHR font files for all
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11 fonts, but they must be in the current directory ... and the
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target filename must be in the current directory as well (no
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pathnames allowed!). This makes it somewhat awkward to use as a
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mail reader shell; one must do a batch file to change directories
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and copy files.
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Still, SHOWRIP 3.01 shows lots of promise. I am eagerly
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awaiting new releases that clean up some of the bugs, and maybe
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speed up the drawing routine.
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-end-
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Copyright (c)1994 John Kwasnik
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