World: r3wp

the advantage of maybe not so precise PDF system comes into equation, 
once you need more abstract thinking, e.g. sending docs around, adding 
comments, electronic signatures etc.

Henrik - would it be difficult to create AGG based preview?

I tried and failed, but I might have used a wrong approach. Graham 
has done some PS previewing in a demo.

the problem is coordinate systems and that fonts do not scale linearly 
in AGG.

ah, yes, of course ... yesterday's talk here with Cyphre ...

PDF is basically a compiled PS document. Requires less "brainpower" 
to display.

The postscript dialect give you very precise control of the output, 
but it's also maybe too low-level for many jobs. Dialects should 
be build on top of my postscript dialect (where you don't think in 
PS coords), and that should be easy to preview with REBOL/View (using 
DRAW).

geomol, I think that it should be kept at a low level. This way I 
or someone else can build a library of standard things on top of 
it to generate formatted pages, tables, formatted paragraphs and 
such.

just installed Gsview - I thought it is much bigger. it seems fine 
...

Henrik, yes, the postscript dialect should be low-lever as it is 
now. It's a fine base for further development. You can use it directly 
as you do, or someone could build new dialects producing postscript 
dialect output, which then can be made into final PostScript. (If 
you know, what I mean. Difficult to explain.) :-)

yes, it can become very powerful. one could actually build a system 
like LAYOUT this way to build PS documents.

Exactly!

in fact, I think it would be a good idea to coordinate this, in case 
someone wants to start building such stuff to avoid duplicate or 
overlapping efforts.

I see, there's an online ps2pdf converter here: http://www.ps2pdf.com
(Haven't tried it.)

ps2pdf is also a command (I think included with Ghostscript): http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/6.50/Ps2pdf.htm

Pekr, what about making a small REBOL program, which can load postscript 
dialect txt-file, convert it to a .ps file, then call ps2pdf and 
finally call a PDF-viewer (Acrobat Reader) to see the result. You 
could also include a button to send the .ps file to a printer. Then 
you'll have PostScript with preview and all (also under Windows).

Also, someone could take the postscript dialect, and instead of producing 
PS output, actually use the PDF dialect to produce PDF output. That'll 
also give preview of postscript dialect source files.

Geomol, here's PDF dialect too, so what about making PS and PDF dialect 
compatible? Then you need not some external convertor.

yes, that's what I was thinking :)

Rebolek, :-) I haven't got the time to do everything! You do that 
part! :-)

(Also I'm on OS X, so I don't have the preview problem, because the 
OS auto convert to PDF, if I'll like to see a .ps file.)

geomol:)) OK but if I will, who's going to finish this? http://bolek.techno.cz/pix/app/request-color.png
;-)

Nice! :-) We need more than 24 hours in the day! Who can help us 
with that? ;-)

nobody on AltME I think :) Everybody's busy :)

I'm writing down some preliminary ideas for coordination...

Rebolex, that's such a nice target for liquid... is the code anywhere?

(oops I don't know how the x got there... I meant Rebolek)

maxim: what's nice target for liquid? you mean my hsv/rgb color requestor?

yep

especially using the up and comming liquidGL which plugs liquid direcly 
within the GLayout dialect

Perhaps we need a little print-spooler in a multi-user environment? 
May be a good job to solve using REBOL. It should be able to receive 
printjobs from plenty of users at the same time (using multi-threading 
much like the way Apache serve multiple users with web-pages) and 
then send the jobs to the printer one at a time. Maybe someone already 
did it in REBOL? Or if there is a server at hand, just send the jobs 
to the spooler in the server. I'm not too familar with spoolers. 
Will they leave the PostScript printjob as it is, and just send it 
to the printer? I could figure, that Windows spoolers would like 
to change the PS into something else using a print-driver.

I wrote a very small one, about 2 kb in size with a GUI. I can't 
remember, but I think it uses Rugby.

I made it for a very specific purpose (as one would do in REBOL), 
so it may have to be rewritten.

I don't know if this software has been noticed:
http://www.cenon.info/frame_gb.html

Tiny progress .. my dialect can now put multiple text boxes on one 
page, and produce the same output in PS and draw.  Now to find some 
PS text justification routines.

is there someone who have an idea for printing in rebol on a dot 
matrix printer ? i have to pilot it for printing a pre formated bill 
for dental care.  If anybody see what i mean..  I was wondering about 
how to do it in rebol, by passing by a markup langage but i dont 
know how it work.  if anybody got an idea...

xavier, are you doing it from windows?

yes

i probably have to do it with a tally manesman if it can help

I suppose it doesn't contain any graphics? if that's the case, you 
can print directly to the printer through LPT

yes no graphics and by lpt i think

it typically the kind of paper you got when you went out of the dentist, 
only caracters

and a dot matrix printer is not supposed to be connected by something 
else then the lpt port

if you have access, try this on the machine in a dos prompt:

echo test > lpt1:

yes it s ok

ok, then you can do the same from within rebol. I don't know if you 
can write to LPT from within rebol though, but you can call dos commands 
the same way as you just did with CALL.

yes .... and the format is 80x25 so i can put what i want where i 
want

yes, that should be possible

thanks for your help ... sorry if my question was too simple

no problem. this can be hard to figure out sometimes. at least you 
got at choice between this or going full postscript which is considerably 
harder. :-)