Inform Designer's Manual .pdf version
Matt Carden
Is there a .pdf version of the Inform Designer's Manual which includes the
errata? The one at ftp.gmd.de is out of date.
Thanks,
Matt Carden
Mikko P Vuorinen
In <01bcf90f$7928bd70$4e44df84@mdcpc> "Matt Carden" <mca...@nospam.erols.com> writes:
>Is there a .pdf version of the Inform Designer's Manual which includes the
>errata? The one at ftp.gmd.de is out of date.
Now if someone uploaded an updated postscript version I guess I'd start
learning Inform.
--
)))) (((( + Mikko Vuorinen + mvuo...@cc.helsinki.fi
)) OO `oo'((( + Dilbon@IRC + http://www.helsinki.fi/~mvuorine/
6 (_) ( ((( + GSM 050-5859733 +
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TDLewis
Matt Carden asked:
>Is there a .pdf version of the Inform Designer's Manual which includes the
>errata? The one at ftp.gmd.de is out of date.
I created the PDF file that is at ftp.gmd.de using Acrobat Distiller. It
matches the PostScript file. I just took a look at the text file and noticed
that there have been updates made. If someone uploads a current version of the
PostScript, I'll be happy to convert it to PDF.
___________________________________________________________________
Tony Lewis (tdl...@aol.com)
"We are sorry for the inconvenience."
Look What the Cat Dragged in
Mikko P Vuorinen <mvuo...@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in article
<65ctvh$q...@kruuna.Helsinki.FI>...
> Now if someone uploaded an updated postscript version I guess I'd start
> learning Inform.
I've got to say I'm disgusted, frankly!!
You're saying that you won't read it unless it's in the right format? Isn't
this like saying you won't read a book unless it's got nice pictures? Or
it's in colour?
It's TEXT, for goodness sake, for writing TEXT adventures. I read the
AmigaGuide version, even though I don't use an Amiga!!
TEXT TEXT TEXT!!
How can you be so picky?
P.S.The files are huge anyway.
Jeremy A.Smith
To reply by Email, change the 'z' in lwtcdz to i
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<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>
Patrick Kellum
In article <01bcf9dd$532edcc0$LocalHost@default>, Look What the Cat Dragged in was talking about:
>It's TEXT, for goodness sake, for writing TEXT adventures. I read the
>AmigaGuide version, even though I don't use an Amiga!!
You know, if you use a PC then there is an AmigaGuide viewer for that as
well. I haven't tried it but I could get you the URL if you need it.
Personnaly I can't stand AmigaGuide (and I use an Amiga) but I never got
around to converting it to HyperGuide :)
>TEXT TEXT TEXT!!
>
>How can you be so picky?
I agree, with so many unreadable formats out there (pdf being the thorn in
my side) I think we should all be happy that there are plain text versions
out there.
>P.S.The files are huge anyway.
Tell me about it, try loading the AmigaGuide Designer's Manual from a
floppy disk sometime :)
Patrick
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Thomas Aaron Insel
tdl...@aol.com (TDLewis) writes:
> I created the PDF file that is at ftp.gmd.de using Acrobat Distiller. It
> matches the PostScript file. I just took a look at the text file and noticed
> that there have been updates made. If someone uploads a current version of the
> PostScript, I'll be happy to convert it to PDF.
I've just uploaded a PostScript version of the current (May) version
of the manual to
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive/designers_manual.ps
presumably it will replace the current one at
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/compilers/inform6/manuals/
at some future date.
Tom
--
Thomas Insel (tin...@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu)
"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, then it's good enough for me."
-- A U.S. Congressman (anyone know who?)
Andrew Plotkin
Look What the Cat Dragged in (ne...@lwtcdz.prestel.co.uk) wrote:
> Mikko P Vuorinen <mvuo...@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in article
> <65ctvh$q...@kruuna.Helsinki.FI>...
> > Now if someone uploaded an updated postscript version I guess I'd start
> > learning Inform.
> I've got to say I'm disgusted, frankly!!
> You're saying that you won't read it unless it's in the right format? Isn't
> this like saying you won't read a book unless it's got nice pictures? Or
> it's in colour?
Like I wouldn't play TADS games (er, much) unless they had an interface
exactly like MaxZip's? Yes, very much like that. :-)
Interface is important.
(Ok, *fine*, I *did* play the TADS games before I wrote MaxTADS.. But I
won't play WorldBuilder games at all, even though they're text IF for the
Mac, because the interface sucks.)
> It's TEXT, for goodness sake, for writing TEXT adventures. I read the
> AmigaGuide version, even though I don't use an Amiga!!
I spend a surprising amount of time flipping through the Inform
Designer's Manual and Z-Spec. The fact that they're nicely printed, in a
proportional font with sensible margins and paragraph structure, has
undoubtedly saved me several blinding headaches.
I've somehow never learned TeX, but I may have to. I do sometimes write
up long documents myself. Hm.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Mary K. Kuhner
>I've somehow never learned TeX, but I may have to. I do sometimes write
>up long documents myself. Hm.
>--Z
LaTeX, which is enough for anything but the most nitpicky formatting,
is quite easy to learn--I did it by the sink-or-swim method when the
lab I moved to didn't have the WYSIWYG editor I was used to, and it only
took a couple of days. You can do a first manuscript in LaTeX about
as quick as a first game in Inform (if, in both cases, you have a
specimen to crib from). (It works better than the WYSIWYG did, too,
especially if you need complex equations.)
To get slightly (only slightly) back on topic, does anyone understand
why formatting that looks good on screen (like the Usenet standard
no-ident, skip-between-paragraphs) looks bad in print and vice versa?
Would you want to format your text differently if you thought your
game was being displayed black-on-white rather than (what I'm looking
at now, for example) off-green-on-black?
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Neil K.
mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
> To get slightly (only slightly) back on topic, does anyone understand
> why formatting that looks good on screen (like the Usenet standard
> no-ident, skip-between-paragraphs) looks bad in print and vice versa?
I think quite a lot of factors come into play. One of the most obvious is
resolution. Modern graphical video monitors typically have a resolution of
72-80 dpi or so. Rarely higher than 85 dpi, anyway. Text-only CRTs are
considerably lower. Print is ideally going to have a resolution of at
least 300 dpi or so; usually higher. Video text is always of much lower
quality than print accordingly. It's also rarely anti-aliased, so you get
that jagged stair-step effect. Aliased text is easier on the eyes,
generally speaking, as more information is there. Large blocks of body
text are usually printed with serif fonts, as they're easier to read.
Computer monitors use sans-serif fonts for the most part.
Other differences are more device-dependent. For example, most people
find the Mac and Windows GUI approach of a white page with black text
easier to read than the old terminal approach of amber or green on black,
because it more closely resembles the printed page. (yes, I know there are
people - particularly nerds ;) - who violently object to the paper white
display model, but I suspect they're very much in a minority) A decent
proportional font is easier to read than a clunky monospaced one, because
your eye flows over the text more naturally. A smooth printed font is much
easier to read than a low-res chunky computer font, where all the
characters look very similar to one another. Variable line spacing is
rarely done on computers, except in desktop publishing programs. But in
real printing you often leave half or fractional lines between paragraphs
as a visual cue.
Size of the output device and distance from it are important also. Books
are usually read at a much closer distance than monitors, but the
available image area is usually greater when you factor in the larger type
size required by monitors. The result being that you can take in a lot
more text in one glance when you're reading a book than when you're
looking at a monitor. Monitors require more scrolling, which separates the
flow of information into porthole-sized viewing chunks. And scrolling is
usually very jerky and fragmented - paper doesn't move in such jerky
increments. Monitors tend to be TV-shaped for historical reasons, but
that's not the ideal form for reading text. With text you want something
approximating a page - taller than it is wide - because your eye can only
read line lengths of a certain width naturally. So on a monitor you either
have a full-width window with a big font or a partial-width window with a
smaller one.
Then there are the less obvious factors. Video is largely a transmissive
medium (light comes out of the CRT; non-backlit laptops being the rare
exception here) whereas print is reflective (light is bounced off the
page). Many studies have argued that the brain interprets information in
the two forms very differently. Video images are being repainted dozens of
times a second - anywhere from 50 to 90 Hz. There's an inevitable
shimmering or flickering as a result, whether you consciously notice it or
not, whereas print text is always static. What influence that movement has
on the human brain is debatable. But what is less debatable is that print
and video text *feel* very different to read. Just print a long document
out and read it hard copy vs: on screen. Anyone who's written a long
document (eg: a thesis) will know what I mean.
Books are moved around for comfort, whereas monitors (even laptops)
generally stay put on a desk. You also rarely have more than one monitor,
so all your attention (and your body) is focused on one place and thing.
Printed matter you can have a lot of - you can shift your attention
between multiple books or pieces of paper instantly. And monitors are
usually looked up at, whereas print you generally view looking down.
(interesting unintended social message there, perhaps)
In short, text in print is vastly superior to text on a CRT. :) The only
reason we use CRTs so much is that you can instantly change text on a CRT,
whereas print is static. That seems pretty obvious to me, but I'm always
amused at people who seem shocked at the amount of printed output we
humans generate these days. That myth of the paperless society still seems
to have its adherents. But it ain't gonna happen until we invent display
devices with the basic properties of a printed page. (lightweight, flat,
low-cost, flexible, very high-resolution, reflective, near zero energy
consumption, etc.)
Computer books have failed utterly for one major reason. It's a lot nicer
to curl up in bed with a book than it is to sit rigidly in a chair and
gaze at a monitor. The advantages of the CRT (being able to search and
update the text, being able to alter the display size of the font) do not
come anywhere near close to overcoming that single major disadvantage,
though of course the greater cost of computer-based text is another
factor. Educators (to take an example) who want to replace textbooks with
little laptops - even devices as cute and cuddly as Apple's eMate - would
be doing their students a great disservice. They're so caught up in the
gee-whiz of technology that they overlook the fact that the centuries-old
technology has some pretty darn good advantages still.
> Would you want to format your text differently if you thought your
> game was being displayed black-on-white rather than (what I'm looking
> at now, for example) off-green-on-black?
Definitely. I find I normally code using a very small sans-serif
proportional font - Geneva 9 on a Mac. Because it lets me get the maximum
amount of information on my 15" monitor, and I want to view as much code
as possible. But when playing games I really don't like tiny text like
that - I much prefer 12 point text, usually a serif font like Palatino.
Probably in part because the average line width of code is less than that
of prose. Just my personal preference, and the way my brain works.
I think one of the biggest limitations that monitors place on prose is
that it tends to chop text up into little bite-sized chunks. Read a book -
you're going to read long paragraphs without a problem. Long pages. But a
typical IF game has little screen-sized bits. Anything longer seems
annoyingly excessive. Take Dave Baggett's Legend, for example. In (what I
believe was) an attempt to lend a more literary quality to his work, he
had fairly lengthy room descriptions and cut scenes from time to time.
These multi-paragraph chunks wouldn't have seemed particularly long in a
book, but I feel that they helped undermine Legend's popularity somewhat,
as people were a bit overwhelmed with text. (particularly the
introduction, which is several screens long on a typical monitor) Dave
tried to address this by introducing the innovation of user-configurable
paragraph breaks (optional blank lines between paragraphs) but I don't
know if that could go far enough, ultimately.
I'm facing this lengthy-text problem with my game in progress myself.
There are a handful of key scenes with multi-screen pieces of text. On a
big GUI monitor with a nice proportional font, they don't look too bad,
though they're still a bit long. But on an 80x25 text-only display they
seem really rather lengthy. Part of me wants to pare them down, but at the
same time it'd diminish the effect of the prose. I'm not writing an
interactive haiku or tanka, after all. (hm - there's an idea for an IF
game. Write a game in which all prose displayed is in a haiku or sonnet
form.) So as a sort of compromise I'm going to keep them, but time their
arrival later on in the game, at which point the player has hopefully
gained enough interest in my work to want to read longer passages.
I wonder how IF would have developed if we had output devices that
produced print-quality dynamic output. Would works of IF contain more
prose-length (hopefully not prosaic!) chunks or would we still have the
short, clipped, paragraphs typical to contemporary IF?
- Neil K. (aware of the irony of this long post)
--
t e l a computer consulting + design * Vancouver, BC, Canada
web: http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/ * email: tela @ tela.bc.ca
Jon Petersen
(Minor Spellbreaker and Legend Lives! spoilers await.)
Neil K. wrote:
>
> Anything longer seems
> annoyingly excessive. Take Dave Baggett's Legend, for example. In (what I
> believe was) an attempt to lend a more literary quality to his work, he
> had fairly lengthy room descriptions and cut scenes from time to time.
> These multi-paragraph chunks wouldn't have seemed particularly long in a
> book, but I feel that they helped undermine Legend's popularity somewhat,
> as people were a bit overwhelmed with text. (particularly the
> introduction, which is several screens long on a typical monitor)
[snip]
> I'm facing this lengthy-text problem with my game in progress myself.
> There are a handful of key scenes with multi-screen pieces of text. On a
> big GUI monitor with a nice proportional font, they don't look too bad,
> though they're still a bit long. But on an 80x25 text-only display they
> seem really rather lengthy. Part of me wants to pare them down, but at the
> same time it'd diminish the effect of the prose.
Well, if I were a trusted and acknowledged i-f authority, I'd advise you
to trim 'em down. However, I'm just some unpublished punk. :) I don't think
static, "effective" prose is really what i-f is about, personally--I think of
it more as an exchange with the player, and that's why it's good to give the
player as much say as possible.
The monitor-length idea is interesting--I'd never thought of it before.
I do remember the difference between reading the description of the
box in Zork III in 80 columns vs. 40 columns. (That's WAY too vague for
a spoiler warning, right?) In 40 columns the description seemed much longer.
However, I think that there are more important reasons than eyestrain why Long
Text Descriptions Are Bad:
1) Obviously, you come to books and if for different reasons. If I'm reading
a book, I expect to be (relatively) passive. I play text
adventures to be DOING things, to be pitting my mind against whatever
challenges are around. Reading is an important part of what you're there to
do, but it's not the MOST important. You're there to participate.
2) Long stuff, particularly cut-scenes, really diffuse the focus of the
adventure from the player, I think. I am a selfish, selfish player. I want the
adventure to be about ME, ME, ME! I don't want important things to happen if
I'm not the one doing them. I feel like the best IF manages to tell its story
through involving the player what's going on, not by jamming page upon page of
text down their throats. SPELLBREAKER, for example, manages to tell a
whiz-bang story with a pretty surprisingly small amount of text. Lebling could
have had Belboz talk to you for a page and a half about the dangers of the
cubes and the terribleness of the failing of magic, but I think that would have
detracted from the immediacy of the game. Legend Lives! on the other hand,
relies on its loooong text descriptions to narrate major story chunks. For
example, we're told that the bad virus is eating up the internet, but we don't
get any concrete examples of this. Likewise, the game wants you to have an
emotional investment in the characters without actually having had any
meaningful contact with them as a player. Since I think what we have
actually done in the game over a period of hours resonates much more
than what we take a couple minutes to read, the result is a storyline
that almost seems divorced from what you have been doing as a player.
I think this is the biggest danger of relying on long text interludes
to move the plot.
3) This is gonna sound kinda snobbish, but whenever I read long text
descriptions, I often get bored because, frankly, the writing often isn't all
that snappy; I get the impression that the writer had more fun writing the text
than I'm having reading it. To bash on poor Legend Lives! some more, I probably
would have liked the pages o' text more if I had, well, LIKED them. I found
the writing style and the events in them rather dull and hollow. Generally,
anytime I read more than a page of text I start thinking, "This probably could
have been expressed better in a shorter space"--and I want to be playing a
game, not grading a paper. :) What I have been doing with the game I'm writing
is, whenever I notice something is especially long (over a page or so), I ask
myself, "Is this something I would enjoy reading if I were the one playing this
game?" Then I ask, "Really?" Generally I decide to cut it.
> I'm not writing an
> interactive haiku or tanka, after all. (hm - there's an idea for an IF
> game. Write a game in which all prose displayed is in a haiku or sonnet
> form.)
Seems like a logical successor to Tempest. Comp98?
> I wonder how IF would have developed if we had output devices that
> produced print-quality dynamic output. Would works of IF contain more
> prose-length (hopefully not prosaic!) chunks or would we still have the
> short, clipped, paragraphs typical to contemporary IF?
I think we'd still have the latter--it just seems more involving for two-way
communication.
Jon
Esa Peuha
In article <65gb6t$avl$1...@nntp5.u.washington.edu>,
> >I've somehow never learned TeX, but I may have to. I do sometimes write
> >up long documents myself. Hm.
> LaTeX, which is enough for anything but the most nitpicky formatting,
> is quite easy to learn
And even plain TeX isn't that difficult; if you read D. Knuth's
(excellent, IMHO) "The TeXbook" and do the excersices there, you should
be able to write almost anything. (Of course, you might want to skip the
chapters about math displays... ;-)
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Andrew Plotkin
Neil K. (fake...@anti-spam.address) wrote:
> > To get slightly (only slightly) back on topic, does anyone understand
> > why formatting that looks good on screen (like the Usenet standard
> > no-ident, skip-between-paragraphs) looks bad in print and vice versa?
> I think quite a lot of factors come into play.
[Much stuff about physical display configuation: resolution, font,
contrast, luminance, portability.]
Yup, I agree with all of that.
> I think one of the biggest limitations that monitors place on prose is
> that it tends to chop text up into little bite-sized chunks. Read a book -
> you're going to read long paragraphs without a problem. Long pages. But a
> typical IF game has little screen-sized bits. Anything longer seems
> annoyingly excessive. Take Dave Baggett's Legend, for example. In (what I
> believe was) an attempt to lend a more literary quality to his work, he
> had fairly lengthy room descriptions and cut scenes from time to time.
> These multi-paragraph chunks wouldn't have seemed particularly long in a
> book, but I feel that they helped undermine Legend's popularity somewhat,
> as people were a bit overwhelmed with text. (particularly the
> introduction, which is several screens long on a typical monitor)
However, I don't agree with this. I'm pretty sure that the discomfort IF
players feel with long text blocks is entirely a matter of custom; we're
used to short pieces of text between input, not long ones. (Or perhaps
it's more like "one event per input, not many events", although that's
not exactly right either.)
Yes, staring at a lot of CRT text is uncomfortable, but when you play a
computer game you stare at the CRT for *hours*, regardless. I don't think
typing frequency makes that much difference.
I think that if we had perfect dynamic paper, which felt and looked just
like printed paper but was computer controlled, the long text scenes in
_Legend_ would be just as uncomfortable.
> Dave
> tried to address this by introducing the innovation of user-configurable
> paragraph breaks (optional blank lines between paragraphs) but I don't
> know if that could go far enough, ultimately.
I keep meaning to add better paragraph support to MaxZip/MaxTADS. User
control of inter-paragraph spacing (which *should* be controlled by the
interpreter anyway, not the game program) and optional paragraph
indentation. (Or outdentation, if desired.) Combined with the
proportional fonts I already support, it could make a big difference.
> I'm facing this lengthy-text problem with my game in progress myself.
> There are a handful of key scenes with multi-screen pieces of text. On a
> big GUI monitor with a nice proportional font, they don't look too bad,
> though they're still a bit long. But on an 80x25 text-only display they
> seem really rather lengthy.
Hm. I always played _Legend_ in a large window with a proportional font;
I never even tried it in 80x25. I guess that would be even worse.
> I wonder how IF would have developed if we had output devices that
> produced print-quality dynamic output. Would works of IF contain more
> prose-length (hopefully not prosaic!) chunks or would we still have the
> short, clipped, paragraphs typical to contemporary IF?
As I said, I think the latter.
John Francis
In article <347C02...@ucla.edu>, Jon Petersen <en...@ucla.edu> wrote:
>
>2) Long stuff, particularly cut-scenes, really diffuse the focus of the
>adventure from the player, I think. I am a selfish, selfish player. I want the
>adventure to be about ME, ME, ME! I don't want important things to happen if
>I'm not the one doing them.
Thank you for so eloquently expressing what I have long felt about games
like this. I knew I didn't like them, but I hadn't really stopped to
work out why.
--
John Francis jfra...@sgi.com Silicon Graphics, Inc.
(650)933-8295 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. MS 43U-991
(650)933-4692 (Fax) Mountain View, CA 94043-1389
Unsolicited electronic mail will be subject to a $100 handling fee.
Graham Nelson
In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>, Andrew Plotkin
<URL:mailto:erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> I spend a surprising amount of time flipping through the Inform
> Designer's Manual and Z-Spec.
I regret to announce that a comma is missing from Andrew's post.
It should read:
> I spend a surprising amount of time flipping, through the Inform
> Designer's Manual and Z-Spec.
--
Graham Nelson | gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk | Oxford, United Kingdom
Den of Iniquity
Unfortunately, on Wed, 26 Nov 1997, Graham Nelson abandoned all
conventions of English grammar, spelling and punctuation and wrote:
>I regret to announce that a comma is missing from Andrew's post.
>It should read:
when he meant to write
I, Reg R Ettoan (noun) see the 'Taco Ma' is Miss Ingfrom Andrews' posted
shoulder ad.
--
Den
Den of Iniquity
On Wed, 26 Nov 1997, Neil K. wrote:
>For example, most people find the Mac and Windows GUI approach of a white
>page with black text easier to read than the old terminal approach of
>amber or green on black, because it more closely resembles the printed
>page. (yes, I know there are people - particularly nerds ;) - who
>violently object to the paper white display model
For producing documents in a WYSIWYG (or closely approximating that)
editor I'd rather see black on white but reading computer text, I prefer
and always have preferred a not-too-bright colour on black. Maybe I'm a
nerd but because of the transmissive nature of the medium, I find that
white, and very bright colours, whether they're the text or the
background, are too bright and cause discomfort in prolonged periods.
Monitor screens are better than the old TV used to be in this respect but
I still prefer the Amiga's standard grey background (since KS2.0) with
black text to a white background.
> I wonder how IF would have developed if we had output devices that
>produced print-quality dynamic output. Would works of IF contain more
>prose-length (hopefully not prosaic!) chunks or would we still have the
>short, clipped, paragraphs typical to contemporary IF?
The kind of paper from 'The Diamond Age'? Oh, definitely much longer
chunks of prose. It would be natural to think of IF as being more like an
interactive 'book' than the games we play on monitor screens.
> - Neil K. (aware of the irony of this long post)
:) But you stuck to shortish paragraphs with blank lines between them
and that makes a document much easier to read. One thing you nearly
touched on but didn't quite explicitly state, I think, is that text on a
monitor screen is _wider_ than you'll find it in most books, so it's less
easy for the eye to scan back and find the beginning of the next line. By
sticking in blank lines and keeping paragraphs short we add easy landmarks
for the eye to gauge its position by - the relative position of the line
in the paragraph - and it makes a big difference. I find it _so_ much
harder to read long paragraphs with no spaces between them on the screen.
--
Den
Iain Merrick
Den of Iniquity wrote:
> > I wonder how IF would have developed if we had output devices that
> >produced print-quality dynamic output. Would works of IF contain more
> >prose-length (hopefully not prosaic!) chunks or would we still have the
> >short, clipped, paragraphs typical to contemporary IF?
>
> The kind of paper from 'The Diamond Age'? Oh, definitely much longer
> chunks of prose. It would be natural to think of IF as being more like an
> interactive 'book' than the games we play on monitor screens.
>
> > - Neil K. (aware of the irony of this long post)
>
> :) But you stuck to shortish paragraphs with blank lines between them
> and that makes a document much easier to read. One thing you nearly
> touched on but didn't quite explicitly state, I think, is that text on a
> monitor screen is _wider_ than you'll find it in most books, so it's less
> easy for the eye to scan back and find the beginning of the next line. By
> sticking in blank lines and keeping paragraphs short we add easy landmarks
> for the eye to gauge its position by - the relative position of the line
> in the paragraph - and it makes a big difference. I find it _so_ much
> harder to read long paragraphs with no spaces between them on the screen.
>
> --
> Den
I feel the urge to stop lurking and add a point or two...
</lurk>
I use ATM Deluxe on my Mac, which draws anti-aliased fonts on-screen
(RISC OS does the same thing, or used to... but no-one uses RISC OS, of
course:-).
So I use anti-aliased Times, Helvetica etc for playing IF games and it
all looks really, really nice. PDF files also look really nice because
the Acrobat reader anti-aliases everything...
..._except_ the bloody bit-mapped fonts you get in documents created
with TeX! These look absolutely hideous as PDF files, on my system at
least. :(
Note - TeX normally generates DVI files with MetaFont fonts, but these
are converted into bit-maps when you turn the DVI file into a PostScript
file. I think.
Um, the point being? Let's see:
- The Inform manuals are TeX'd, IIRC - I can't read them easily
on-screen. I guess they'd look nice printed, but I don't have either a
printer or 500 sheets of paper.
- Does TeX generate 'real PostScript' if you use PostScript fonts
instead of those horrible Computer Modern ones?
- ATM deluxe is dead good... or rather anti-aliased fonts are dead good.
Not quite the same thing.
- Yet Another Warning not to assume that people use mono-spaced fonts
when playing IF games.
Byeee.
Iain Merrick
Hairy post-grad
York yooni
(Hmmm, I want to mangle my e-mail address a wee bit, don't I? Let's
see...)
i...@noSpamPlease.cs.york.ac.uk.prettyPlease
(...although the umangled version is probably in the header
somewhere...)
<lurk>
Alan Shutko
>>>>> "I" == Iain Merrick <i...@cs.york.ac.uk> writes:
I> ..._except_ the bloody bit-mapped fonts you get in documents
I> created with TeX! These look absolutely hideous as PDF files, on my
I> system at least. :(
Not necessarily. You can also use the Type 1 CM fonts or generate PDF
directly (with pdftex). The poor display is also the fault of
Acroread for not antialiasing the bitmap fonts, which are at a higher
resolution than your screen, but life sucks.
I've created a new PS version of the designer manual with type 1 CM
fonts and put it in ftp://hubert.wuh.wustl.edu/pub/ . Someone with
distiller can create a good PDF of it. (I have a PDF there made with
PDFTeX, but the output currently tickles bugs in Mac AcroRead, so it
most likely won't work for you.)
I> - Does TeX generate 'real PostScript' if you use PostScript fonts
I> instead of those horrible Computer Modern ones?
Yes. Also if you use Type 1 versions of those "horrible" CM fonts,
which is much easier than changing all the fonts. 8^)
--
Alan Shutko <a...@acm.org> - By consent of the corrupted
"I am Porky of Borg. Prepare to be assim...assim...assim....a robot!"
Look What the Cat Dragged in
Look What the Cat Dragged in <ne...@lwtcdz.prestel.co.uk> wrote in article
<01bcf9dd$532edcc0$LocalHost@default>...
> Mikko P Vuorinen <mvuo...@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in article
> <65ctvh$q...@kruuna.Helsinki.FI>...
> > Now if someone uploaded an updated postscript version I guess I'd start
> > learning Inform.
>
> I've got to say I'm disgusted, frankly!!
> TEXT TEXT TEXT!!
>
> How can you be so picky?
Sorry about this, I went a bit over the top here. Please insert smiley with
tongue firmly in cheek where appropriate.
Stephen Robert Norris
In article <fake-mail-261...@van-as-14a04.direct.ca>,
fake...@anti-spam.address (Neil K.) intoned:
> mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
>
> I think quite a lot of factors come into play. One of the most obvious is
> resolution. Modern graphical video monitors typically have a resolution of
> 72-80 dpi or so. Rarely higher than 85 dpi, anyway. Text-only CRTs are
> considerably lower. Print is ideally going to have a resolution of at
[ Snip of excellent article. ]
Um, my monitor is 105dpi. Most modern CRTs are much closer to 100 than
75 dpi...
Stephen
Steven Marsh
On Wed, 26 Nov 1997 18:21:58 GMT, erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
wrote:
>Neil K. (fake...@anti-spam.address) wrote:
[snip]
>> I think one of the biggest limitations that monitors place on prose is
>> that it tends to chop text up into little bite-sized chunks. Read a book -
>> you're going to read long paragraphs without a problem. Long pages. But a
>> typical IF game has little screen-sized bits. Anything longer seems
>> annoyingly excessive. Take Dave Baggett's Legend, for example. In (what I
>> believe was) an attempt to lend a more literary quality to his work, he
>> had fairly lengthy room descriptions and cut scenes from time to time.
>> These multi-paragraph chunks wouldn't have seemed particularly long in a
>> book, but I feel that they helped undermine Legend's popularity somewhat,
>> as people were a bit overwhelmed with text. (particularly the
>> introduction, which is several screens long on a typical monitor)
>
>However, I don't agree with this. I'm pretty sure that the discomfort IF
>players feel with long text blocks is entirely a matter of custom; we're
>used to short pieces of text between input, not long ones. (Or perhaps
>it's more like "one event per input, not many events", although that's
>not exactly right either.)
>
Like in many things, I think I can see a balance. If you need
to read two pages of text between commands:
>OPEN DOOR
The door creaks slowly open, and the sound is not unfamiliar.
"Son? Are you opening that door again?" your father would say --
almost a nightly ritual, and perhaps the only way you'd ever
communcate with him in any meaningful way.
[500 words later with a flashback about father...]
But those days are gone, and now whenever you use a doorknob,
it's with the understanding that you do such with your own will, and
without your father's blessings.
Opened.
Well, that's one thing. On the other hand, for an example of
-way- too much interactivity per word ratio, just play some of those
Scott Adams games.
>kill wizard
WIZARD DIES
>win game
WON
Personally, I think there shouldn't be too much text, but
there should be text for just about -every- likely action. That's
what made the Infocom games great; no matter what you'd do, the game
would have some response other than "You can't do that."
In terms of verbosity (ugh), I think Zork Zero is a great
example of a good text-to-interactivity ratio. There's a big opening,
a big ending, and some long-ish sections, but mostly it's about you
going around and doing stuff... and there's -lots- to do.
OTOH, I'm also a fan of compartmentalized games. Legend's
Spellcasting Series, for example, subdivided things into chapters and
the like, which helped readability and made me feel warm as a
player... warmer than an increasing SCORE counter would.
Steven Marsh
ma...@nettally.com
"This question is for bachellorette number one. What do you
do with a drunken sailor?"
Steven Marsh
>Neil K. (fake...@anti-spam.address) wrote:
[snip]
>> I think one of the biggest limitations that monitors place on prose is
>> that it tends to chop text up into little bite-sized chunks. Read a book -
>> you're going to read long paragraphs without a problem. Long pages. But a
>> typical IF game has little screen-sized bits. Anything longer seems
>> annoyingly excessive. Take Dave Baggett's Legend, for example. In (what I
>> believe was) an attempt to lend a more literary quality to his work, he
>> had fairly lengthy room descriptions and cut scenes from time to time.
>> These multi-paragraph chunks wouldn't have seemed particularly long in a
>> book, but I feel that they helped undermine Legend's popularity somewhat,
>> as people were a bit overwhelmed with text. (particularly the
>> introduction, which is several screens long on a typical monitor)
>
Steven Marsh
>Neil K. (fake...@anti-spam.address) wrote:
[snip]
>> I think one of the biggest limitations that monitors place on prose is
>> that it tends to chop text up into little bite-sized chunks. Read a book -
>> you're going to read long paragraphs without a problem. Long pages. But a
>> typical IF game has little screen-sized bits. Anything longer seems
>> annoyingly excessive. Take Dave Baggett's Legend, for example. In (what I
>> believe was) an attempt to lend a more literary quality to his work, he
>> had fairly lengthy room descriptions and cut scenes from time to time.
>> These multi-paragraph chunks wouldn't have seemed particularly long in a
>> book, but I feel that they helped undermine Legend's popularity somewhat,
>> as people were a bit overwhelmed with text. (particularly the
>> introduction, which is several screens long on a typical monitor)
>
Julian Arnold
> On Wed, 26 Nov 1997 18:21:58 GMT, erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
> wrote:
>
> >Neil K. (fake...@anti-spam.address) wrote:
> [snip]
> >> that it tends to chop text up into little bite-sized chunks. Read a book -
> >> you're going to read long paragraphs without a problem. Long pages. But a
> >> typical IF game has little screen-sized bits. Anything longer seems
> >> annoyingly excessive. Take Dave Baggett's Legend, for example. In (what I
> >> believe was) an attempt to lend a more literary quality to his work, he
> >> had fairly lengthy room descriptions and cut scenes from time to time.
> >> These multi-paragraph chunks wouldn't have seemed particularly long in a
> >> book, but I feel that they helped undermine Legend's popularity somewhat,
> >> as people were a bit overwhelmed with text. (particularly the
> >> introduction, which is several screens long on a typical monitor)
> >
> >players feel with long text blocks is entirely a matter of custom; we're
> >used to short pieces of text between input, not long ones. (Or perhaps
> >it's more like "one event per input, not many events", although that's
> >not exactly right either.)
I agree with Andrew in his particular criticism of _Legend_. I also,
however, sympathize with Neil's disagreement.
I think you're talking about two different types of verbosity. On the
one hand, _Legend's_ opening room description is just a damn long (in
text adventure terms) piece of descriptive text. It doesn't deal with
events, but objects: describing the environment not the
player's/character's reaction to it. On the other hand, some of the
cut-scenes in _Legend_ do describe events, multiple consecutive events,
thus laying the game (or any game which uses the technique) open to
criticism for linearity, preachiness, etc. I think this is what Neil
means by "many events per input?"
I think that what I have in my first hand may just be contradictory to
custom, but not inherently harmful (if irritation persists, consult a
doctor), while my second hand is full of something which actually is
generally undesirable in a text adventure.
Jools
--
"For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand
ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from
ever completing anything." -- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"
Neil K.
Julian Arnold <jo...@arnod.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I think you're talking about two different types of verbosity. On the
> one hand, _Legend's_ opening room description is just a damn long (in
> text adventure terms) piece of descriptive text. It doesn't deal with
> events, but objects: describing the environment not the
> player's/character's reaction to it. On the other hand, some of the
> cut-scenes in _Legend_ do describe events, multiple consecutive events,
> thus laying the game (or any game which uses the technique) open to
> criticism for linearity, preachiness, etc. I think this is what Neil
> means by "many events per input?"
Mmmm. Well, to an extent. I think perhaps you could distinguish between
long paragraphs of text that serve to expand, embellish and provide
exposition to the player, and those long paragraphs that remove
interactivity. For instance there's a big difference between:
You gaze deeply into the Magick Crystal of Xorn. Suddenly a vision comes
into your mind - of the terrible epic battle between the G'wurks and the
Pranghillos... a battle that lasted for seven generations and which began
following the fall of the Marble City of Brurgle Ford. Your head clears a
moment later and you're left with the terrible memory of the horrific war.
and:
Over the next ten minutes you decide to run for office. You hijack an
armoured car to raise funds, and are drawn into a complex web of intrigue
that spans several continents. When you come back a fortnight later you
find your car has been stolen and your husband has left you for your
ex-boyfriend, taking all the laundry detergent and toilet paper with him.
What do you want to do now?
>
The first example, albeit a load of silly cliched pap, simply explains
certain key bits of info to the player. It might be superfluous
entertaining background or it might be useful info the player needs to
solve a later puzzle. On the other hand the second example removes a huge
amount of interactivity from the player's hands by presenting a ton of
action as a fait accompli. I suppose you could say that the Legend
introductory text sort of combined the purpose of the first example with a
simple room description. Do you think there can be an acceptable rationale
for lengthy lumps of text, or that the length itself is damning beyond
redemption?
- Neil K.
Brad O`Donnell
Neil K. wrote:
> Do you think there can be an acceptable rationale
> for lengthy lumps of text, or that the length itself is damning beyond
> redemption?
>
In a text adventure, length itself is damning beyond redemption :)
Well, realistically, there's no sure-fire
way to say when text is getting
too long. Or too short, for that matter.
In the current crop of games,
the tendency has been toward more "English-like" output.
I dislike this, as a point of personal aesthetics,
mostly because it doesn't
stem the flow of "more-is-better" reasoning in authors.
i.e:
More objects --Better.
More puzzles --Better.
More text --Better.
When all three of the above misconceptions are combined,
you end up searching
the same three-page block of text
(which contains not only 20 object descriptions,
but also a hearty helping of drama and automatic actions)
five times through for
each of a half dozen puzzles,
each more contrived and meaningless than the last.
(This is just a worst-case scenario,
I'm not talking about any existing game.)
Heh. Back in the old days (*my* old days), I used
to play these games written in QuickBasic
with two-word parsers that didn't care what order you
put the words in.
I find it funny that I got (and still get, whenever
someone writes a new one of these beauties) such great
satisfaction from any response that didn't start with
"I don't understand...".
Whoops. I see I've gotten a little off-post, and
started calling for an anit-mimesis movement. I'll
stop now. (The anti-mimesis movement must be planned
much more carefully than this...)
--
Brad O'Donnell
"A story is a string of moments, held together by memory."
Kenneth Fair
In article <fake-mail-271...@van-52-1340.direct.ca>,
fake...@anti-spam.address (Neil K.) wrote:
> Den of Iniquity <dms...@york.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> :) But you stuck to shortish paragraphs with blank lines between them
>> and that makes a document much easier to read. [...]
>
> Indeed! Old Net-induced habit. My long piece would have been impossible
>to read otherwise. As it was it was merely doomed by its own prolix
>verbosity.
Not to mention redundant repetition.
--
KEN FAIR - U. Chicago Law | <http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/kjfair>
Of Counsel, U. of Ediacara | Power Mac! | CABAL(tm) | I'm w/in McQ - R U?
"Any smoothly functioning technology will be
indistinguishable from a rigged demo." Isaac Asimov
Thomas Aaron Insel
tdl...@aol.com (TDLewis) writes:
> I downloaded the PostScript file and converted it to PDF, which I've uploaded
> to
> ftp://ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive/designers_manual.pdf
> and asked that it replace the one at
> ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/inform6/manuals/
> I just noticed that Thomas referred to ...infocom/compilers/. Do the manuals
> really live in two places?
Nah, not really. It seems that .../programming/inform* are just links
to .../infocom/compilers/inform*.
Tom
--
Thomas Insel (tin...@jaka.ece.uiuc.edu)
"Sex in the Champaign Public Library is being restricted to patrons 18
years of age and older." -- Michelle Collins, The Daily Illini
Den of Iniquity
On Wed, 3 Dec 1997, Kenneth Fair wrote:
>>> :) But you stuck to shortish paragraphs with blank lines between them
>>> and that makes a document much easier to read. [...]
>>
>> Indeed! Old Net-induced habit. My long piece would have been impossible
>>to read otherwise. As it was it was merely doomed by its own prolix
>>verbosity.
>
>Not to mention redundant repetition.
Not to mention redundant repetition.
--
Den
Neil K.
mat...@area.com (Matt Ackeret) wrote:
> But wait.. first you argued that the formatting was *different* because it's
> not like the printed page, and now you use mimicing the printed page as
> the reason for white on black?
Sure. What's the problem? Some things are more appropriate one way and
some things are more appropriate another way.
> It just seems that black on white is strange, because all of the *non*-
> informational pixels are sending info to your eyes/brain, rather than
> the *informational* pixels.. Seems like it's making your brain do
> more work.
Wow. I hope you don't mind me saying so, but that's got to be the most
meaningless argument I've heard on that subject in a looong time.
What is an informational pixel, for heaven's sake? There is nothing
absolute as to whether a pixel "sends" information or not. Whether it's
part of figure or ground, it still may or may not contain information -
it's purely arbitrary given the context.
You may have a great emotional attachment to monospaced light text on a
black ground. You may even find it easier to read. (I suspect that's
because you're most used to it) But there's a reason why the Xerox Star /
Macintosh / MS Windows GUI convention of dark proportional type on a light
ground has taken off and established itself as the norm over the past
decade. And I think that reason has more to do with the fact that it works
better for most people than anything else.
- Neil K.
Matt Ackeret
In article <fake-mail-261...@van-as-14a04.direct.ca>,
Neil K. <fake...@anti-spam.address> wrote:
> Other differences are more device-dependent. For example, most people
>find the Mac and Windows GUI approach of a white page with black text
>easier to read than the old terminal approach of amber or green on black,
>because it more closely resembles the printed page. (yes, I know there are
But wait.. first you argued that the formatting was *different* because it's
not like the printed page, and now you use mimicing the printed page as
the reason for white on black?
I like white on dark blue best.. and I think that, behind speed, is the
main reason why I like text mode more than graphic mode.. it's more readable.
It just seems that black on white is strange, because all of the *non*-
informational pixels are sending info to your eyes/brain, rather than
the *informational* pixels.. Seems like it's making your brain do
more work.
(No, I admit I haven't changed the colors in this GUI telnet app -- mostly
because I don't want the inconsistency of some programs using these colors,
and some using others... Though I'm interested enough that I'll probably
play with it.. I think I can change this telnet program, MPW, and web
browser colors.. including background color..)
>display model, but I suspect they're very much in a minority) A decent
>proportional font is easier to read than a clunky monospaced one, because
>your eye flows over the text more naturally. A smooth printed font is much
I disagree with this too, but you'd expect this.
Proportional fonts, *especially* if they do the wacky "move letters closer
to each other" (kerning? I forget which font term is right here) method...
I always end up noticing "wow there are huge gaps between the two letters
in that one word" when they do the smooshing thing.. and the effect is
noticable even without this... in plain proportional fonts. I don't really
know why, since you'd think you'd have *more* white space with a monospaced
font, but I think the "average white space per character" (including the
whitespace INSIDE the character) is more uniform with monospaced fonts.
There's a poster at an Italian restaurant I got to fairly frequently that
one of my friends calls "the [kerning/whatever that term is] poster", because
we had a discussion once about how WEIRD whatever word (it was Italy or
something like that) looked.. and no, the rest of them aren't text-mode-aholics
like I am. But I think everyone thought it looked weird, to one degree or
another.
> Size of the output device and distance from it are important also. Books
>are usually read at a much closer distance than monitors, but the
>available image area is usually greater when you factor in the larger type
>size required by monitors. The result being that you can take in a lot
>more text in one glance when you're reading a book than when you're
>looking at a monitor. Monitors require more scrolling, which separates the
Really?! Maybe I sit too close to my monitor (I've got this GUI telnet program
at 80 columns * 70 rows in Comet Chicago 9 font on a 20 inch screen at
1280 * 1024), but I think I'm sitting about as close as I do when I read
books.. (Well, maybe 1.5 times.. I'm usually leaning on my elbows reading.)
>read line lengths of a certain width naturally. So on a monitor you either
>have a full-width window with a big font or a partial-width window with a
>smaller one.
Uhh, and people are stuck with 80 column text, at least for Usenet..
(That's good!) Though I do tend to keep narrowing web browser windows..
they always open way too wide.
>between multiple books or pieces of paper instantly. And monitors are
>usually looked up at, whereas print you generally view looking down.
>(interesting unintended social message there, perhaps)
Hmm, the top of my forehead seems like it's at *about* the same height as
the top edge of the visible part of the screen on this monitor.. So
I'm usually looking roughly straight ahead or down-ish..
>humans generate these days. That myth of the paperless society still seems
>to have its adherents. But it ain't gonna happen until we invent display
>devices with the basic properties of a printed page. (lightweight, flat,
>low-cost, flexible, very high-resolution, reflective, near zero energy
>consumption, etc.)
But things like web-based paying bills (finally free at wells fargo)
will get rid of a lot of the *stupid* paper we use.
--
mat...@area.com
Andrew Plotkin
Matt Ackeret (mat...@area.com) wrote:
> It just seems that black on white is strange, because all of the *non*-
> informational pixels are sending info to your eyes/brain, rather than
> the *informational* pixels.. Seems like it's making your brain do
> more work.
Er, if this isn't a joke, it's funny nevertheless.
The set of background pixels, by definition, carry exactly as much
information as the set of foreground pixels.
And anyway your retina (not brain) does so much preprocessing that the
distinction isn't meaningful. Edge detection just for a start. That's all
automatic and constant; it doesn't take more "work".
Dark-on-light/light-on-dark color distinctions are important because of
amount of illumination, changes in iris size due to total light level,
contrast with your peripheral vision, differences in contrast because of
blur/bleedover. Brain processing has nothing to do with it.
Alan Shutko
>>>>> "M" == Matt Ackeret <mat...@area.com> writes:
M> It just seems that black on white is strange, because all of the
M> *non*- informational pixels are sending info to your eyes/brain,
M> rather than the *informational* pixels.. Seems like it's making
M> your brain do more work.
Me, I find it the other way. Probably just a matter of taste.
M> Proportional fonts, *especially* if they do the wacky "move letters
M> closer to each other" (kerning? I forget which font term is right
M> here) method...
Yes, kerning.
M> I always end up noticing "wow there are huge gaps between the two
M> letters in that one word" when they do the smooshing thing.. and
M> the effect is noticable even without this...
Do you find this more noticable in output from programs like Word, or
in books?
--
Alan Shutko <a...@acm.org> - By consent of the corrupted
"But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations' paws."
Brian Beej Hall
In article <fake-mail-031...@van-52-0211.direct.ca>,
Neil K. <fake...@anti-spam.address> wrote:
>mat...@area.com (Matt Ackeret) wrote:
>> It just seems that black on white is strange, because all of the *non*-
>> informational pixels are sending info to your eyes/brain, rather than
>> the *informational* pixels.. Seems like it's making your brain do
>> more work.
>
> What is an informational pixel, for heaven's sake? There is nothing
>absolute as to whether a pixel "sends" information or not. Whether it's
>part of figure or ground, it still may or may not contain information -
>it's purely arbitrary given the context.
If I may take the liberty of translating what I think he means:
"It just seems that black on white is strange, because all of the
background pixels (that is, pixels that depict no words, or information)
are sending energy ("info"--black has less energy than white, yes?) to
your eyes/brain, rather than the foreground pixels."
Valid? Probably not, considering the color choices of books in general.
It seems more likely to me, as has already been suggested, that the
brain appreciates the difference in light energy, rather than the energy
itself. Of course, being a mere computer scientist, I could be
completely wrong.
I like courier fonts, too. But only in research documents and on the
screen. Weird, huh?
-Beej
Gareth Jones
fake...@anti-spam.address (Neil K.) writes:
> mat...@area.com (Matt Ackeret) wrote:
>
> > It just seems that black on white is strange, because all of the *non*-
> > informational pixels are sending info to your eyes/brain, rather than
> > the *informational* pixels.. Seems like it's making your brain do
> > more work.
>
> Wow. I hope you don't mind me saying so, but that's got to be the most
> meaningless argument I've heard on that subject in a looong time.
>
> What is an informational pixel, for heaven's sake? There is nothing
> absolute as to whether a pixel "sends" information or not. Whether it's
> part of figure or ground, it still may or may not contain information -
> it's purely arbitrary given the context.
I agree that the argument as stated seems strange but the white do
send more information than the black: flicker. If I edit black on
white text then I am getting additional information about my video
scan rates. Using white (and blue/red/yellow etc.) on black lets me
use a lower refresh rate. On the other hand I use the default black
on white for previewing pages for printing although I edit then in
monospaced white on black (xdvi and TeX).
> You may have a great emotional attachment to monospaced light text on a
> black ground. You may even find it easier to read. (I suspect that's
> because you're most used to it) But there's a reason why the Xerox Star /
> Macintosh / MS Windows GUI convention of dark proportional type on a light
> ground has taken off and established itself as the norm over the past
> decade. And I think that reason has more to do with the fact that it works
> better for most people than anything else.
It looks nicer to start with but I do find it more wearing on the eyes
after long periods. Also it is more wearing on the monitor and
presumably means that the phospher "wears out" sooner.
--
Gareth Jones <gd...@gdjones.demon.co.uk>
FemaleDeer
I play Inform games with Zip or JZip and with the white lettering on the blue
screen just the way the old Infocom games were.
I have always found text screens (white on blue) 10 x easier to read that
graphic screens (Windows type screens) because the text is MUCH larger and the
letters are thicker. For extended word processing that is my preference also.
The letters in most Windows programs are too skinny and easy to mistake,
especially periods and commas, etc.
It makes a difference if you have gotten older and are now near-sighted and/or
if you have 20/20 vision to begin with. But the old text screens are also
easier on the eyes for prolonged use. A white background is basically glaring,
or as Marshall Mchuan would have said, the blue text screen is "cool", the
white graphic screen is "warm". It is easier to use a cool medium for a long
time, rather than a warm one.
FD :-)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Femal...@aol.com "Good breeding consists in
concealing how much we think of ourselves and how
little we think of the other person." Mark Twain
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <19971206211...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
FemaleDeer <femal...@aol.com> wrote:
}I play Inform games with Zip or JZip and with the white lettering on the blue
}screen just the way the old Infocom games were.
Commodore 64 or IBM PC? When I played the Infocom games, it was white
or green lettering on a black background. (Apple II)
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Stephen Robert Norris
In article <19971206211...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
femal...@aol.com (FemaleDeer) intoned:
> I have always found text screens (white on blue) 10 x easier to read that
> graphic screens (Windows type screens) because the text is MUCH larger and the
> letters are thicker. For extended word processing that is my preference also.
Can I make a suggestion? USE A BIGGER FONT!!!!
Sorry.
Stephen
Magnus Olsson
In article <666s33$qjg$1...@hubble.csuchico.edu>,
Brian "Beej" Hall <be...@ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:
>If I may take the liberty of translating what I think he means:
>
>are sending energy ("info"--black has less energy than white, yes?) to
>your eyes/brain, rather than the foreground pixels."
>
>Valid? Probably not, considering the color choices of books in general.
>It seems more likely to me, as has already been suggested, that the
>brain appreciates the difference in light energy, rather than the energy
>itself. Of course, being a mere computer scientist, I could be
>completely wrong.
It's a well-known experimental fact that human perception works on
contrasts, not on absolutes. And it's also an experimental fact the
distinction between "figure" and "background" (in this case, lit
vs. unlit pixels) is also somewhat arbitrary. Think of that well-known
drawing that looks either like a vase or like two people looking at
each other.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, zeb...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~zebulon ------
Not officially connected to LU or LTH.
Alan Shutko
>>>>> "M" == Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> writes:
M> It's a well-known experimental fact that human perception works on
M> contrasts, not on absolutes. And it's also an experimental fact the
M> distinction between "figure" and "background" (in this case, lit
M> vs. unlit pixels) is also somewhat arbitrary.
Not entirely. Red, for example, will be percieved by the eye as being
close than blue.
--
Alan Shutko <a...@acm.org> - By consent of the corrupted
Given my druthers, I'd druther not.
Kenneth Fair
In article <m3u3cf9...@hubert.wuh.wustl.edu>, Alan Shutko
<a...@acm.org> wrote:
>>>>>> "M" == Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> writes:
>
>M> It's a well-known experimental fact that human perception works on
>M> contrasts, not on absolutes. And it's also an experimental fact the
>M> distinction between "figure" and "background" (in this case, lit
>M> vs. unlit pixels) is also somewhat arbitrary.
>
>Not entirely. Red, for example, will be percieved by the eye as being
>close than blue.
There is a difference between white-black/black-white and combinations
of colors. Shades are sensed by the rods, which are more sensitive and
good at edge and motion detection. Colors are sensed by the cones,
which have less resolving power than the rods.
C.P.Briscoe-Smith
In article <m3u3cf9...@hubert.wuh.wustl.edu>,
Alan Shutko <a...@acm.org> wrote:
>
>Not entirely. Red, for example, will be percieved by the eye as being
>close than blue.
Wierd. That's (at least) the second time I've heard this, and, for me,
it's not true. When I look at a black screen with blue and red text on
it, the red looks as if it's stuck to the screen, and the blue is
difficult to focus on and looks as if it's hanging in front of the
screen. Must be my eyes... I probably have an astigmatism or
something.
--
Charles Briscoe-Smith
White pages entry, with PGP key: <URL:http://alethea.ukc.ac.uk/wp?95cpb4>
PGP public keyprint: 74 68 AB 2E 1C 60 22 94 B8 21 2D 01 DE 66 13 E2
Alan Shutko
>>>>> "C" == C P Briscoe-Smith <cp...@ukc.ac.uk> writes:
C> Wierd. That's (at least) the second time I've heard this, and, for
C> me, it's not true. When I look at a black screen with blue and red
C> text on it, the red looks as if it's stuck to the screen, and the
C> blue is difficult to focus on and looks as if it's hanging in front
C> of the screen. Must be my eyes... I probably have an astigmatism
C> or something.
Could also be your monitor. In any case, here's the cite:
_Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice_, Foley, van Dam, Feiner,
Hughes, 1996.
--
Alan Shutko <a...@acm.org> - By consent of the corrupted
Reply hazy, ask again later.
Stephen Robert Norris
In article <6...@ash.ukc.ac.uk>,
cp...@ukc.ac.uk (C.P.Briscoe-Smith) intoned:
> In article <m3u3cf9...@hubert.wuh.wustl.edu>,
> Alan Shutko <a...@acm.org> wrote:
>>
>>Not entirely. Red, for example, will be percieved by the eye as being
>>close than blue.
>
> it's not true. When I look at a black screen with blue and red text on
> it, the red looks as if it's stuck to the screen, and the blue is
> difficult to focus on and looks as if it's hanging in front of the
> screen. Must be my eyes... I probably have an astigmatism or
> something.
It depends which one you try to focus on - eyes have no way of correcting
for chromatic aberation, so you can only focus on red or blue - not both
at the same time. That's why red text on blue is very unpleasant.
Stephen