ADOBE OFFERS PM -> INDESIGN UPGRADE
Walt Atwood
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0212/17.upgrade.php
Does this mean Adobe will not develop a "Carbonized" PageMaker for MacOS X?
Paul Harris
<walt....@verizon.net> wrote:
If I remember correctly, they announced some time ago that they had no
intention of releasing an OSX verions of PM. Personally, I think
they've just been trying to milk the program, without adding much
functionality, since version 6.0.
The upgrade offer is a good one, and I would advise anyone using
Pagemaker to consider it. If you like PM, you won't take long to LOVE
InDesign.
Paul Harris
Walt Atwood
"Paul Harris" <p.ha...@wordworks.ca> wrote:
> The upgrade offer is a good one, and I would advise anyone using
> Pagemaker to consider it. If you like PM, you won't take long to LOVE
> InDesign.
What about training? I had fairly light use of PageMaker (Mac) over the
years for small newsletters. (I would like to get more functionality out of
such expensive DTP software, especially for small office use.) What kind of
training is available for InDesign? Are there any newsgroups on Usenet for
InDesign? I haven't found any. If not, why not?
Peggy
"Ike" <spamm...@spamminator.com> wrote in message
news:eahvvuse9b45te7ik...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 17 Dec 2002 13:32:58 -0800 Paul Harris <p.ha...@wordworks.ca>
> wrote :
<snipped>
>
> Having written a fairly complex script for PM 6.5 recently, I took a
> look at the scripting language for InDesign by downloading its
> scripting guide. It appears they have off loaded the scripting burden
> from InDesign to Visual Basic (buy from MS at extra cost) or
> AppleScript, depending upon your platform choice. Would you say that
> is a fair assessment?
I'm not Paul Harris, but, if I may ...
I think the choice to use VB or AppleScript was made because more is
possible with more sophisticated languages. There's a version of VB called
something else, available from MS at no cost. I can't recall teh name just
now; if I find it I'll post it here, if you're interested.
Peggy
Peggy
"Walt Atwood" <walt....@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:BA25399B.10567%walt....@verizon.net...
Adobe has the user forums of course, but there is not yet an Indesign
newsgroup. I think there's a forum somewhere else also, but I seem to be
posting while brain dead tonight (Bluefish? can that be right?). Lots in
Indesign questions are posted here and on comp.publish.prepress. The
Pagemaker list also handles Indesign, or did when I subscribed. (See
http://www.makingpages.org/pagemaker/)
Someone mentioned starting an Indy newsgroup a bit ago, but I don't know if
anything ever came of it.
Peggy
But Indesign is very easy to use, especially if you are familiar with either
Quark (you can duplicate the keyboard shortcuts) or Illustrator.
Gordon Woolf
<http://www.worsleypress.com/pubprod/indescript.htm>:
InDesign does not yet support Microsoft's latest incarnation of that
language, VB.Net, and while we'be seen a few retail references to VB6,
they won't be around new for much longer. Olav Kvern of Adobe suggests
that the best interim solution is to download the Visual Basic 5
Control Creation Edition (VB5 CCE)-- which you can find at
<http://download.com.com/3000-2403-880768.html?tag=list> (7.1MB) or
you can search for it on the Microsoft site itself. This version of VB
has the advantage of being free and it is in fact the full edition of
Visual Basic 5 -- which works quite well with the InDesign example
scripts.
VB.Net has a setting called "Option Explicit" turned on. This was an
optional setting in previous versions of VB, and is intended to force
"good programming practice". It means that all scripts need to start
by declaring the type of all of the variables used. Olav describes it
as "pretty tedious", and adds that it tends to discourage
non-programmers from approaching the script. The result is that if
many of the scripts which come with InDesign are opened in VB.Net,
you'll get green underlines on each instance of a variable such as
myDocument and a message that they are "not declared".
On Wed, 18 Dec 2002 00:49:54 GMT, Ike <spamm...@spamminator.com>
wrote:
>On Tue, 17 Dec 2002 13:32:58 -0800 Paul Harris <p.ha...@wordworks.ca>
>wrote :
>
>Having written a fairly complex script for PM 6.5 recently, I took a
>look at the scripting language for InDesign by downloading its
>scripting guide. It appears they have off loaded the scripting burden
>from InDesign to Visual Basic (buy from MS at extra cost) or
>AppleScript, depending upon your platform choice. Would you say that
>is a fair assessment?
--
Gordon Woolf
The Worsley Press <www.worsleypress.com>
Publishers of "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter"
Paul Harris
<spamm...@spamminator.com> wrote:
> Having written a fairly complex script for PM 6.5 recently, I took a
> look at the scripting language for InDesign by downloading its
> scripting guide. It appears they have off loaded the scripting burden
> from InDesign to Visual Basic (buy from MS at extra cost) or
> AppleScript, depending upon your platform choice. Would you say that
> is a fair assessment?
Sorry Ike, I wouldn't know. I don't write scripts, I just use them.
After switching from the PC to Mac platform close to three years ago,
I'm just now getting around to learning Applescript, so maybe I will
get to know something about it soon. I last looked at Basic in around
1987. I think it came bundled with DOS 3.2, and it was definitetly not
Visual, at that time!
Paul Harris
Paul Harris
<walt....@verizon.net> wrote:
> What about training? I had fairly light use of PageMaker (Mac) over the
> years for small newsletters. (I would like to get more functionality out of
> such expensive DTP software, especially for small office use.) What kind of
> training is available for InDesign? Are there any newsgroups on Usenet for
> InDesign? I haven't found any. If not, why not?
Walt:
I recommend Adobe's "Classroom in a Book" for InDesign. Work your way
through the tutorials in that and you'll be right up to speed very
quickly.
Paul Harris
Gordon Woolf
wrote:
>The Control Creation edition is not the full version of VB Standard
>Edition. Here is what it says on the MS site: "While Control Creation
>Edition is used to create ActiveX controls for application in other
>environments, it cannot be used to create a stand-alone application."
>
>Oh well, I shouldn't have expected MS to give a full version of VB
>away for free, lol.
It isn't the full edition, but it is not far short of it... all most
users will need to produce scripts for InDesign.
MS also made much of the low-priced "Learning Edition" not being the
"full version" but the only missing functionality I could find in that
was the ability to produce marketable exe versions. It can produce
.exe files but they are a bit big and the code is readily accessible.
Marek Williams
>I think the choice to use VB or AppleScript was made because more is
>possible with more sophisticated languages. There's a version of VB called
>something else, available from MS at no cost. I can't recall teh name just
>now; if I find it I'll post it here, if you're interested.
That is correct. It is called Visual Basic CCE. Can't remember what
CCE stands for, but you can download it free from Microsoft. (If you
can find it on Microsoft's ever-changing website, that is.)
I used it to create a simple InDesign script (although I had to get a
lot of help on the InDesign e-list). It turns out that Visual Basic
CCE lacks the ability to create an executable, so your script can't be
used from within InDesign. You have to launch Visual Basic CCE at the
same time you have the InDesign document open, and then run your
script from Visual Basic. It works, but is a bit awkward.
--
Bogus e-mail address, but I read this newsgroup regularly, so reply here.
Gordon Woolf
wrote:
>It turns out that Visual Basic
>CCE lacks the ability to create an executable, so your script can't be
>used from within InDesign. You have to launch Visual Basic CCE at the
>same time you have the InDesign document open, and then run your
>script from Visual Basic. It works, but is a bit awkward.
There's a script palette plugin on the CD (they call it a beta version
but I've not seen or heard of any problems with it). This lets you
drop in a raw script, just like the script palette of PM. Really makes
working with scripts in InDesign a lot simpler...
Miguel Medalha
> There's a script palette plugin on the CD (they call it a beta version
> but I've not seen or heard of any problems with it). This lets you
> drop in a raw script, just like the script palette of PM. Really makes
> working with scripts in InDesign a lot simpler...
Update 2.01 for InDesign, available for free at Adobe's Web site, installs
the script palette plugin in final form. It is no longer a beta release.
TonyK
TK
> >InDesign.
> >
> >Paul Harris