Re: MacDraw for MacOS 10.10

[Bernd Froehlich]

On 16. Sep 2021 at 08:34:34 CEST, "Martin Τrautmann" <t-us...@gmx.net>
wrote:

> * Cadintosh etc. still cost money and are not worth that
> price for me. So Adobe Illustrator is not in my league.
>
> So maybe I just don't know the proper tool yet - but you do!?

Well, if you want it for free, I guess you have to write it yourself.
The next one looking for such a tool will be happy if you have written
something useful.

[Bernd Froehlich]

On 16. Sep 2021 at 09:02:43 CEST, "Martin Τrautmann" <t-us...@gmx.net>
wrote:

> Yeah, it sucks to ask for something free - but there are great free
> tools. There are companies which proof with free software that they are
> capable to offer more advanced software which are worth to pay for. Or
> they do offer outdated software for former platforms for free.
>
> And I'd expect a free demo mode to see whether a tool actually can do
> what I need it for.
>
> There are some great tools which are good enough for many people.
> I named Libreoffice before. Sketchup is (or was for some time) free,
> it's great to use and it offers in 3D, what MacDraw was in 2D to me.
>
> I could use sketchup for 2D as well - but it sucks for circles.
>
> And it's the intersection of circles and lines what I need right now.
>
> The level I need is as you would expect for simple pie charts. So
> nothing fancy. It's surprising how difficult this task is for many apps.


You could try the demo of GraphicConverter, or Gimp.
(Haven´t tested if they can do what you need, but both are free to try.)

[bob prohaska]

Martin ?rautmann <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> And it's the intersection of circles and lines what I need right now.
>
> The level I need is as you would expect for simple pie charts. So
> nothing fancy. It's surprising how difficult this task is for many apps.

It's vast overkill, and not free, but there's a demo version
of Ashlar Graphite that might be worth a look. The demo won't
save or print, but I'd imagine you could do some sort of screen
capture once the drawing looks right.

www.ashlar.com

hth,

bob prohaska

[bob prohaska]

Martin ?rautmann <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> Thanks. I just give it a try - and it feels so wrong and clumsy.
>
> When I define a square with a size of 16x16 mm and I give it a line
> width of 2 mm, it always shows the same line width on the screen,
> regardless of the zoom level. I'd expect to keep the line the size it is
> - but maybe that's a feature. Maybe it can be turned off?
>
> But I defined an line width of my own at 4 mm. Ok, is shown as double
> width. But when I select an object, it then shows the 4 mm when I show
> the item with the 4 mm width style. But from the top menu, it is
> indicated as 0.5mm width.
>
> When I draw a square, it does draw those as four separate lines instead.
> When I group those items (weirdly, the shortcut is cmd-y), I can not
> resize this group from the coordinate entry.
>
> The menus are weired, showing the same topic below multiple menus.
> Preferences are complicated.
>
> Snap to grid does not work properly - the positions probably show some
> rounding errors when I use millimeters as units. The major lines of the
> grid shifted position while zooming and moving around.
>
> I do not find any intersect, but just some weired trim tool, which is
> hard to control, what to trim. It does not trim with grouped objects?
>
> The demo does not even permit copy/paste. So it's nice to learn about a
> new app, but I don't like this one here - Autocad was easier to learn.
>
> So you are right, it's probably too powerful for me. As an experienced
> user it may be a good tool. $200 for a 1 year licence, no thanks.

Surprised it was such a total flop. I've used it since the '90s for
admitttedly casual drafting and liked the fact that after months of
not thinking about it I could always whip out a 2d shop drawing on
short notice. The snap-to-object ("Drafting Assistant (TM)" was a
great convenience. Never could get my head around AutoCAD.

Good luck in your search, please post if you find something useful.

bob prohaska

[Doc O'Leary]

For your reference, records indicate that

Martin =?UTF-8?Q?=CE=A4rautmann?= <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:

> The level I need is as you would expect for simple pie charts. So
> nothing fancy. It's surprising how difficult this task is for many apps.

There are many web tools that offer that kind of graphing. No Mac-specific app necessary.

And, personally, I’d code the SVG by hand if it were a custom one-off, or write a little code if it were the kind of graphic I’d need to generate dynamically.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

[Doc O'Leary]

For your reference, records indicate that
Martin =?UTF-8?Q?=CE=A4rautmann?= <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 22:02:48 -0000 (UTC), Doc O'Leary wrote:
> > For your reference, records indicate that
> > Martin =?UTF-8?Q?=CE=A4rautmann?= <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:
> >
> >> The level I need is as you would expect for simple pie charts. So
> >> nothing fancy. It's surprising how difficult this task is for many apps.
> >
> > There are many web tools that offer that kind of graphing. No Mac-specific app necessary.
>

> Such as?

You can’t do a search for a simple pie chart tool? Here is one that Google
offers:

<https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/piechart>

> I doubt that this does actually work very well. But there are
> some could tools which actually even do support the usual mac shortcuts.

I’m not sure why that matters so much. You have a set of numbers you want
to turn into a pie chart graphic. That’s just not something that screams
for a GUI much more advanced than drag and drop.

> > And, personally, I’d code the SVG by hand if it were a custom one-off, or write a little code if it were the kind of graphic I’d need to generate dynamically.
>

> I'm not good enough for that. I use wysiwyg instead of TeX.

For some things I agree that makes a lot of sense. But if it is truly
“nothing fancy” as you say, I don’t understand what is so difficult about
grabbing a template file from a free SVG site and just editing the text to
give the specific results you want.

[Doc O'Leary]

For your reference, records indicate that
Martin =?UTF-8?Q?=CE=A4rautmann?= <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:

> But pie charts are just an example of the
> complexity and operations I need: Intersect circles with lines,
> duplicate, move and group.

I get that, but when you don’t detail exactly *what* output you’re looking
for, it makes it really hard for people to recommend *any* software, Mac
or otherwise, that will accomplish what you need. I mean, it isn’t even
100% clear that what you really want can (easily) be done with a vector
format like SVG.

> The example you name here is good to learn how to programme it for SVG.
> But it's not a app (offline or online) to draw and manipulate it.

Fundamentally, there is no difference, so long as you can get the output
graphic you want. Manually click-clicking around a GUI has its place, but
if your source format is some data or an algorithm, you’re much better off
using a tool that lets the computer do what computers are good at, and
automate the process of generating the image.

> I want to combine it with jpg symbols and text in special fonts.

I’m not sure anyone knows what that truly means except you. Maybe the
approach to take is to pick an app like Inkscape, or any other app, and
get started. Have a file that shows what you’ve done and helps
demonstrate what you’re shooting for. Then come back and ask question
about *specific* things you’re having trouble with.

[Jolly Roger]

On 2021-09-21, Martin Τrautmann <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> I want to draw a square.
>
> I want to draw a circle, crossing the sqare.
>
> I want to draw some lines, cutting the circle.
>
> I want to cut the circle into pieces where I have crossings. I want to
> move or delete those pieces.
>
> I want to fill areas with colors or patterns.
>
> I want to adjust line width and colors
>
> I want to save this as jpg, gif, png or pdf
>
> I want to paste images from png files.

* Adobe Illustrator can do all of that.
* Affinity Designer can do all of that.

Both are much more complex than MacDraw, but both will do what you
describe.

--
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

[Jolly Roger]

On 2021-09-21, Martin Τrautmann <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:

> On 21 Sep 2021 13:54:37 GMT, Jolly Roger wrote:
>> On 2021-09-21, Martin Τrautmann <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> I want to draw a square.
>>>
>>> I want to draw a circle, crossing the sqare.
>>>
>>> I want to draw some lines, cutting the circle.
>>>
>>> I want to cut the circle into pieces where I have crossings. I want to
>>> move or delete those pieces.
>>>
>>> I want to fill areas with colors or patterns.
>>>
>>> I want to adjust line width and colors
>>>
>>> I want to save this as jpg, gif, png or pdf
>>>
>>> I want to paste images from png files.
>>
>> * Adobe Illustrator can do all of that.
>

> 23,79 €/month
>
> They offer a free test version, but first they want my CC number. No
> thanks.

>
>> * Affinity Designer can do all of that.
>

> 54,99 €

>
>> Both are much more complex than MacDraw, but both will do what you
>> describe.
>

> I just gave it a try. Editing of size and position could be done
> easily - Inkscape 0.9 can't do that.
>
> But I did not manage yet how to intersect objects. The behavior of
> Geometry > Intersect or divide is actually not what I would expect. So
> the cutting to pieces does not work that easy as I would have thought.
> Probably I will have to find out how to get it done.
>
> I can remove points on the objects, but I can't remove the lines in
> between yet. You know how to do this?

With Affinity Designer, you'll probably have to use a combination of
other features like Geometry > Subtract and Node > Break Curve & Close
Curve to do what you want. It's almost certainly not going to work
exactly like it does in Illustrator.

[Jolly Roger]

On 2021-09-22, Martin Τrautmann <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:

> On 21 Sep 2021 22:05:25 GMT, Jolly Roger wrote:
>>> But I did not manage yet how to intersect objects. The behavior of
>>> Geometry > Intersect or divide is actually not what I would expect.
>>> So the cutting to pieces does not work that easy as I would have
>>> thought. Probably I will have to find out how to get it done.
>>>
>>> I can remove points on the objects, but I can't remove the lines in
>>> between yet. You know how to do this?
>>
>> With Affinity Designer, you'll probably have to use a combination of
>> other features like Geometry > Subtract and Node > Break Curve &
>> Close Curve to do what you want. It's almost certainly not going to
>> work exactly like it does in Illustrator.
>

> I'll give it try. But it seems to be much less intuitive than in other
> applications.

As I said, Illustrator and Designer are much more complex than MacDraw,
but they will definitely do what you want. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Doc O'Leary]

For your reference, records indicate that
Martin =?UTF-8?Q?=CE=A4rautmann?= <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:

> I want to draw a square.

That’s not very specific. Still, it’s not very hard. In SVG it’d be
something like:

<rect x="10%" y="10%" width="80%" height="80%" fill="black" />

Adjust the units/values to whatever pixel-perfect outcome you have in mind.

> I want to draw a circle, crossing the sqare.

I’m not sure what “crossing” is supposed to mean, but:

<circle cx="50%" cy="50%" r="25%" fill="blue" />

> I want to draw some lines, cutting the circle.

<line x1="25%" y1="25%" x2="75%" y2="75%" stroke="white" stroke-width="4" />

> I want to cut the circle into pieces where I have crossings. I want to
> move or delete those pieces.

This is beyond the ability of MacDraw, to the best of my recollection of
that app. What perhaps you mean instead is that you wanted to draw some
pie pieces that could fit together to make a circle. Easily done with
<path> elements, but you still have to supply the specific numbers you’re
looking to draw.

<https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/paths.html#PathDataEllipticalArcCommands>

As I said, if you *really* want to do this, there are already web frameworks
out there that do most of it for you without having to do anything more than
supply the numbers.

> I want to fill areas with colors or patterns.
>
> I want to adjust line width and colors
>
> I want to save this as jpg, gif, png or pdf

Nothing is stopping you from doing those things.

> I want to paste images from png files.

So something like:

<image width="192" height="192" x="17" y="6" xlink:href="your_file.png”/>

> If I'd want to convert data to graphics automatically, I'd propably use
> something like gnuplot.

Then I’m not sure why you don’t do that, or use any number of readily
available tools.

> But the data I got is e.g. a pie chart with 18%, 20%, 45 %. I'd convert
> this to degrees, draw a line, duplicate and rotate that line by the
> proper degree, from the center of a circle. Then I'd cut the circle to
> pizza segments.

Why? All that manual busy work in a GUI app just doesn’t make much sense.
I’d much rather find a way to give the computer the numbers and let *it* do
that tedious stuff.

> It's really nothing fancy - put cut
> and split is not that easy in the tools I've checked by now.

Looked pretty easy on the Google framework I gave you the link for.

> Inkscape was ok, more or less. But Inkscape 1.1 does not run on MacOS
> 10.10. 1.02 requires 10.11. 0.9.2 is not an actual MacOS version, but
> X11. Usable, but ugly.

Such is the nature of many open source ports to the Mac. I myself have a
bit of a love/hate relationship with Audacity for that reason. These days,
my approach is use those apps on their native platform, either by running
a virtual machine on my Mac, or by installing them on a $100 Raspberry Pi.
If you’re expecting someone to write a Mac-specific app to do those
things, you have to make a better case than you’ve done here.

[Doc O'Leary]

For your reference, records indicate that
Martin =?UTF-8?Q?=CE=A4rautmann?= <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:

> You are right that MacDraw did not support to cut crossings. But it
> supported very well to draw circle arcs as part of a cicle.

As does SVG, and thus any tool that can edit that format, including
Safari (the snippet editor is great for live-viewing changes) or your
favorite Mac text editor. Again, since your drawing is going to be
based on data, it makes very little sense to use a GUI to create it
manually.

> Those web apps stop me as long as they do not support those operations.

But they do. You’re just not bothering to try them, or willing to use
the SVG generated as a template. What’s the big problem with changing
`stroke-width="4"` to `stroke-width="7"`, for example?

> Because I do use gnuplot for those purposes where it is appropriate. The
> MacDraw like operation isn't.

You have yet to give an operation that *was* done by Mac Draw that isn’t
supported by SVG. Yeah, it’s a bit of a bummer that Apple does such a
poor job of integrating open source tools like Inkscape. Maybe it’s time
to start giving some money to non-trillion-dollar companies that actually
support the things you want to do?

> Because it would take much more time to teach the computer what I want
> instead of do it manually myself.

Clearly not. In the time you’ve take here to run down existing solutions,
you could have just plugged in your numbers and gotten the graphic you
wanted. Do you want to solve the problem or do you just want to moan about
it?

> My hope was that someone already knew the app which would do this job
> properly. Libreoffice is actually pretty good for simple drawings - but
> it just can not do yet what I'm looking for.

You’ve been getting suggestions, but nobody here is a mind reader. Your
notion of “properly” is apparently something that keeps you from even
getting to the starting line to create just a *basic* pie chart. As
someone who uses slrn, you should realize that there are some software
markets that the Mac community just isn’t big enough to support.

> I'd expect for current tools to be even better than those ancient ones.
> But actually their focus seems to have shifted, from some simple manual
> operations to something better (?) which I do not need.

Vote with your wallet. If the current Apple ecosystem is not to your
liking any longer, explore outside it. I very much like the Raspberry Pi
platform, because it reminds me a lot of the educational/hobbiest Apple
of my youth. Inkscape is an easy install there, and you could get to
click-click-click creating a custom pie chart in minutes.

[Jolly Roger]

On 2021-09-21, Martin Τrautmann <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> I want to draw a square.
>

> I want to draw a circle, crossing the sqare.
>

> I want to draw some lines, cutting the circle.
>

> I want to cut the circle into pieces where I have crossings. I want to
> move or delete those pieces.
>

> I want to fill areas with colors or patterns.
>
> I want to adjust line width and colors
>
> I want to save this as jpg, gif, png or pdf
>

> I want to paste images from png files.

Again, any illustration app can do all of this. It's just a matter of
learning how to use the app in question.

> If I'd want to convert data to graphics automatically, I'd propably
> use something like gnuplot.

I'd just use the graph capability of a spreadsheet for that, as it's the
fastest and simplest way to do it.

> But the data I got is e.g. a pie chart with 18%, 20%, 45 %. I'd
> convert this to degrees, draw a line, duplicate and rotate that line
> by the proper degree, from the center of a circle. Then I'd cut the
> circle to pizza segments.

That sounds like a lot of work just to create a pie chart. You can
create pie charts in ewer steps in Affinity Designer with the Pie Chart
tool:

<https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Tools/tools_pie.html?title=Pie%20Tool>

> I'll group and push a certain pizza segment I need outwards. I'd
> duplicate the pizza segment downwards, Add two lines and make it to a
> 3d pie segment. Then I'd add some text where it does look best.
>
> Those are really simple gui operations which are done within a few
> minuts, when you have a proper tool. It's really nothing fancy - put

> cut and split is not that easy in the tools I've checked by now.

Designer can do all o this quite effortlessly as well.

[Jolly Roger]

On 2021-09-28, Martin Τrautmann <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:

> On 27 Sep 2021 18:40:01 GMT, Jolly Roger wrote:
>> On 2021-09-21, Martin Τrautmann <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> I want to draw a square.
>>>
>>> I want to draw a circle, crossing the sqare.
>>>
>>> I want to draw some lines, cutting the circle.
>>>
>>> I want to cut the circle into pieces where I have crossings. I want to
>>> move or delete those pieces.
>>>
>>> I want to fill areas with colors or patterns.
>>>
>>> I want to adjust line width and colors
>>>
>>> I want to save this as jpg, gif, png or pdf
>>>
>>> I want to paste images from png files.
>>
>> Again, any illustration app can do all of this. It's just a matter of
>> learning how to use the app in question.
>

> You might be surprised how much from an "obvious" solution some
> applications do handle those tasks.

How obvious it is is a separate issue. What matters is that they can do
what you want.

> Personally, I was surprised by one app which offered to draw squares,
> which ended up in four separate lines. Ok, you could group thos four
> lines to a single object. But you could not handle this object like
> you could handle a real square.

Sounds suspiciously like Inkscape. We used it to create vector
illustrations in my previous job, and it was a nightmare for some things
- so much so that often people would avoid it entirely in favor of Adobe
Illustrator or similar tools.

>> Designer can do all o this quite effortlessly as well.
>

> How about a contest. I'll draw a sample image with sketchup to show
> you what I want to get done. The others show how they would have done
> it and how complicated it was - or how far they come, until the job is
> not supported by the tool any more.
>
> I'll use sketchup since it is a free tool which is very easy to use,
> although it is a 3D tool and does not handle circles very well. It
> does not support to define a line width, so I will have to create the
> width with inner and outer lines and fill it.
>
> Who would join this comparison, with which tool?

Sorry, I don't have *that* much free time. I'm doing well to comment
here occasionally. : D ...but it does sound like an interesting
exercise.

[Doc O'Leary]

For your reference, records indicate that
Martin =?UTF-8?Q?=CE=A4rautmann?= <t-us...@gmx.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 27 Sep 2021 16:28:04 -0000 (UTC), Doc O'Leary wrote:
> > But they do. You’re just not bothering to try them, or willing to use
> > the SVG generated as a template. What’s the big problem with changing
> > `stroke-width="4"` to `stroke-width="7"`, for example?
>

> Because I use a Mac which is famous for graphical, intuitive usage.

But, ironically, creating custom pie charts is *not* something that greatly
benefits from a GUI. If you’re starting with a set of numbers (or any data
source), let the computer do its job.

> > You have yet to give an operation that *was* done by Mac Draw that isn’t
> > supported by SVG.
>

> Pattern filling for grouped objects?

You are wrong. Patterns can be applied to containers in SVG. Here’s an
example I whipped up in Safari’s snippet editor:

<svg width="640" height="640" >
<defs>
<pattern id="GridPattern" patternUnits="userSpaceOnUse"
x="0" y="0" width="10" height="10"
viewBox="0 0 10 10" >
<rect fill="none" stroke="gray" x="0" y="0" width="10" height="10"/>
</pattern>
</defs>

<g fill="url(#GridPattern)">
<rect x="10" y="10" width="100" height="100" />
<rect x="200" y="200" width="100" height="100" />
</g>

</svg>

> I could not get the job done with inkscape 0.92.2. Please feel free to
> create a sample file to show me how you did it.

A sample of *what*? You’ve gone out of your way to not do any work or say
exactly what it is you want that isn’t done by existing tools. Like I said
before, how about *you* create the sample file that gets you to your limit
and *then* ask people about the specific roadblock you’ve run into.
Because, right now, it really doesn’t seem like you’re eager to actually
solve a problem.