Showcase to Powerpoint Converter
Markus Gödecke
How can I convert my Showcase files to a Microsoft Powerpoint file ?
Serguei Patchkovskii
: How can I convert my Showcase files to a Microsoft Powerpoint file ?
Won't be easy. The best way I am aware of would be to print your showcase
slides as Postscript, then convert Postscript to a Windows Metafile
(using, for example, a *very* recent Aladdin Ghostview), then import
the resulting metafile into PowerPoint.
The result does not always look pretty, but ...
It's really a shame SGI killed showcase - at least, they might have
done a decent thing, and released the source under GPL. No such luck,
unfortunately.
/Serge.P
--
home page: http://www.cobalt.chem.ucalgary.ca/ps/
Simon Pigot
> It's really a shame SGI killed showcase - at least, they might have
> done a decent thing, and released the source under GPL. No such luck,
> unfortunately.
>
Especially given their much vaunted push into Linux and Open Source etc -
they've handed over xfs etc so how about releasing the showcase stuff? There
cant be anything secret about it and an active development effort on
showcase would only enhance their relationship with Irix/Mips customers!
After all, showcase used to be something they boasted of in their quotes (so
says this one from 97):
Below are delivered FREE with each system:
SHOWCASE: Presentation tool and word processor with sound, video and 3D
capabilities.
......
......
etc
They seem to have lost/forgotten(?) their pride in this useful piece of
software......
Simon
--
Simon Pigot si...@dpiwe.tas.gov.au
GIS Unit, Parks and Wildlife Service,
Level 6, 134 Macquarie St, Ph: +61 3 62 338357
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, 7001 Fax: +61 3 62 332744
Brent L. Bates
Martin Knoblauch
>
> A corporate strategy of bringing core SGI graphics and server
> technologies into Linux doesn't mean we're bringing down from the
> attic every Crazy Granny we ever developed. Showcase isn't going to
> be open sourced. It's not just a standalone application; it's based
> on TinyUI and IRIS GL, which would greatly(!) complicate matters.
> And since it doesn't support any common presentation interchange
> formats there would simply be too few people interested to justify
> spending the effort on it. And to what end? Applixware or
> StarOffice are superior and already there in Linux. I'd much prefer
> to see someone work on a showcase file reader for those apps.
>
Hi Allan,
lonf time no see :-) While I agree that releaseing the complete source code
to Showcase (if only to avoid the embarassments :-) makes not to much sense,
it might be nice to have the showcase file format documented and released.
Some ambitious hackers could try to write a converter. Of course, this
should have been done ages ago.
Martin
Kristoffer Lawson
: The market has spoken over and over again that simply taking old and
: deprecated code and dumping it upon the opensource community is not
: the path to success. There is plenty of work to do on both IRIX and
: Linux, and we'll continue to focus our efforts on projects of
: significant value.
Yes, but if you're not going to do *anything* with the software at all
it's better to release it as OS anyway as there is no harm from it. You
never know what can come of moves like that.
--
- ---------- = = ---------//--+
| / Kristoffer Lawson | www.fishpool.com
+-> | se...@fishpool.com | - - --+
|-- Fishpool Creations Ltd - / |
+-------- = - - - = --------- /~setok/
Serguei Patchkovskii
: StarOffice are superior and already there in Linux. I'd much prefer
: to see someone work on a showcase file reader for those apps.
The best way to achieve that should have been to publicly document the
format of showcase presentations - three years ago, when sgi decided
to drop plans for future development of showcase. Unfortunately, I do
not see that happening even if you release the specs now: in the intervening
time, most people had got the message, and switched to Powerpoint ...
which, at least, has the advantage of coming from a company which has a
solid history of providing a migration path for its office file formats
- ugly as it may be.
Jerry Fountain
Markus =?iso-8859-1?Q?G=F6decke?= <Markus....@t-online.de> wrote:
>Hi
>
>How can I convert my Showcase files to a Microsoft Powerpoint file ?
I asked the same thing awhile back. Short answer is NO CAN DO.
Other suggested some possible ways of doing the conversion. Even Andersen
kindly replied to me on my first attempt and commented that you could cut
and paste any images from Showcase to imgworks (part of the ImageVision
set). Alas, although we were both on Irix 5.3, my version of ImageVision
Tools is 2.3 and he had a slightly newer version. I have not been able to
track down a patch (or updater) to bring my version up to date.
Anyone know where I can get an update to the imgtools.* distribution? I'm
on varsity so I guess I can try tracking down our site admin, getting the
disks, and then digging through them trying to see if we have the latest
but (a) I'm not sure where to look at this point and (b) he may not have the
latest 5.3 distribution at this point (at least, where he can find it :-)
I do think that the idea of documenting the file format would be worth
while. At worst nothing would happen but more likely, someone might be able
to code a quick ripper to simply dump out the building blocks from the file
(images, text, etc). The basic vector elements probably wouldn't be as easy
to translate to something useful (anyone have any idea of an ideal
output for reading into other packages?).
If the data format is something relatively simple, I wouldn't be adverse to
writing the ripper. I'd be mainly interested in easily extracting image
elements.
Jerry
--
Jerry Fountain | Laboratory for Fluid Mechanics, Chaos, and Mixing
g...@chem-eng.nwu.edu | Northwestern University
(847) 491-3555 (Office) | Department of Chemical Engineering
(847) 491-3728 (FAX) | 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208
Scott Henry
J> In article <38AB1C65...@t-online.de>,
J> Markus =?iso-8859-1?Q?G=F6decke?= <Markus....@t-online.de> wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> How can I convert my Showcase files to a Microsoft Powerpoint file ?
J> I asked the same thing awhile back. Short answer is NO CAN DO.
...
J> If the data format is something relatively simple, I wouldn't be adverse to
J> writing the ripper. I'd be mainly interested in easily extracting image
J> elements.
A long time ago, the source to (the then current version of)
Showcase was shipped as part of the IDO CD, mostly as an example of
IRIS GL programming. Sorry, I don't remember when it stopped getting
shipped (ie: the most recent release with it).
--
Scott Henry <sco...@sgi.com> / Help! My disclaimer is missing!
IRIX MTS, / GIGO *really* means: Garbage in, Gospel Out
Silicon Graphics, Inc / http://reality.sgi.com/scotth/
Jerry Fountain
Scott Henry <sco...@sgi.com> wrote:
>>>>>> "J" == Jerry Fountain <g...@jules.chem-eng.nwu.edu> writes:
>
>J> In article <38AB1C65...@t-online.de>,
>J> Markus =?iso-8859-1?Q?G=F6decke?= <Markus....@t-online.de> wrote:
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> How can I convert my Showcase files to a Microsoft Powerpoint file ?
>
>J> I asked the same thing awhile back. Short answer is NO CAN DO.
>
>...
>
>J> If the data format is something relatively simple, I wouldn't be adverse to
>J> writing the ripper. I'd be mainly interested in easily extracting image
>J> elements.
>
>A long time ago, the source to (the then current version of)
>Showcase was shipped as part of the IDO CD, mostly as an example of
>IRIS GL programming. Sorry, I don't remember when it stopped getting
>shipped (ie: the most recent release with it).
Err, any idea what version. With the varsity stuff, we do have some old
rev's of the IDO packages, back to 4.x versions of Irix (don't know the IDO
versions). I'll have to dig through them. If you can give me a better
timeframe/directory location, it would help immensely.
Scott Henry
J> In article <yd8r9e3...@hoshi.engr.sgi.com>,
J> Scott Henry <sco...@sgi.com> wrote:
>> A long time ago, the source to (the then current version of)
>> Showcase was shipped as part of the IDO CD, mostly as an example of
>> IRIS GL programming. Sorry, I don't remember when it stopped getting
>> shipped (ie: the most recent release with it).
J> Err, any idea what version. With the varsity stuff, we do have some old
J> rev's of the IDO packages, back to 4.x versions of Irix (don't know the IDO
J> versions). I'll have to dig through them. If you can give me a better
J> timeframe/directory location, it would help immensely.
I'm pretty sure that it was shipped with (all of) the 4.x IDO. I
don't know if it was shipped with any of the 5.x IDO.
Ah, I spent a couple of minutes looking, and it is in the 4.0.5* IDO
CDs as "showdev". It is obviously an older version than current, but
I think that the current file format version is mostly a superset of
that one.
Howard
>
> A corporate strategy of bringing core SGI graphics and server
> technologies into Linux doesn't mean we're bringing down from the
> attic every Crazy Granny we ever developed. Showcase isn't going to
> be open sourced. It's not just a standalone application; it's based
> on TinyUI and IRIS GL, which would greatly(!) complicate matters.
> And since it doesn't support any common presentation interchange
> formats there would simply be too few people interested to justify
> spending the effort on it. And to what end? Applixware or
> to see someone work on a showcase file reader for those apps.
>
Irix/Linux based Illustration and page layout application. On Irix, it
already supports PostScript/EPS import, and even the Inventor 3D models
that Showcase supported. We have raised this issue in the past, but no
one has been able to provide us with the format document.
--
Howard Luby h...@mediascape.com, Ph:(248)540-2251, Fax:(248)540-2253
Mediascape Corporation http://www.mediascape.com
Howard
> >A long time ago, the source to (the then current version of)
> >Showcase was shipped as part of the IDO CD, mostly as an example of
> >IRIS GL programming. Sorry, I don't remember when it stopped getting
> >shipped (ie: the most recent release with it).
>
>
purchase item for version 2.2 of Showcase. There was a significant
architecture change, (C -> C++), including the format, from 2.x to 3.x,
which I imagine is what everyone is using.
In all the years that we have been trying to promote SGI in publishing,
we have been trying to address this issue. If SGI could organize a
publishing department, say even for just 2 months, we could finally
knock this off.
Howard
Howard
Howard
Howard
> >A long time ago, the source to (the then current version of)
> >Showcase was shipped as part of the IDO CD, mostly as an example of
> >IRIS GL programming. Sorry, I don't remember when it stopped getting
> >shipped (ie: the most recent release with it).
>
> Err, any idea what version. With the varsity stuff, we do have some old
> rev's of the IDO packages, back to 4.x versions of Irix (don't know the IDO
> versions). I'll have to dig through them. If you can give me a better
> timeframe/directory location, it would help immensely.
>
Don't get your hopes up here. The source was released briefly as a
purchase item for version 2.2 of Showcase. There was a significant
architecture change, (C -> C++), including the format, from 2.x to 3.x,
which I imagine is what everyone is using.
In all the years that we have been trying to promote SGI in publishing,
we have been trying to address this issue. If SGI could organize a
publishing department, even for just 2 months, we could finally knock
Howard
SMTP error, but I guess it sent it anyway.