Initial Announcements

[duncan.m...@gmail.com]

Here are some links to the initial announcements for this project:
* http://mountaindharma.blogspot.com/2008/03/pechapublisher-project-announcement.html
* http://www.pechamaker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=149

[bjlhundrup]

Duncan I thought this was you. Good to know you trying to help with
this pecha thing.... PM is a blessing from Guru Rinpoche, FYJ must be an
emanation of Penchen Thomi Sambhota !!!

I would help but in truth I know nothing of code or programming. But I
do know how to make and what pecha should look like, for all that's
worth. If you plan to go so far as to make a new program I have ideas
about a lot of needed thing like ornamental cover-pages. and there
really does need to be support for images within the side brackets in
the 'fancy-pages' (because adding pictures in PDF kills the quality of
the whole text, but especially the page you edit the images into) as
well like on Tony's pecha-program it is good to have a "Fancy deity-
page" (if you do not understand what this is, it is a bracket cut out
in the middle along with the two on the sides like on the Fancy) but
there needs to be image support for these two & three brackets other
wise don't bother. Also there is a need for an 'ending fancy-page'
which is just a bracket in the middle (for stupas or lama-seals things
like this) which are often used. I make, as you may know a LOT of
pecha, and these are things that I need not always but often. These
are also things that are not in Tony's or anywhere else unless you
make your own pecha-temps in an art program, which makes great peach
but not very efficient or useful when make a lot of pages, I never do
it this way unless for English and Tibetan peach because of needing or
wanting images throughout the text. I always wished for these thing to
be part of PM but some of these ideas are far from it's original /
basic operations (like image support within the brackets on Fancy-
page, etc.). Without image support within the brackets and in-line on
your new program, you will be making nothing new or of real need.
Since you are starting from the ground up you really should make it
the BEST it can be. And since we see each other now and again I will
do what I can to help you!

Then there are the more basic pecha layouts which where/are most often
what is used when written in Umay script and now that we have some
Umay fonts it would be nice to have these. They again would not be
needed often but would be good to have. You could make a basic temp
that would be much like Tony's or PM's (adding the Deity-fancy and
Ending-fancy) to be added or taken out just like it is now in PM for
the Cover and Fancy pages, but have other style temps that can be
uploaded. This could be the case with the ornamental cover-pages as
well, which there are 2 or 3 common styles of out there. There is also
much need for an extensive means for making custom page (as in paper)
sizes. And support for printing more than one copy per print. Meaning,
lets say I am printing on 11"x17" Portrait and I want the whole front
page to be page #1 and the whole back to be page #2, you get what I'm
trying to say? This is only useful when print a lot as in more than
2copies. On a 11x17-P size, I could put about 5 copies this is
production quality, you know what I mean.

Now I will end with saying that unless you truly make something
perfect and complete, myself I don't see the need. Maybe because I
don't know about the open source thing, so I don't see the need, but
if we can not use the best looking Tibetan font (like we can in PM )
then not many will use it. It should support every single Tibetan
font out there, TTF and Uni what have you, much like the UDP program
which you can chose the font you want and the key-board you want to
type it in (given you have the fonts on your drive), though not even
UDP is as complete in this way as it could be. I always wished PM and
UDP where one program. Being able to type any Tibetan font on your
drive in which ever key-board you know (or like) is truly a gift and
if that was in PM, OOO man!!! What I can dream cant I ?? So I advice
that the time be taken to "make it the best it can be" with everything
it will ever need, things which are not in one or the other of the two
main pecha programs.

Though in truth the easy of how to teaching Rinpoches, Lamas and
Tibetans how to use PM will always be needed. PP and PM really need to
be inter useable, like UDP only back and forth. PM already reads and
displays almost every font there is and a child can use it!!!

[duncan.m...@gmail.com]

On Apr 4, 8:09 pm, bjlhundrup <mrleng...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I would help but in truth I know nothing of code or programming. But I
> do know how to make and what pecha should look like, for all that's
> worth.

Yup, that's definitely worth a lot :-)

Our teachers are often quite busy, so having someone available for
initial proofing and suggestions, discovering subtle layout (or other)
errors, will save us from having to bother lamas with those questions.

> If you plan to go so far as to make a new program I have ideas
> about a lot of needed thing like ornamental cover-pages. and there
> really does need to be support for images within the side brackets in
> the 'fancy-pages'

Yeah, actually, the current proposed solution is to address this more
generally with the use of "layers" -- this would allow folks to place
images anywhere they have a need. Of course, we'll want to provide
sensible defaults :-)

> And since we see each other now and again I will
> do what I can to help you!

Cool! Thanks :-)

> There is also
> much need for an extensive means for making custom page (as in paper)
> sizes.

Yeah, this is definitely part of the plan. That will come much later
in the process of the development, though -- as will most layout/
formatting oriented code. Initially we will be working on implementing
(and then tuning) the basic source abstractions, their interaction
with each other, as well as the basic user interaction options via the
GUI.

> Now I will end with saying that unless you truly make something
> perfect and complete, myself I don't see the need.

There are two needs: a functional one and an ideological need.

Firstly, PM doesn't provide a means for maintaining multiple sources
in their original files while simultaneously providing a means of
publishing pechas in a traditional format. In PM, once you add the
Tibetan, transliteration, and translation to the Pecha, they remain in
a combined form. If one person is in charge of maintaining the
Tibetan, and similarly the responsibilities for maintaining other
portions of the text rest with different individuals, you have a
process problem. Essentially, this means that in order to save time,
you must not make all edits in the .pxp file (or saved content file).
Any formating you want to do with just the source files themselves is
no longer possible (without redoing all the PM entry/copy/paste).

Secondly, PM is not open source. This is something that FWJ would also
like to see: an open source pecha editing/creating tool. Whether
PechaPublisher ends up being that tool or not, only time and effort
will tell.

> It should support every single Tibetan
> font out there,

Well, I can't guarantee *every* Tibetan font ;-) But I can't imagine
writing a tool that didn't use the best ones available. I fully intend
that PechaPub will support all the fonts that PM does.

> PP and PM really need to
> be inter useable

Yeah, that's also fully intended. Exactly how that pans out will
depend upon the implementation we settle on for PechaPub, so it's far
to early to make any statements about that. But having worked with
software all my life (both as a user and developer), I would never
dream of not offering users some acceptable means of migration/
compatibility.

Thanks for your email, Lhundrup!

d

[bjlhundrup]

Great to hear some of this and to talk to you today. I realized why I
never got this e-mail. It is not my address it is a friends' I let use
my computer, since I don't have gmail address I never needed to sign
them out and this auto-registered this e-address as mine. I'll make a
gmail if I have to, but how can I change this address???

Now for fonts. The most important will no longer be just the ones on
PM, Mac and Win-Vista now have Uni-s that come with the systems. These
(Uni and free fonts) are slowly becoming VERY popular with Lamas and
Rinpoches, because of being free and they think all Tib-fonts should
be, some really are adamant about this so are starting to really
advise the use of such (any and all free fonts) over paid fonts, even
if they are not the nicest looking. So I will give a 'list' of what I
was mostly thinking about (anyone who know of others that are commonly
used please add... Mr. Fynn?), I should say I was not thinking about
ALL, when I said that. XTashi and U-chen, the old ones like that I
have yet to see anyone using in the last 8 years or more for
preservation or translation work (but you could put if you wanted up
to you, I think there is no real need, Mr. Fynn what do you think?).
Tibetan Modern A is used a little, and LTibetan is still being used
often, and then there are the main one's being used (includes Umay,
Web and Uni versions) are; all TCC, all Sambhota, all TCRC, All
Monlam's Bod-yig, Jomolhari, Microsoft Himalaya, Mac's fonts (names I
don't remember), and then there are the XenoType of which I do not
know anyone but you that is using it, however I foresee their U-may
being used now and again.

Now would you like some of the samples I'm using in PM Beta1.4 for
ornamental covers? I have taken from my collection of TBRC's PDFs and
touched up a little and use as TIFF JPEG and PNG

[bjlhundrup]

[Chris Fynn]

Re fonts:
Nitartha Sambhota now apparently have Unicode versions of all their
fonts just about ready to release.

> adding pictures in PDF kills the quality of the whole text, but
> especially the page you edit the images into

Vector graphics (EPS , SVG ) do not loose quality in PDF

- Chris