Infinite canvas on Windows??

Discuss Scott McCloud's current online comic project. Be sure to check out <a href="http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi.html">the latest improv</a>!

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Haunter259
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Infinite canvas on Windows??

Post by Haunter259 »

What the dilly, yo?


I want to play around with it too!
Tim Tylor
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Post by Tim Tylor »

Looks like a wonderful tool. :D A Windows version would be great. I know Mac's the platform of choice for graphics-folk, but... well, let Kurtz say it. (Looks like he's making slow but definite progress towards his goal. ;) ) I've no idea how easy it would be to write, though.

It would be a good idea to have a working example or two of comics created with it, even an existing comic chopped up and reformatted in it (with the artist's permission, of course). The showcase is still empty, and I'm on Windows so I can't contribute.
Aquarius
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Post by Aquarius »

Hello,
I'm sorry for the late reply. The current version is not portable to Windows - with some(?) work it may be possible to port it to GNUStep (Linux). But I would like to rewrite the whole application and this will mean Mac OS X and Windows (Linux?) support. So PLEASE provide me with feedback:

What do you like?
What would you change?
What do you want to see in a future version?
...

Please, also reply if you don't like the application. I need feedback!
Tim Tylor wrote: It would be a good idea to have a working example or two of comics created with it, even an existing comic chopped up and reformatted in it (with the artist's permission, of course). The showcase is still empty, and I'm on Windows so I can't contribute.
I tried to create a comic, but I'm no artist. If anyone could provide me with a few panels, I'll create a small technology demo :)

Markus
Doc MacDougal
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Post by Doc MacDougal »

I've downloaded it and I'm going to try to put together an alternate version of a strip I'm working on with it. Hopefully I'll have something in a few days.

Ben
borealism.com: highbrow pretension by the assload
kaos_de_moria
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Post by kaos_de_moria »

Tim Tylor wrote: I know Mac's the platform of choice for graphics-folk, but... well, let Kurtz say it. (Looks like he's making slow but definite progress towards his goal. ;)
haha, he could actually make the bar alot larger now. he should add a g5 tower with 2 30 inch cinema displays. and right, he can take the 17 inch off. there is no 17 inch cinema display anymore. oh right, the imac he can take off as well. there is no such imac anymore and noone knows what the new imacs will look like. rumors say, no all in one in the future. long words, short sense, kutz's money flow is too slow to keep up with the price development of apple... :D :evil: :D
ShadowCaster
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Post by ShadowCaster »

Aquarius wrote: I tried to create a comic, but I'm no artist. If anyone could provide me with a few panels, I'll create a small technology demo :)

Markus
You could use the first few pannels of a Zot online episode as an example with path, pannels of different size and layout.

I'm very curious about the format of the result, is this java ? Flash ? another plug in ? Pure HTML ?
In the last case, how do you handle image rotation ?

About feedback : a version for windows would be nice. What language and lib do you use? If it's not too difficult, I coud help with a java port, that would completely solve portability issues (and may raise performance ones, I know)
Aquarius
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Post by Aquarius »

ShadowCaster wrote: You could use the first few pannels of a Zot online episode as an example with path, pannels of different size and layout.
I don't want to violate the authors copyright. Just give the artists some time to get used to the tool. Hopefully the first examples will pop up in a few days :)
ShadowCaster wrote:I'm very curious about the format of the result, is this java ? Flash ? another plug in ? Pure HTML ?
In the last case, how do you handle image rotation ?
I'm using XML as the document format. If you use "Export ..." from the File-menu the application will export the document (xml-file+panels), a basic html-file and a JAVA Applet to the specified directory. I used Java, because the Java Plug-in is supported on various platforms. I don't know if Action Script (Flash) is powerful enough to implement a complex "application". It would be interested to look into this.
ShadowCaster wrote:About feedback : a version for windows would be nice. What language and lib do you use? If it's not too difficult, I coud help with a java port, that would completely solve portability issues (and may raise performance ones, I know)
I know that there are a lot people who would like to see a windows version. But as I sad before the current codebase is not portable. I'm using Objective-C and Apple's Cocoa framework.
Java is definitely not my language of choice. Swing is nice, but I'm missing the look and feel of native applications. Java Apps just don't feel right. :-/ The alternative would be a cross-platform GUI API like wxWidgets or QT. Have you used any of these?
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Post by ShadowCaster »

I'm a beginner at wxWidgets, this project might be a good occasion to practice it. I've never worked on a Mac so I don't know how hard it would be to port Cocoa/Objective C to C++. I've been told that dynamic binding of Objective C can be very tricky to adapt to C++.
QT is too expensive for me and we woud have to pay one licence per programmer (and per plateform if we build the binaries ourselves).

While I dissagree that java apps don't feel right, I have to agree that most users feel as you do, and since it's for them that the app is developped, I'm forced to agree it shoud be ruled out :cry:
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Post by Guest »

The wxWidgets have one disadvantage: they use Carbon and not Aqua. So they don't have the typical OS X feeling. I'm also thinking about using C++ and OpenGL for the Model and View part of the application and a native framework (Cocoa AppKit on OX X) for the Controller. But this would require a very clean design and the separation between controller and view is not always easy.

I think it's too early to consider the technical aspects. Now it's important to know what people think about my application and what should be improved in a future version!
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Post by Aquarius »

Sorry I forgot to login. I posted the last message :)
ShadowCaster
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Post by ShadowCaster »

OK, let's wait then. I won't be able to directly test it myself but will watch for comics made using your tool to pop up and will give indirect feedback thru these.

I have a few question about the actual state of the tool : does it support png's partial transparency, image stacking and image stretching ? If so, it would allow nice effects with very small file sizes.
Could images get a global transparency parameter as in the SVG format ? That would also be a great feature, for example to make translucent word baloons out of tiny gifs with binary transparency.
Aquarius
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Post by Aquarius »

ShadowCaster wrote:OK, let's wait then. I won't be able to directly test it myself but will watch for comics made using your tool to pop up and will give indirect feedback thru these.

I have a few question about the actual state of the tool : does it support png's partial transparency, image stacking and image stretching ? If so, it would allow nice effects with very small file sizes.
Could images get a global transparency parameter as in the SVG format ? That would also be a great feature, for example to make translucent word baloons out of tiny gifs with binary transparency.
There is only support for JPEGs and GIFs (not animated) :-( The Java APIs only support this filetypes. I know that there are 3rd party frameworks which add support for other file formats, but using them will result in much higher loading times.

Markus

PS: please check your PMs :)
ShadowCaster
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Post by ShadowCaster »

At some point, png support was added to the image object, but it's dangerout to rely blindly on it since older VM won't deal with it. Some VM version checking and plan B stategy is needed (either alternate Gifs or external png handling object).
PM checked but applet not working : class missing
[EDIT] it's working now
Guest

Post by Guest »

Just to chime in on the Flash idea, yes, you can manipulate XML in Flash, and I would say ActionScript would be up to displaying the results of the application, equally as well as Java. (And probably somewhat more reliably.) Java, however, is supported on more platforms than Flash at this point. So it would depend on which is more important to you -- wide potential playability or stability on a somewhat smaller set of platforms. (Note that the Flash player is available for Mac, Windows, and several versions of Unix already.)

For cross-platform development purposes, you might consider Runtime Revolution for the authoring tool. It compiles to Mac, Windows (many versions of each), and 9 versions of Unix/Linux. It's a lot like Hypercard, but with somewhat more power. See http://www.runrev.com for more info.

E. Dalton
Aquarius
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Post by Aquarius »

Anonymous wrote:Just to chime in on the Flash idea, yes, you can manipulate XML in Flash, and I would say ActionScript would be up to displaying the results of the application, equally as well as Java. (And probably somewhat more reliably.) Java, however, is supported on more platforms than Flash at this point. So it would depend on which is more important to you -- wide potential playability or stability on a somewhat smaller set of platforms. (Note that the Flash player is available for Mac, Windows, and several versions of Unix already.)
ActionScript seems too take the right way, but it is still only a scripting language with a "small" library - AFAIK there is no way to import any other graphic formate than jpg after compiling. Macromedia recently release a product named Flex. It is very promising product, but it has a major drawback: You need a Flex-Server to compile and distribute the resulting flash files. For the time being I'll stick with Java, because it is more flexible than other solutions.
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