Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: teler@cs.huji.ac.il (Eyal Teler) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: JcGraph Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Date: 2 Mar 1994 16:33:15 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 190 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2l2f4b$pkj@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: teler@cs.huji.ac.il (Eyal Teler) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: graphics, 2D, 3D, programming, freeware PRODUCT NAME JcGraph BRIEF DESCRIPTION A graph program. Create 2D and 3D graphs from ASCII data files. This program was provided on the coverdisk of Amiga Computing Magazine, issue 71, March 1994. See my review of this magazine elsewhere in the comp.sys.amiga.reviews archives. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Jean-Christophe Clement Address: 921, rang 3 St-Simon Quebec, CANADA J0H-1Y0 LIST PRICE Freeware. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE 1MB RAM required. SOFTWARE Workbench 1.3. ARexx recommended for serious use. COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 500, 1MB Chip RAM, 2MB Fast RAM. Kickstart 1.2, Workbench 1.3, ARP. Fujitsu 100MB SCSI drive in A590. INSTALLATION Drag the JcGraph drawer to your hard disk. On a Workbench 1.3 machine, you should copy the libs/kd_freq.library to the LIBS: directory. "JCGRAPH:" should be assigned to the program's drawer (in the startup-sequence file, for example). REVIEW This program gives the ability to display graphs in 2D or 3D. Graphs are read from an ASCII file, whose format is described in the documentation. There are 13 2D graph types and 13 3D graph types to select from. It is possible to rotate the graphs in three dimensions (even the 2D ones). The program opens three windows on the Workbench. One is the Control Window, which includes sliders for 3D rotation, 10 buttons which can be assigned ARexx scripts, and 'undo' and 'render' buttons. The two other windows are the Preview Window, which is a wireframe display of the current graph type and 3D placement, but displays a generic graph (not the one you loaded); and the Rendering Window, which displays the rendered results in filled 3D (or 2D). All the windows can be dragged, and the Preview and Render windows can also be resized. Selecting the graph type is done via a file requester, which is a custom one on Workbench 1.3 machines. New graph types may be designed in the form of ASCII files. The resulting graph can be saved in several formats: IFF, EPS, Aegis Draw, and Geo 3D. DOCUMENTATION There's a tutorial in the magazine, and a documentation file on the disk, which also includes a tutorial. The tutorials explain basic operations of the program well, but there are no examples for the programming aspects of the program (ARexx and graph type construction). LIKES AND DISLIKES LIKES The preview window. ARexx interface. Custom graph types. Support for many output formats. DISLIKES Selecting a graph type is awkward. If there's anything a user would want to do with this program, it is trying out different graph styles, to select the most effective for the data in question. Having to load a type from the file requester every time is slow and uncomfortable, especially if you happen to work from diskette. Window updates are very slow. The pie chart doesn't look anything like a pie. The hypertext system is uncomfortable. I don't like having a window for every page open, and I'd rather single-click than double-click to select. (But that's just me. I wonder how AmigaGuide does it.) [MODERATOR'S NOTE: AmigaGuide uses a single click. - Dan] How about the ability to load spreadsheet data into the program? Could make it more useful. Too many windows clutter the Workbench (see BUGS). COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS This program is said to be unique on the Amiga. I've never used such a program seriously on another platform, but I have dabbled with a similar PC program which was much easier to use: it had a spreadsheet-like front end for data entry, if I remember correctly. BUGS Tooltype SCREEN=custom doesn't work. The program still opened on the Workbench screen. Context sensitive help often gets the wrong context. The Arrange option, which should organise windows logically, uses what seems to be the first 200 lines of my PAL Workbench, and results in a messy screen. VENDOR SUPPORT This was once a shareware program, but not enough people registered, so it's now freeware and there's no support. WARRANTY Coverdisk replacement by the magazine. CONCLUSIONS This is a programmer's application. A user with no knowledge of programming, or one who doesn't want to dabble with the arcane features of this program, is left with a program which is not very friendly, nor very powerful. Someone who needs such an application, and is willing to invest time learning how to customise it (i.e., to learn ARexx and experiment) could possibly have a very useful program on his/her hands. The ARexx interface could allow the creation of a more powerful and friendlier front end. The slow windows update and awkward use, and having to work on a 4 colour Workbench (on my 1.3 machine) give a bad impression. Still, it's possible that with a faster machine and a newer Workbench the program would be more usable. I'll give this product 7 out of 10, simply because I believe that in some circumstances, on some machines, and for some people, it could prove useful, even very useful. For me and my machine, 5 out of 10 would be more suitable. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Eyal Teler. All rights reserved. --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews