(mgp-users 00381) Some magic point questions/comments/bugs

["Dean S. Messing" <deanm@sharplabs.com>]

After going through the docs and playing for several hours with Magic
Point I have generated several questions which I post below.  Any help
will be appreciated.  Right now, with my ICIP post session deadline
coming at me like a freight-train, Q5 is my greatest concern.  Any
quick solutions to that.  Hardcopy from screen-dumps do not look
nearly as good as PS _should_ look if I could get it to work.

Any help will be appreciated.

Dean


Q1.
---
Why, when no `%include "default.mgp"' is included does

%%%%%%%%%%%% TOP OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%%
%page

%back "gray"
Some text.
%%%%%%%%%% BOTTOM OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%

give a black background to everything but the text but

%%%%%%%%%%%% TOP OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%%
%page
%back "gray"

Some text.
%%%%%%%%%% BOTTOM OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%

makes the entire background gray? Is this behaviour documented?

Note that the USAGE file says:

               %include default.mgp
       
       This determines the default style. Each page begins with "%page".
       
               %page
       
               TITLE
       
               Body
       
       MagicPoint is line oriented. Don't write anything in the first line
       because the default style uses the first line for making space at the
       top of the screen. The second line is the title of the page.

which implies that if the default style is un-defined then one can
put stuff (or not) in the first line (following page).
Perhaps the exact behaviour of `%page' needs more documentation.


Q2.
---
This question is closely tied to Q1.
Why does the following wierd behaviour occur?

%%%%%%%%%%%% TOP OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%%
%page
%back "darkblue"

%back "gray"
_The_Title_

A line of text.

Some more text.
%%%%%%%%%% BOTTOM OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%

This gives a slide with a darkblue background, and yellow text
with gray background just for the text.  Looks bad!

%%%%%%%%%%%% TOP OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%%
%page
%back "darkblue"
%back "gray"

_The_Title_

A line of text.

Some more text.
%%%%%%%%%% BOTTOM OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%

This gives a slide with the entire background as gray.  Again the
foreground of the text is yellow.  I thought the strange behaviour
of Q1 had to do with the first line (following `%page') being or not being
blank.   But this example says otherwise.

Also where is the "yellow" for the foreground coming from?  I moved
all default files out of the way including the one in

        `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/mgp/default.mgp'

and it makes no difference.
There must be some built-in defaults I'm not seeing.  Are these
documented somewhere?  If not, should they be?


Q3.
---
Where is the `%xsystem' command documented?

Q4.
---
Why does the beautiful MTCORSVA.TTF font from the Microsoft
Windows 98 / Office 2000 distribution not render well?  Pieces of
letters are missing.  Yet they render perfectly when I use ftview from
the freetype-1.3.1 distribution.  Try, for example

%%%%%%%%%%%% TOP OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%%
%deffont "auth"  tfont "MTCORSVA.TTF"
%page

%font "auth"
%center
This constains letters (like "f") which render poorly.
%%%%%%%%%% BOTTOM OF FILE %%%%%%%%%%%

and see if the rendering is any good.

Q5.
---
I'm finding mgp2ps nearly unusable for several trials.
For example, with bits/pixel set to 16 on the X server (I find that
bpp makes a _big_ difference, 24, and 32 seem unusable) I get a lot
of gibberish when I try to convert to PS the file `white-brush.mgp'
in the `mgp-solid-2.0.tgz' package on the MagicPoint site.
Could this be because of the use of TrueType fonts (in particular
comic.ttf, and arialb.ttf)?

Also, I've been unable to get it to give me colour output from
colour EPS figures that I've generated using `xfig'.  To
distribute hardcopy to people, or do a poster session at
a conference,  I'm being forced to take screenshots of 
the mgp window, and print these out.  What a pain in the arse.