PCX Toolkit Continued from Page 5.

One of the interesting attributes of this set of libraries is that Genus Microprogramming has included versions of the libraries for six different program languages! The documentation, dutifully, provides example function usage, as well as, compiler instructions for each language version. The package claims to support 12 different compilers covering Pascal, C, Basic, FORTRAN, Clipper and Assembler.

The Toolkit has 9 utility programs and 62 functions which can be linked into your application. PCXtext has four utility programs and 46 functions while PCXeffects has 3 utilities and 24 functions. All are written in assembler. The utility programs are stand-alones that provide some basic capabilities such as showing or capturing an image or editing a font. They also do some conversion work for fonts and images. The main thrust of the software, however, is to provide integrated image and effects management into a programmer’s application.

Packaging

As mentioned above, this software is set off into three different packages which are, however, intimately related. They can be used separately but are designed, as mentioned in the documentation, to work together.

Each package has its own documentation; of course each is a format clone of the other. The distribution disks are color coded, which is a nice touch.

My first and lasting reaction to this approach is confusion. Frankly, I don’t understand why

these packages have been artificially (in my view) made into three separate ones. Granted, they do somewhat different things sometimes, but not enough to warrant the cost and confusion of three separate sets of documentation, etc. In fact, the user’s manual for PCXeffects states; “If you have not as of yet installed The PCX Programmer’s Toolkit, do so now. It is required for the programming interfaces...” (!). How would you feel if you had just plopped down your hundred bucks for this, separate, package? There is no warning on the exterior of the packaging that would tip you off that have to go buy the $250 Toolkit to make full use of this software. To me, this is unforgivable; so, “on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best..”, this packaging/marketing ploy rate a generous 2.

Combined, these libraries would make a very nice and competitive product and the combined documentation would not exceed the size of the average DOS manual after all the duplication had been eliminated. As it stands now, a programmer seriously attempting to utilize the library functions provided in these packages would have to juggle three different manuals and at least six different libraries or obj files! (Not to mention the ones you already use for other functions.)

Surely, Genus hasn’t convinced themselves that there is a marketing advantage in doing it this way. Or have they? If that’s the ploy, then I’ll go out on a limb and project increased sales and revenue on a properly priced combined package, all other things being equal If Genus really wants separate packaging why not have six different versions for the six different

languages supported? There is not a great deal of overlap with Basic, FORTRAN and Clipper aftermarkets. It would sure save the user the headache of trying to locate on the distribution disks just the set of libs, examples and source code for the particular language he/she is writing.

Documentation

The function definitions themselves are well organized and do a good job describing the use of the utilities. There is, of course, a great deal of redundancy to sift through over the three manuals, but the examples and syntax descriptions are quite adequate. Bear in mind that each function’s usage must have an example in each of the six supported languages!

Operation

PCXtext

PCXtext describes itself as “solving the problem of displaying text in a wide range of graphics modes, using an unlimited number of typefaces and sizes.” If all you need to do is display text in the graphics mode, this package efficiently performs that task for you. Unfortunately, there is no interactive capability to keyboard in the chosen font within your application (admittedly, this is difficult).

This severely limits the utility of the library from my perspective, but there are many applications, I suppose, that do require no more than a display capability. I think a product like this should be able to handle @ say.. gets, for example, in the graphics mode. Then you can do some things!

Oddly, the fonts provided in the package are GEM format fonts

Continued on Page Z

The Newsletter of the Dbase Language Professional Developers Group, October 1990

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