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 lan-

guages! The documentation,

dutifully, provides example func-

tion usage, as well as, compiler

instructions for each language

version. The package claims to

support 12 different compilers

covering Pascal, C, Basic, FOR-

TRAN, Clipper and Assembler.

The Toolkit has 9 utility pro-

grams and 62 functions which

can be linked into your applica-

tion. 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 program-

mer’s application.

Packaging

As mentioned above, this soft-

ware is set off into three differ-

ent packages which are, how-

ever, intimately related. They

can be used separately but are

designed, as mentioned in the

documentation, to work to-

gether.

Each package has its own docu-

mentation; 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, pack-

age? 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 docu-

mentation 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 dif-

ferent 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 mar-

keting 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 re-

ally 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 particu-

lar language he/she is writing.

Documentation

The function definitions them-

selves 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 lan-

guages!

Operation

PCXtext

PCXtext describes itself as

“solving the problem of display-

ing text in a wide range of graph-

ics 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 (admit-

tedly, 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

Page 6