Re: Re: Bug in Graphics Text under Linux
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg51720] Re: [mg51706] Re: Bug in Graphics Text under Linux
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <andrzej at akikoz.net>
- Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 03:48:16 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <clprqg$a6f$1@smc.vnet.net> <200410290740.DAA03524@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
No, natively Mac OS X uses Apple's own graphic environment called
Quartz. Any application that fully supports Quartz can rotate text in
any direction and produce lots of other professional effects but none
of them are not supported by Mathematica. The reason is that
Mathematica's Front End is written in "Carbon", which is a programming
environment Apple created for compatibility with pre-OS X Mac systems.
It is easy to port applications written for earlier Mac OS to Carbon,
but they the full capabilities of Quartz are not available to them. For
that the program needs to be written in Cocoa, an object oriented
programming environment based on NextStep. It was a big disappointment
for all Mac users who were aware of these issues when we discovered
that WRI decided to choose the "cheap and easy" way of re-writing
Mathematica 4.1 in Carbon, rather than creating a new Cocoa based Front
End. This was particularly unfortunate because WRI had a long
experience with NextStep though Mathematica development for that
platform stopped at version 3.0.
X11 is of course available for MacOS X: in fact Apple includes it on
its installation disks, but it does not have the capabilities of
Quartz and Mathematica does not run under it.
Andrzej Kozlowski
On 29 Oct 2004, at 16:40, Kevin J. McCann wrote:
> Bill,
>
> I believe that OS10 uses X11 (XFreeBSD or somesuch).
>
>
>
>
> Bill Rowe wrote:
>> On 10/27/04 at 1:54 AM, kmccann at umbc.edu (Kevin) wrote:
>>
>>
>>> This problem has been presented before, but I have not used
>>> Mathematica under Linux in a while. Under 5.0 (and earlier
>>> versions) I find that graphic text that runs other than horizontal
>>> is not properly rendered. For example, if I plot something like
>>> this
>>
>>
>>> Text[StyleForm["Scattered Wave", FontSize -> 12], {5.5, 3.2}, {0,
>>> 0}, {1, 0.55}]
>>>
>>> I get "Scattered Wave" running off at about 30deg, but each letter
>>> is horizontal. This problem produces an even more absurd result for
>>> y-axis labels for which the label runs vertically but the letters
>>> are horizontal.
>>
>>
>>> The last time I tuned in on this, Wolfram support said it was a
>>> problem with X11. Perhaps, but it is still a BUG in the Linux
>>> product that makes Mathematica on Linux unusable in the classroom.
>>
>>
>>> Does anyone know of a workaround?
>>
>>
>> The problem you describe above is not just a problem with X11 and
>> Linux. It also occurs with Mathematica running on Mac OS 10.3.
>>
>> I have seen various workarounds, none entirely satisfatory. One
>> approach is to use Hershey fonts. There is a package on Wolfram's web
>> site which allows usage of Herhey fonts in Mathematica. This approach
>> is nice in that everything is handled within Mathematica. But placing
>> and sizing the text the way you want is somewhat time consuming.
>> Also, the choice of fonts is more limited. But reasonable appearing
>> plots can be generated with this approach.
>>
>> The other workaround I've used for reports is to generated the plots
>> without problematical text, convert the Mathematica notebook to a PDF
>> file and use a third party application to edit the resulting PDF file
>> manually adding the text in the way I want. The end result usually
>> looks better than what I get with Hershey fonts, but I really prefer
>> something that can be handled within Mathematica.
>>
>> Another possible workaround might be to use Publicon. Does anyone
>> know if this issue exists within Publicon?
>> --
>> To reply via email subtract one hundred and four
>>
>
>
- References:
- Re: Bug in Graphics Text under Linux
- From: "Kevin J. McCann" <kmccann@umbc.edu>
- Re: Bug in Graphics Text under Linux