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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Software News => Topic started by: chris on September 13, 2003, 10:15:43 AM
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Grasshopper LLC (http://www.grasshopperllc.com) have announced they will release Pagestream 4.1 for AmigaOS 4 PPC.
There is an upgrade offer for $40 for owners of the 68k version, and a free copy of the 68k version for purchasers of the OS4 version before the release of OS4.
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The title ofthis news is "slightly" misleading.....
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It looks like it has been released for real. As stated on Grasshopper's homepage:
"This version will not be marked final until after OS4 officially ships. Any purchase before then will also receive PageStream for Amiga68k at no additional charge."
So, they're selling a preliminary os4 version! It's like a preorder, only that you actually receive the good, being only not able to run it yet. I think this is the first commercial program having an os4-only version.
Varthall
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we are offering a limited time discount for those who are moving up to the AmigaOS4 PPC version from PageStream Amiga68k and likewise we are including the Amiga68k version to those who purchase the PPC version before it is publicly released.
Nope, it ain't released yet !
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This is interesting!
What are the changes in the OS4 specific release, except from the PPC (and BTW, how much of it is PPC native now)?
I use Pagestream 68k on MorphOS, and I am quite happy with it. The $40 upgrade offer to the PPC version looks really interesting. But I will of course only consider that if it has been tested and works OK on MorphOS ...
So:
A list of all the changes in the new PPC would be nice.
Information about whether it works on MorphOS or not would be nice too.
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@ Kronos
"Advance copies of PageStream 4.1 AmigaPPC are available now, but we will continue to stay in step with improvements to OS4."
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At last!!! I hope this is that, what i'm waiting for, & i hope demo will be avaible too :-)
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Perhaps they want to test it on the release version of OS4, rather than fielding calls about bugs due to changes in functionality between beta and final version?
But for now, why not: "IT MUST BE A CONSPIRACY!"
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exellent news..
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@Mikeymike
"released" means finished and ready to shipto costumers NOW.
PS-OS4 has been annonced, and some hints about the progress of
the port have been given. Also there is a pre-pay-scheme for
the 68k-2-PPC-crossupdate.
That is whats in the news,and thats what shoulc be reflected
by the title of the news-item.
No, conspiracy-theory (atleast not from my side).
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to all whom havent bought it , you can buy it aswell :) , not just only upgrade offers.
anyway as i said , Exellent news.
pps:got the email from them now aswell so , let the party begin :D
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"released" means finished and ready to shipto costumers NOW.
Well considering OS4 hasn't been "released" and "ready to ship to customers NOW", it's a bit difficult for a product designed for OS4 to be released and ready to ship to customers NOW isn't it... this isn't a "designed for Windows 95" gold star you know :-)
Is the nitpicking "because you don't like it" really necessary?
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Is it a CyberStormPPC or an AmigaONE version, or both will be the same?
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@ Warface
There shouldn't need to be a difference, should there? OS design is one thing, but this is just an app. G2/3/4 optimisations is possibly an issue though, all might be desired/needed.
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I read it as saying that you could purchase it now, but it will continually be improved as OS4 gets closer to release. Sort of like a beta version with free upgrade to the final version I guess. Hmm, maybe the article title was misleading, but it seems to be a release, even if it isn't a final release.
@Warface
Anything designed for OS4 should work on AmigaOne and CSPPC versions.
@takemehomegrandma
This is an OS4 compile, so will not work on MorphOS.
Chris
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Yes!
This is very good news. We now have atleast a natively running word processor which will ease the pain of not having a thing like OpenOffice.
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What other file formats (like RTF for example) can PageStream open, does anyone know?
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pagestream developers have the devkit and the knowledge on how and what , like any other developer who want to developer for os4 ,
if this is so damn hard to understand then i think they need to understand what there is in "designing new software for a plattform"
and no there is no mention of a morphos version , it does state clearly in the topic that its OS4 doesnt it? last i checked that wasnt morphos.
getting tired of people forcing MORPHOS in every thread there is.
mikeymike:pagestream does pdf also...as an example to what it can do...
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getting tired of people forcing MORPHOS in every thread there is.
Don't be so harsh, people ask for OS4 version every time something is released for MorphOS as well.
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@ Warface
I think he's talking about the OS4-bashing / MorphOS advocacy. Still, the situation is much better than it used to be on Amiga.org IMO.
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Obviously you didn't read it properly, as it clearly states that it is for AmigaOS 4.0 . So unless MorphOS is really AmigaOS 4.0 in disguise, then no, it won't work. Just because it was ported to PPC doesn't mean that it is going to work on any PPC OS.
So in your case, continue enjoying your 68k version. :-D
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I think this is a good indicator of the state of OS4.
Although this could be a ploy to get capital, I don't think so. It does make the AmigaOne look more attractive. We need a similiar offer from Realsoft.
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@mikeymike
Don't let the calm skies fool you. As soon as the PegasosII -OR- OS4 is released for A1, the excited new users will get beligerant. That is just the way it is around here. :-)
Personally, I'm just glad to see that PageStream continue on either of the two platforms.
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I think it is way stupid for either camp to celebrate because certain software is announced for that platform only.
It would be useful to have as many developers for each platform as possible, and sharing developers would be the way to go.
Imo :-)
Sincerely,
-Kenneth Straarup.
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elendi: why? sales numbers havent exactly exploded on the pegasos side since its release , people are not buying because it aint an mos only product , ie they think they support the enemy etc.
i have never had anything against them who want to release anything for a dual format, the point is this was as it say in the topic Amiga Os4 release/offer , and not an morphos offer .
and to all who has missed why it doesnt say morphos well i think u either should have an email in your box or none at all , if its none then it just show's how little you really wanted it.
(the pagestream poll that was held some time ago, i voted for the one i knew i would buy and now i got the email and i just click'd on the "BUY" option..easy as that)
and now the final thing , do we know why all of this happened ? , sure we do .. lets go back 2 years in the past then we would remeber stuff like Rage hard - mos only , companies going mos only etc and its still going on, so dont come around and say we didnt do it.
anyway i have no reason to belive this will be an amiga only product as its allready linux,mac,pc so all that will matter atm is actual numbers and all who voted will have to pay up, ie it wont just be another anon poll. or maybe not?
an example of how i think of all of this, i bought knights and merchants and i bought birdie shoot mac version, why? well i am an amiga user and not an pegasos user but i know its worth buying even if i can't use it, but i belive strongly that there will be an amiga version of em, and for the birdie shoot, well thats going into my mol install eventually..
even if there will come an special amiga version of it, sure i wont hesitate on buying it.
the thing is, i dont find it as EVIL WARE! , i buy if its good/worth it and most of all to support the godamn last developers there is in the amiga/pegasos world.
so i personally should advice all to follow that or just start to move on, as it wont last long with the current sales on any of our beloved platforms (and then i aint talking about the hw)
cheers and goodluck.
pps:i know that you are aware of that i am an developer , and this is not on behalf of the company ...its my humble opinon!.
also, i aint saying buy aos4 pagestream f you are an mos user, incase if thats what i led u to belive..
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I'm a regular user of Pagestream, and while it does have it's annoying quirks, it's generally a very good program and is definately very powerful if you're willing to spend time getting to know it :)
The trouble is, Pagestream always feels very constrained on he 68K processor, like it desperately needs to escape. Large complex pages become horridly slow, and I don't think that's a critisism that can be made of Pagestream itself, I think it's just too powerful a program for our aged 68K machines. I always wished they would release a WOS version...
Anyway, it's clear to me that in order to realistically continue Pagestream on the Amiga platform this support was desperately needed. Thanks GrasshopperLLC - I will continue to support your program :)
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brian: well i once tried it on a 040 25 and thats when i felt it was quirky and annoyingly slow, but since i have been using it with 060 and all the plugs and views was ppc, well i havent noticed it beeing slow , though i agree you with an ppc version but still 060 and 040 are very diffrent in how they work and how fast it actually is , infact standard a1200(with no fastmem) to 030 (8mb) jump was by no means as clear and suprising as from 030 to 060!
and i guess you are aware of that 040 needs special exe + optimization to be able to be faster than a 030 50mzh, though 040 40mzh is a diff story.
oh well..bring it on! i am certainly looking forward to this powerapp!
cheers
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@ lempkee et al
I don't really understand the rude tone here, I only asked some really simple questions! You see, I am a registered Pagestream user, and I like the program very much. However, I only use it on my Pegasos/MorphOS since my old A1200 is too outdated in both features and performance. It's definitely usable as 68k, but at least partial PPC native code would be nice, hence my questions (what the major differences are there from the 68k version for the OS3.x API, and if the PPC OS4 version runs on Pegasos/MorphOS aswell).
Since they will still be developing the 68k version in the future too, with the OS3.x API, my guess is that the differences won't be too big. Because of convenience reasons if nothing else. The hardest (and the most important) work should be to port it to PPC, and now that seems to be done.
Well, I know that we are some users that are very happy with both Grasshopper and the Pagestream software on Pegasos/MorphOS. Personally I know 5 people among my closer friends (me included) that would easily be buying a $40 PPC upgrade and use it *today*. But of course we would want to know if we can use it before we place our orders. I only requested some more information! Quite fair, huh?
However, I am quite confident in that Grasshopper will support us in the future the way we have supported them, and that they will release a MorphOS PPC version very soon. It should be easy, now when the hardes parts are done. When AWeb was released as open source, it was up and running in a PPC native MorphOS version in a matter of hours (a "first try" version, in a matter of days in a stable version).
Pagestream allready works on MorphOS, and now there is PPC too, just put those pieces together and a lot of current and future customers will be happy!
:-)
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What other file formats ( like RTF for example ) can PageStream open, does anyone know ?
Although being able to read other file formats is a welcome, personaly i don't think the type of file it can read or write which should be compatible to somone elses software is the most important part.
I think the most important part is that they give away a copy of the pc, mac and other systems of pagestream. This version should only have the ability to load pagestram files then use the printer driver of that system.
One should not be able to work with it. I mean the menues should be ghosted. This will give DTP houses that know nothing about pagestream to realize the other alternatives.
I have experienced this several times as i have been told to go and get my document converted to ps " PostScript ", so that they can read the file, before they can make a proof print.
The result of this is almost always a washed out print, espcially when one has coloured images in the documentation. Fonts that don't fit, images scaled in wrong proportions. Do i need to say more?
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@ jump2bnaked
That was actually a really good idea! :-)
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@ takemehomegrandma :
i was'nt attacking you i was just pointing out why it doesnt say mos in this news item , and as you allready should know , there is a seperate vote/poll for that system/os, and obviously not enough has regged there yet (unless you got an email from them today).
there is no point in dooing software if a simple thing as a poll wont work...or ?
that was the only thing i was pointing out and as i wrote abit later in the other posts, i am pretty confident that they will support mos if there is a REAL number of people who is interested in buying it and as you might remeber from the poll is that it asked for the non upgrade option aswell as upgrade (the key was needed if you wanted upgrade).
for all means let em do an aros version if they want to but dont expect em to do so unless there is people wanting to buy it.
there has been enough rubbish polls/votes lately and that i think you are pretty aware of , anyway lets wait and see and lets see if grasshopper llc really will suppport a growing market or wait.
anyway they havent posted any info about mos here and the poll's are stll ongoing (for both systems) .
sorry if i attacked you , but i didnt ..it was just that its an Aos4 thread and the word mos had to be pulled into it and that is getting very annoying when os4 aint tolerated in mos threads.
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:lol:
Oh, goody! Now all we need it the OS4 to run it on!
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i was'nt attacking you i was just pointing out why it doesnt say mos in this news item , and as you allready should know , there is a seperate vote/poll for that system/os, and obviously not enough has regged there yet (unless you got an email from them today).
I got an e-mail with the same info as on the webpage. Regarding the survey, from the text on that page I got the impression that they were going to make the 68k/OS4 PPC anyway, but they would consider making versions for other OS'es as well.
there is no point in dooing software if a simple thing as a poll wont work...or ?
that was the only thing i was pointing out and as i wrote abit later in the other posts, i am pretty confident that they will support mos if there is a REAL number of people who is interested in buying it and as you might remeber from the poll is that it asked for the non upgrade option aswell as upgrade (the key was needed if you wanted upgrade).
I am sure they will make a MorphOS version soon too, not doing so would not be very sensible. I mean how long would it take, now when they got a PPC OS4 version ready? An afternoon? A few days? A week?
However, I am a little puzzled regarding their priority of the order. I mean, OK, currently there couldn't be *that* many Pagestream users on MorphOS (in a SW company's eyes), but at least Grasshopper have a lot more customers running their software on MorphOS than on OS4. But they choose to release an upgrade that noone can use(?), for an operating system that is not available, instead of supporting their current customers that actually are running their software on PPC hardware today. But that is of course not my call ...
there has been enough rubbish polls/votes lately and that i think you are pretty aware of , anyway lets wait and see and lets see if grasshopper llc really will suppport a growing market or wait.
Well, it seems to be their strategy to expand on the niche markets. The competition on the mainstream platforms are probably quite hard.
sorry if i attacked you , but i didnt ..it was just that its an Aos4 thread and the word mos had to be pulled into it and that is getting very annoying when os4 aint tolerated in mos threads.
Oh, OK. I looked at it as a *Pagestream* thread! ;-)
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I have received that email as well. And I can confirm that, the OS4 version was announced well before the poll, so it has nothing to do with polls.
And I second to that bashing MorphOS on every opportunity just because you don't like it (even if some/many users of it act rather annoyingly at times) is rather pointless, it won't make anything better. Even if I can understand how you feel: just try to be better than they are.
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Pagestream for OS4 ... (http://amiga.org/images/subject/icon6.gif)
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redfox
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warface said:
And I second to that bashing MorphOS on every opportunity just because you don't like it (even if some/many users of it act rather annoyingly at times) is rather pointless, it won't make anything better. Even if I can understand how you feel: just try to be better than they are.
i agree to this , but getting overrun by people who claim stuff and tries to invade "allready spoken for" software or news items etc) is getting really tedious , if its an mos product and we on the other side screams then its slaughtered down at first glance , that you know as well as i do.
basically i only referred to the actual news item, and the info they gave me about it.
anyway as a final note here would be that i really doubt things will get any better even after os4 is released, there will be the same nitpicking from the crowd as it is now.
both sides is correct but the people might not fit in either of the sides.
the Community , what community? ah the one that's in constant turmoil.
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I would like to make it clear that the "title of this news" that is "slightly misleading" that you are refering to is from the posting of someone who is not me, nor from our company.
I've already been chewed on by someone else that we where being misleading! (Which happens enough by us poor organic computers. Hard to be precise like a Vulcan or a computer all the time.)
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takemehomegrandma:
You asked why we would support OS4 before MorphOS. Here are a couple reasons off the top of my head:
We support them both already, with the 68k executables :-)
Amiga Inc has chosen to include us in the beforelife of OS4.
Over a year ago, our general platform survey showed a higher interest in OS4 than MorphOS. (BTW, as someone posted, the current survey has nothing to do with this.)
I can run OS4 here without any hardware I don't already have (ie, my only investment is time).
Besides, near as I can tell, more PageStream owners are betatesters of OS4 than MorphOS owners.
I don't have anything against Morph OS personally. In fact, I used to tell people all the time and still believe it, that I don't care what computer you use, just as long as you use PageStream :-)
Anyway, I probably won't be active in this list (for time constrain reasons). Just got pointed to it by another PageStream customer. If anyone has a question, or would like me to make a public reply, just drop me a note at support@grasshopperllc.com if they would please or ask on our support list. Hope this answers your question without invoking some kind of riot! Thanks!
Deron Kazmaier
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@Kronos:
Hipocracy rules :-)
(MOS 0.4 was a release, but a beta of anything else is obviously not a release, right?)
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@olegil
HÄHHHH ????
A release is a release is a realase ......
You know, something that is released (aka available for joe public).
That counts for MOS0.1, 0.3, 0.4and 1.x, but neither OS4 nor PS-PPC
are available right now .....
@Pagestream
I'm quite sure you could get a current MOS for CS-PPC/BPPC
under conditions similar to the ones for the OS4-beta.
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@Kronos
Im sure if you put money down Grasshopper would
let you have a copy ( like with getting a Pegasos indeed ).
Members of the general public can do it!
Then you need to get an A1 or a CyberStorm and beg
the Friedens to let you have a copy of the pre-release AOS4 to get it.
Except, you have rather burned bridges with them over the last year so don't be surprised if they say a polite "no".
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@lempkee
Where can I find the OS4 SDK ?
By the way, I think it won't be very hard to port PageStream on MorphOS once it's ported on OS4. Moreover, PG works great on MorphOS, and it's very fast !
My opinion is that Grasshopper LLC should support both platform, this way, everyone would be happy. Moreover, it should not be very hard.
Bye
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PageStream is the perfect (the only?) example of a commercial programme that supports multiple platforms without bias. It is an excellent effort that should be encouraged - so go buy it!
ATM I run PGS4 (68k) on an A1200 as well as via UAE on x86 and the A1. Really looking forward to runnning a PPC native version.
This is where all Amiga-ised factions need to get their act together. It should be a main aim to facilitate parallel development for AOS4/MorphOS/AROS/Amithlon without discriminating against any one particular version. We can't afford to force developers to chose - an ideal situation would be a KDE/Gnome type affair, where you can run software for "the other side" as long as you have a few libraries installed. Reliance on a common set of APIs would be beneficial to all (eg MUI/AHI etc).
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@ Deron Kazmaier
Thank you for your posts, and thank you for a fine piece of software aswell! :-)
Regarding the number of users on the platforms, it will be interesting to see how the numbers for both of them developes during the coming three months or so ...
Anyway, it's good to see that you stand above the "OS wars" and focus on your own product instead, and that you will bring it to your customers wherever they are. Pagestream is a great piece of software, and I am hoping for a release of a PPC native MorphOS version in a near future! :-)
Thanks!
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I would like to make it clear that the "title of this news" that is "slightly misleading" that you are refering to is from the posting of someone who is not me, nor from our company.
That was me, sorry if it has caused problems. I'll try to be a bit more careful with my titles in future. :oops:
Chris
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nicoppc:email hyperion to get the info and help , easy as that .
pagestream:thanx for clearing it up!
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Why it's not available publicy ?
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Why it's not available publicy ?
i lost your point now , just email hyperion.
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wow this is a step in the right direction. I havnt used a real amiga in ages, or owned one (Besides an 500 and CD32) ... but i've been keeping up, but the lack of good apps has been hampering me seriously considering OS4. It does some what still, but this is a huge Milestone for general users as i see it.
With a decent word processor, i'd actualy think about OS4 as an alternative to linux/windows...
Also, i read an article a while ago saying Microsoft was moving to XML based format for its MSOffice files or maybe one MSWord files... Thats good for us. If MS goes a head with it, other applications such as pagestream and any other word processor, shouldbe able to easily support MS word documents...
things are looking up... especialy if MS goes through with their XML plans :)
If i was to buy AmigaOS page stream would be a must buy... i'd assume that would be the same for everyone else!
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things are looking up... especialy if MS goes through with their XML plans :)
Only in the premium version of Office (2003?), and even then, as usual, it is bastardised support that doesn't adhere to the standards.
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well that will make it a tad more difficult, but i cant see it being worse than before. Do you know how MS do it? Do they have an xml file and a seperate xsl file? That would be awsome... beyond explaination... you'd then be able to easily format your word documents for any type of media, such as browser, pda, phone etc...
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but i cant see it being worse than before.
This is MS we're talking about here, right?
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Few comments.
Pagestream is a good page layout program in the same way word is a good word processor. Word is bad at page layout and pagestream is bad at word processing. Don't get me wrong, I love PageStream and I'm excited to see they are still kicking given all the market conditions that exsist today. Hell at Amiwest I bought two copies!
I'm glad to see they are moving forward with support for OS 4, if they want the money little early of all the companies I think grasshopper has proven them selves trust worthy enought to give them the 40 bucks.
For MOS, wait your turn :P I'm sure if Grasshopper feels the 68k amiga version is not sufficient for that platform and they feel the market is large enough I'm 100% sure they will make a MOS native version. Till then MOS users, Amiga 68k and Amiga OS 4 users will all have access to the same feature set in 4.1, so no worries.
As for "beta" software, and working for the 5th largest pure software company in the world I know what I'm talking about, there are many different ways to handle a beta and lots of factors in choosing which way to do it. MOS has chosen an open beta for the Pegasos platform, seaming closed beta for CSPPC/Blizzard users (has .4 been released? I don't know). OS 4 is in a closed beta. One example of why this might be is supporting beta customers, another thing I know lots about. Support costs money and time. If you have a handful of developers working for little money and not much time (most OS 4 developers have day jobs) you don't want to hinder development with hundreds of issues from hundreds of differnet people, to setup a buffer between developers and customers, call it Support, costs money. The closed beta allows Hyperion to control the amount feedback and to control costs which is very important at this time.
So my 2 cents on "beta", OS 4 is beta, MOS is beta. MOS is public beta and OS 4 is closed beta. Simple as that.
Bill "tekmage" Borsari
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It's nice that people are still developing good apps on this platform! :-)