Re: Graphic converter query - transparency

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Woody <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Sounds like `equivalent to transparency' to me - and one would assume,
in a sensible world, that the Finder would interpret transparent parts
of an image given to it to use as an icon as `masked off bits' in that
fashion.

Having a look now, if you click the tool in the toolbox that looks like
a T crossed out that is on the right, 3 up from the bottom (this is
version 6 - I guess it is old, it isn't something I use), you can click
on a colour and all of that colour becomes transparent.

Ah - yes, so it does. So why couldn't I find that mentioned in the
manual? Hmm...

Don't know. I found it in the manual.
I couldn't see anything in the area of the menus I expected to see it,
so I typed 'transpa' in the manual and found it.

I typed `transparency', and didn't.

I get a couple of hits for that too, so we have different manuals. My
manual was one that came with my 1.25DP mac in 2003.

It actually told me the tool was in a different place (it said 2 up),
but once I knew it was there it was easy enough to find it (not that the
icon said 'transparency' in my head).

Such icons all need to be learnt: most of them don't make proper sense.

But within that some are common between applications, like the letter T
for text, some kind of pen or pencil for line, or a paint pot for fill.

It was on page 149 of the 'hagens' manual, whatever that was. Actually
that was an odd thing looking at the manuals. I just wanted the manual,
but the first option was 'Open hagens manual'.

I've only got the demo of the manual, whatever that means.

I guess it means you don't get page 149!

Uhuh - damned awkward to do in practice, though, isn't it? I don't see
how I could do that job competently and I have tried using the lasso
tool.

Depends on the image - some images are easy, some not using the 'magic
wand' type tool.

The magic wand? I've never got any use out of that tool. It functions
as advertised as far as I can tell, but it's not a useful function as
far as I'm concerned.

I tend to use it a lot. It does the sort of things that I need to do
quite well.

I don't tend to have custom icons but I reinstalled my wifes macbook to
try and cure the wifi issues (it didn't) and she has them all over the
palace

All over the palace, eh? Moved up the property ladder, then?

Wish we had, then we would have all the chavs falling into the moat
outside!

Not much correlation between `palace' and `moat'.

No, I was thinking of castle.

You can do it in photoshop so I am
sure you can do it in graphic converter

I'm confused. You seem to be telling me to use some special tool
called icon tool or icon composer (which I don't have) and also
Photoshop or Graphic Converter.

No, I said I did it in either icon composer (which you don't have)

I think I might well install the developer tools one of these days. But
I've got a lot of setting up to do yet. Just got MacTeX 2007 installed
and customised to my spec and my head hurts as it usually does when I do
that job.

I almost downloaded TeX at one point but I looked and it was huge - many
hundreds of meg

TeX isn't that big. That's a full TeX distribution. A basic LaTeX
distribution - essentially, TeX with the minimum extras - can be put on
a handful of floppy discs (I think the smallest I've seen is two
floppies).

That isn't very clear on the website. It seems much more 'here is the
download, it is 744Mb'. Tried it anyway. It started downloading at
338k/s, so I thought I would reboot the rooter, as it has been a bit
slow recently. After that it wouldn't download anymore.
I guess I will try it later.

Even a full TeX distribution takes up less space than MS Office, and it
makes much more efficient use of CPU and RAM.

I have no shortage of CPU and RAM, so that really doesn't matter to me.
I also have to have office anyway, so I am not saving anything.

and it was the first time I had got close to my download
limit so I didn't.
Truth to tell I have no need for it, especially as I am one assignment
away from finishing my Open University degree!

<shrug> Need? The main point of tools on computers is to make life
easier. LaTeX makes some jobs easier. If you don't have such jobs to
do, or can't be bothered to make your life easier, then you've made the
right decision.

I use LaTeX because it's quicker and higher quality than anything else I
could possibly have access to; and because the file format's got better
long-term prospects than pretty much anything else (XML promises to be
better - but we shall have to see, won't we?)

Well, I have a lot of XML.

Another point is that if you want access to fancy typography, XeTeX is
one of the easier ways of doing it on Macs as far as I can tell for all
that it's completely anti-wysiwyg and generally `not the Mac way at
all'. At least it works properly (more or less), which is more than you
can say for the Apple-supplied fancy typography tools I've looked at.

If you don't care about that, but want access to high quality
typesetting, you only have two choices: TeX (any flavour) and InDesign -
those two are in the same league as each other, and nothing else
available comes close. InDesign takes more space on disc, takes more
CPU, and costs infinitely more ('cos TeX's free).

I have indesign as well, just not on this machine.

I just have the basic calculator on OSX, and two real casio calculators.
One is good on various base functions and everything else but lacks
natural logarithms, and is programable which you can't take into OU
exams, and the otherone isn't doesn't and isn't, and I can!

I've been using RPN since before I started high school. I find it hard
to use calculators with an `=' button.

Oh yes, I have a basic calculator with really big display and buttons
which I use on shows to the public with my wifes shop.

For adding up the bill, yes?

Yes. In theory it shouldn't be needed if people came up one by one, but
people come up, hand you stuff which you start to add which then then
want to add stuff to slowly while other people want things quickly, so I
get an overflow quickly!


Still, I tend to grab the real calculator any time I need to do a bit of
arithmetic. It's a lot quicker to use.

Thing is, that's what Mac Help appears to tell me to do.

Ahh.. never read that!

<shrug> What else can one do?

Play around with it until it works generally.

I've tried that with Graphic Converter for many many years and you know
what? I can't get it to work as I want.

Same here, which is probably one of the reasons I never use graphic
converter. In fact I greatly dislike it.

But what else is there?

Well, I use photoshop but i have other tools as well.

FWIW, it does the job of converting between formats very nicely, thanks.

It does. Not as good as debabilizer used to do on OS7, but that is long
gone.


--
Woody

www.alienrat.com
.

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