Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!bu-cs!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!changwoo
From: changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Expressionist problem
Summary: Try Formulator!
Keywords: Expressionist DA problems
Message-ID: <14926@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 9 Aug 89 06:23:50 GMT
References: <4896@tank.uchicago.edu> <456@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: Chang.P.Woo@dartmouth.edu (Chang P. Woo)
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 44

In article <456@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Michael J Kobb) writes:
>In article <4896@tank.uchicago.edu> zag@tank.uchicago.edu (Zack Gardner) writes:
>>Help! A very mysterious thing is happening to my Expressionist DA.
>>Every time I try to launch it, a dialog box pops up with the message
>>"This picture expression looks like garbage data! Sorry, I can't
>>understand it. (-2007)", and then I'm landed back in the finder.
>
>Have you tried killing the file named "Expressionist Scratchpad" in the System
>Folder?  It may be that this got mangled somehow and that when Expressionist starts
>(when it looks for a saved scratchpad) it finds this mangled file and dies.
>Just a suggestion; I don't know if this will work or not...  You could always
>reinstall...

Or you can try Formulator by ICOM. Unlike Expressionist which evolved
from DA, Formulator is meant to be used under multifinder. No more
strange interface that plagued Expressionist. (I am not blaming
Expressionist really--it did a decent job for the time being)

The features over Expressionist are:
1. ability to align equations (say with the equal sign)
2. ability to process several equations at a time
3. ability to put equation numbers
4. manual kerning
5. automatic italicizing of characters (like good math equations should)
6. stationery files
7. better font management (Expressionist had some problems with high
   font IDs)
8. heavier usage of keyboard (while mouse can be used, too) The way I
   inputed equations were more natural than Expressionist would give.
9. a good manual with tips to generate non-standard items

The features missing from Formulator are:
1. ability to transfer equations two-way for further editing
2. cannot read TeX files (it can write TeX files, though)
3. good on-line help

Overall, I am very satisfied with Formulator.

Disclaimer: I am a very satisfied customer of ICOM. Nevertheless,
I don't own any of their stocks and I don't know anyone who works there.
----
Chang P. Woo             Chang.P.Woo@dartmouth.EDU (preferred)
                         changwoo@eleazar.dartmouth.EDU
                         HB 2932, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755