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Pixel

Started by craigm, 2009.12.21, 14:21:48

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craigm

Kinda bums me out that this software has not been updated for eCS since 2006-04-01, it had some great promise as an application we really need.

I am bringing this up because it looks like they have finally updated the win, macos, and linux versions on 2009-10-20. It looks as if it's just bug fixes and an extra function or two but non-the-less we should have the same version as the rest of the OS users.

http://www.kanzelsberger.com/pixel/?page_id=4

If you have bought the software, make sure to send these guys an email telling them you would like our eCS version updated. Thanks!

melf

I'm quite sure there will never be an eCS Pixel. I may be unfare, but I regard this project as a long term fraud. I even doubt there will be a windows version - the(distant) future will show!
/Mikael

oli

Huh, I am not even convinced there will be a working Windows version of it, those of us that paid for the eCS version have been downloading the windows version every now and then just to keep up and it is somewhat less than than promising and all forums have been disabled allegedly due to "numerous spammers attacking this page" but it felt like the increasingly hostile criticism voiced on the forums was the real reason.

The other OS/2 commercial picture editing program PMView still gets updates but has not seen a worthwhile new feature in 15 years.....

cytan

I'm one of those "idiots" who paid for a copy of Pixel and of course, nothing is happening with it. I would hold a contrary view on PMView and I'd say that it is one of the most useful programmes I've used on OS/2 (which I also paid fo). I also use a Mac and, unbelievably, PMView is better than what's available on the Mac.

cytan

RobertM

#4
I too am thrilled with PMView, and though it hasnt had major updates, I havent exactly expected them either. Any major update at this point would make it more than what it was intended to be. And when it comes to bug fixes and such, they seem to be on the ball.

As for Pixel, I dont know enough about the situation to speculate. A business venture I was entrenched in promised a software package that was near complete and included a lot more features than promised, but was reliant on coding tools and compilers (and related libraries that were irreplaceable at any reasonable cost at that time) from another company. That company never fixed some major showstopper bugs, which required a lot of effort to circumvent those issues, leaving way too many unaddressable issues remaining even after those attempts. That company then promised new releases that addressed all of those issues, got some stuff in beta and quietly disappeared leaving the project I was working on dead in the water. That company was a big development company in Canada which slowly dwindled down to nothing. Our project was dead as soon as theirs died.

But again, I have no idea what the situation is with Pixel. I do know though, that we've heard all sorts of horror stories and problems of other OS/2 development (WarpMedia, Connectix, and various others for instance), where the company intending to release the finished product ended up being at the whim of others - much to their (and possibly our) detriment.

The other sad thing is, in the business world, it's not like you can actually announce that to your customers or potential customers until after the "fat lady sings" - otherwise your product is definitely dead. You try to hold out, hoping those others holding up your work come through, and keep on plugging away until you know all hope is lost and every alternative avenue has been explored.

So, while I have hopes that Pixel will eventually be completed and as bug free as is expected of any software, I have no expectations, and I also have no negative feelings towards them unless something surfaces showing the cause of these issues are actually theirs or within their control. I just don't know enough to know where the fault lies.

But that's just my opinion on the matter...

Rob


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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cyber

Quote from: RobertM on 2009.12.22, 05:58:13
I too am thrilled with PMView, and though it hasnt had major updates, I havent exactly expected them either. Any major update at this point would make it more than what it was intended to be. And when it comes to bug fixes and such, they seem to be on the ball.

There is promised 'red eye removal' funtion for future. I personaly does not see anything else missing under PMView. I use it under Win and Linux systems too, even convience bunch of other (win)people to use it.

It is one of rare examples of useful program not intend to go to bloatware, keeping simple but powerfull user interface and speed that overkill any other such program on all available platforms.  8)

magog

If you read the Pixel forum you'll see a lot of other people that don't like the current status of Pixel...I could have used stronger words but I think you get the idea. ;)
The major problem seems to be "the next version will include much more features" instead of fixing the bugs that prevent Pixel from beeing used in the first place. As it's a one man show this also doesn't help the project.
Yes, Pixel could be everything we need for a decent graphic application if the core of Pixel would be more stable. You can't compare Pixel and PMView as Pixel is a painting program while PMView is simply a very good picture viewer.
One other think I would like to see on OS/2 would be Inkscape but as it's using GTK as it's base this is highly unlikely. Some parts also use Cairo (also used in Mozilla products). Maybe they move to Qt some day so there would be a chance for an OS/2 port.
Regards,
Juergen
*** Java Movie Database - http://www.jmdb.de/

cyber

Quote from: magog on 2009.12.22, 14:14:20
The major problem seems to be "the next version will include much more features" instead of fixing the bugs that prevent Pixel from beeing used in the first place. As it's a one man show this also doesn't help the project.
Yes, Pixel could be everything we need for a decent graphic application if the core of Pixel would be more stable.

What is difference between Pixel and for example Color Works v2 (are those two in same category) ?

Saijin_Naib

From when I used the Pixel demo, I got the impression that he intends for it to be a very high-end image editing software and very powerful. However, I couldn't really get it to do anything without crashing so I can't say for sure. I admire the vision to create something that intends to compete directly with Photoshop and Corel instead of just below them (Paint.NET).

Would Mono (OpenSource .net) be able to run under eCS? I use Paint.net regularly for all my image composition and editing and its just absolutely superb. I don't miss photoshop much at all anymore. I think that if we could get it working under Mono it would fill a nice program gap.

craigm

I don't think there is anything like Pixel for eCS and that's why it hurts a little more then normal. Because I was able to use the demo and get a felling that this program was becoming a reality and filling a hole in the eCS programs that I use for day to day use.

Truespectra is just not cutting it anymore =/

Well, even if he can get the bugs taken out that would be huge. I would worry about version 2.0 afterword.


RobertM

Quote from: cyber on 2009.12.22, 14:34:43
Quote from: magog on 2009.12.22, 14:14:20
The major problem seems to be "the next version will include much more features" instead of fixing the bugs that prevent Pixel from beeing used in the first place. As it's a one man show this also doesn't help the project.
Yes, Pixel could be everything we need for a decent graphic application if the core of Pixel would be more stable.

What is difference between Pixel and for example Color Works v2 (are those two in same category) ?

Pixel was kinda more like Photoshop in some respects, with some elements similar to Adobe Illustrator, Color Works v2 and Embellish. I was really looking forward to it going someplace. I'm wishing I could find my old Colorworks disks, or my old TrueSpectra disks. As it is, I still do a bunch of my work in Embellish, even though I own the Adobe CS3 suite. I do use CS3 for certain elements like PNGs with transparency layers though. Mostly I use it (CS3) for some of my video stuff - but even there, the bulk of the work is done with ffMPEG or mEncoder (in which case it just depends on what machine (the OS/2 machines, or the single XP machine here) I wanna eat CPU cycles on) or how lazy I am when I have a "special" transcode to do (odd settings I dont have a script set up for and dont recall the settings, like PAL HD, where for some reason I can never remember the resolution and framerate) - so in that case, I generally use AnyVideoConverter on XP (which uses ffMPEG if my memory is correct) but has nice pre-defined menus to help me combat my senility).

I do have an older version of Illustrator (v9 I think) still up and running on one of my laptops via Odin. Quite usable and comes in handy from time to time when I dont want to fire up CS3. I'm amazed at the resources any CS3 component eats to do virtually anything.

That aside, hoping the project gets someplace.

Other items on my "wishlist" would be Virtualdub (GUI version with plugin support) which IIRC, is a Linux to Windows port. When I've had to work with RedOne Camera files, I've found it indispensable (especially compared to the RedCine crashware that the Red team writes) - I've also found it far faster than RedCine.

I woulda also been thrilled if Embellish had been continued... a few minor (or maybe not so minor?) added features like editable text elements, the ability to group and ungroup elements (kinda like Photoshop's layers support) and vector support (and some fixes for memory issues) would have made me thrilled.

Ah well...


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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RobertM

Quote from: magog on 2009.12.22, 14:14:20
If you read the Pixel forum you'll see a lot of other people that don't like the current status of Pixel...I could have used stronger words but I think you get the idea. ;)
The major problem seems to be "the next version will include much more features" instead of fixing the bugs that prevent Pixel from beeing used in the first place. As it's a one man show this also doesn't help the project.

Not necessarily. We added features to our project because (a) some of the bug fixes in the compiler came with "added features" which our code was already designed to take advantage of (one thing I learned from using OS/2 was that our code should be easily extendable and consider everything including the kitchen sink - even if one has no plans on incorporating it - makes new versions with added features a breeze that generally breaks nothing already there), and/or (b) the "new features" were already planned, and in needing to rewrite sections to fix things, enabling the new features was nothing more than enabling already written code (a piece of database software I have written that is in use in various ambulance companies out here has code much like that... one of the report engines pretty much writes it's own code based on the parameters it gets... so enabling more reports and such is as simple as adding a new template... or changing the whole layout and adding new options and capabilities even, is as simple as adding a new template or 5. The customer sees it as a whole new feature - which in effect it is - but on the work front, since the code was designed to accomodate such "on the fly" changes, it is much easier to accomplish with little to no code changes).

Quote from: magog on 2009.12.22, 14:14:20
Yes, Pixel could be everything we need for a decent graphic application if the core of Pixel would be more stable. You can't compare Pixel and PMView as Pixel is a painting program while PMView is simply a very good picture viewer.
One other think I would like to see on OS/2 would be Inkscape but as it's using GTK as it's base this is highly unlikely. Some parts also use Cairo (also used in Mozilla products). Maybe they move to Qt some day so there would be a chance for an OS/2 port.

That would be nice. I'd love to replace Embellish with something newer... and love to be able to continue avoiding running Photoshop and such whenever possible.


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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melf

Robert, why don't you use GIMP 2.2.8 instead of Embellish?

For those who don't know where to find it and how to do: Go to http://www.os2notes.com/os2gimp2.html where Greggory Shaw has a howto setup GIMP seamless with Hoblink/2.
/Mikael

RobertM

Quote from: melf on 2009.12.23, 01:36:37
Robert, why don't you use GIMP 2.2.8 instead of Embellish?

For those who don't know where to find it and how to do: Go to http://www.os2notes.com/os2gimp2.html where Greggory Shaw has a howto setup GIMP seamless with Hoblink/2.

Hi Mikael,

Because I never spent time digging to find out what missing DLLs I didnt have (since Embellish was doing the job at least decently) and didn't find the page with all of the OS/2 installation notes until a few seconds ago when I read your post.



So... I will probably give it another try in the near future...

Thanks,
Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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melf

Great! Install is in fact really painless.
/Mikael