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A long list of software comes with the NeXT, including the operating system, WriteNow (the same version of the word processor that's available for the Mac), Mathmatica (a technically sophisticated charting tool), electronic mail (including audio), Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, the complete works of Shakespeare, the Oxford Book of Quotations, a C compiler, a brilliant interface builder, a sound kit and a music kit.

Even the first programs designed for the Cube hint at -- if not demonstrate -- much of the potential of the sleek black box. Frame Technology's FrameMaker 2.0, for example, is so high-powered as a publishing program that it will have little competition for at least another year. It's a direct port from other Unix platforms, so it's interface is less than intuitive, being based on frames (more like XPress than PageMaker), but it can handle practically any publishing project -- it's especially good at huge ones. FrameMaker is built for true workgroup publishing, making it a natural with NeXT's Ethernet.

The second program out was TextArt from Stone Design. While it's a somewhat limited typographical effects application, its interface is incredibly elegant. It seems to have been designed with the idea that a manual isn't really necessary (though even its manual is excellent). This program makes a perfect companion for FrameMaker.

Drawing At The Cutting Edge

TopDraw, from Media Logic, is the first PostScript drawing program for the NeXT platform. It's very similar to Aldus FreeHand for the Macintosh (the best such program on any platform at the moment) but has a few notable differences that are worth a closer look. The most obvious difference, of course, is the lack of color -- because the Cube itself lacks color. Nevertheless, TopDraw has the ability to assign spot colors (up to six, predefined) to various parts of the drawing, which can be output separately from one another.

The program has all basic PostScript drawing tools, including freehand Bezier curves. It performs masking, layering, grouping, locking, alignment, distribution, step-and-repeat and so on. It also has extensive typographical controls, including fill-and-stroke, the ability to join text to a curve and type distortion.

Delightfully, there are 20 levels of Undo/Redo. This is only the second major program on any platform that incorporates multilevel Undo that FreeHand pioneered. (It would have been better still if NeXT had mandated multilevel Undo/Redo for all the Cube's software. That would have helped differentiate it from other computers.)

TIFF and EPS files can be imported to be traced over, but TopDraw has no auto-tracing. (Personally, I find auto tracing more flashy than useful -- it takes more time to clean it up than to trace manually.) The gray maps of imported graphics can be adjusted, posterized and so on and can be either printed or suppressed.

TopDraw does not generate intermediate shapes, as does FreeHand's Blend function. It has facilities for graduated tones, but they are "stepped." The greater the number of steps, the smoother the tone, but the longer it takes to redraw and print.

A unique feature of TopDraw is the ability to assign any level of transparency/opacity to objects, allowing them to partially revealed the layer(s) behind. But this effect is for the screen only -- it can't be printed. This is (1) confusing, because the unity of the PostScript environment is supposed to prevent such differences and (2) frustrating, for there's no way to get high-resolution output of this useful effect. (It is possible to get the screen capture of it, but that's at only 92 dpi instead of 400 dpi, or higher from the Linotronic.) Media Logic should have left this feature out altogether until it could be fully implemented.

While it's difficult to compare directly with other drawing programs, my general evaluation is that Top Draw's not quite as far along as those for the Mac, but no doubt its first major upgrade will make it at least the equal of Free Hand 2.0. My guess is that it will have color, the ability to print its transparency effects on paper, and other enhancements we haven't seen elsewhere. Meanwhile, Adobe Illustrator is reportedly being developed for the Cube.

TopDraw comes with an excellent Demo application -- an 18 MB file with narration that touches on every aspect of the program. The Demo itself is an excellent example of NeXT multimedia, but is only a hint of what's to come in this area.