Home Forums SharewareOnSale Deals Discussion AbstractCurves / Sep 5 2020

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  • #16445323 Reply | Quote
    Ashraf
    Keymaster

    Have something to say about AbstractCurves? Say it here!

    Have suggestions, comments, or need help? Post it here! If you know of better software than AbstractCurves, post it here! If you know of issues with AbstractCurves, post it here! Share your knowledge with all of us. :-)

    #16448726 Reply | Quote
    Sharon Carson
    Guest

    Thank you very much for this program. It is very useful.
    Everything worked the first time, right out of the box.

    #16449382 Reply | Quote
    Eric Berry
    Guest

    Unable to register the software.

    Registration is being blocked. Copying and pasting the requested/required key. The name to input is NOT presented. What is the nomenclature? Is it email is it first name and last name?

    #16449519 Reply | Quote
    dan
    Guest

    I thought I would be upgrading from v1.1 but the install still shows v1.1 and not v1.19, as SoS stated.
    Dan

    #16450141 Reply | Quote
    Wanda
    Guest

    [@Eric Berry] The name to use is SharewareOnSale for the name part.

    #16450143 Reply | Quote
    Wanda
    Guest

    [@dan] It is version 1.19

    #16450352 Reply | Quote
    Peter Blaise
    Guest

    I look at the overwhelming confusion in the program window, look around for something, anything to click on to make an image, I find an [ OK ] button, so I click that, and the program ends.

    That was fun.

    So nothing but a couple of hits at VirusTotal, then, no actual working program that does anything?

    Are you there, AbstractCurves?

    Hello?
    .

    #16450881 Reply | Quote
    – bill
    Guest

    [@Peter Blaise]

    “Are you there, AbstractCurves?”

    They may just be ignoring your comment (you’ve been pretty consistently dyspeptic recently) given the positive reviews they received here back in October of 2016 and June of 2017 for the same (1.19) version (whether the earlier and similarly positive reviews also reflected version 1.19 I don’t know).

    #16450979 Reply | Quote
    AbstractCurves
    Guest

    [@Peter Blaise]

    The program has two modes: New Image and Open Image.
    Using the New Image mode you can generate images by selecting one of the built-in presets and adjusting its settings.

    If you use the Open Image mode, don’t forget to disable the “Background Color” checkbox which is on the right side of
    the display about half way down the Renderings Settings panel next to the Step 4 arrow.
    Your photos will load as backgrounds for generated images.

    #16453515 Reply | Quote
    Peter Blaise
    Guest

    Thanks, [@AbstractCurves], so what are the [ Skip … ] button and [ OK ] button for then?

    Does [ Cancel ] do anything different from [ OK ] or [ X ] in the upper right corner ( which falls off screen, by the way )?

    I read the [ 1 >, [ 2 >, [ 3 >, and [ 4 > arrows, I let the mouse hover over them, and I read their pop-up descriptions, they said to fill in stuff, yet stuff was already filled in, so it looked to me like it was good to go.

    So … there’s something I should do BEFORE [ 1 > ?

    There’s a [ 0 > I missed?

    – – – – – – – – – –

    I think what you are saying is that the oscilloscope is NOT ON by default, so we can play with the controls, but see nothing, then when we turn on the oscilloscope somehow, we’ll see the effects of our playing with the oscilloscope controls.

    I suppose I can come up with scripts for oscilloscope presets to apply blind on demand – does your software have a script editor and saver where we can type in numbers for each setting, “… Input frequency fx _.__ fy _.__, Phase shift Px ___ Py ___ …” and so on, so we can bring them back on demand?

    I’d never thought of adjusting an oscilloscope with it turned off, not being able to see the immediate effects of my adjustments.

    The funny thing is that the [ Real-time preview: ] does show some neat stuff while I’m twiddling the oscilloscope controls, but the rest of the little display windows are blank, the [ Working Area ] and [ Viewfinder ] and [ Presets ] boxes are all blank, but when I click on a different [ Preset ], the image in the [ Real-time preview ] changes, but I can’t save my settings for re-use later.

    Yet, when I click on [ New ] image, and then try to save my settings, there’s only [ Save current settings to selected preset ], so it replaces an existing setting instead of asking me to save in my own personal settings gallery suite, so I’ve lost a preset that it overwrote, and I’ll be challenged to find my own preset again since it’s in whatever gallery it landed under whatever name it landed as.

    I opens a BMP file and it ignores the contents, not using them as settings for the oscilloscope controls, but as background only, and whatever are the current control settings for the oscilloscope remain … how do I save and retrieve my hard-wrought oscilloscope settings?

    I created a [ Custom ] gallery, but I cannot save my settings to it, so what are galleries for?

    Oh, first create an empty gallery, then create an empty preset, then save the current oscilloscope settings to the empty preset in the gallery, got it … the background BMP disappears, but the oscilloscope control settings seem to be saved, and seem to be able to be recalled then.

    [ Right-click ] [ Save as … ] probably ought to work anywhere, and it should create the appropriate containers needed all by itself … just sayin’.

    Folks pound on Google when the search interface adds one more thingy, “… getting a little heavy are we Google? …”, simplicity in service of effective controls, it should not take a series of steps creating other things first in order to simply [ Save as … ].

    Just sayin’.

    – – – – – – – – – –

    It looks fun, a cross between an Etch A Sketch and an oscilloscope, but with awkward controls, and starting blind, and having to create empties first before saving oscilloscope control settings, and the oscilloscope image not moving but sitting static.

    Currently, the [ Save current settings to selected preset ], and working blind, still seem to obfuscate direct access to oscilloscope controls and empowering us to immediately see the results of twiddling the controls.

    And how do I create an output size at least equivalent to my screen, instead of … oh, [ New image (Ctrl+N) ] has a dialog box, we cannot change the resolution after we create something interesting … drat.

    This “stumble upon” way of finding features, and “you should have thought of that before you started” way of finding controls is … interesting.

    I would prefer to have the math directly scriptable, savable, and retrievable, because for me, the math is the only thing I care about, how the math graphs out, what happens when I play with the math – without a permanent tether to the underlying math, the images have no meaning for me.

    And there is no movement, as in a real oscilloscope, AbstractCurves is replicating original 25+ year old IBM PC DOS Software programs, but without the movement, instead, only the equivalent of a static screen-grab.

    Yeah, I’d like a full-screen display of the results evolving in real-time, and the ability to set each of the controls to individually random variance, and then sit back and watch the psychedelics, man.

    Then arrow back in time, frame by frame, second by second, to grab a screen I really liked, see the math, and save and work with both.

    v2?

    Thanks for letting us explore this and share.

    – – – – – – – – – –

    ( And how about addressing those hits at VirusTotal ? )

    .

    #16453559 Reply | Quote
    Peter Blaise
    Guest

    Hi [@– bill], I’m not giving the [ AbstractCurves ] a negative ( “dyspeptic” ? ! ? ) review, because for me, the program simply exited, nothing “ran”, so there was nothing for me to review.

    If you are thinking of the Soft-Xpansion Perfect PDF 9 Editor fiasco with your “dyspeptic” assessment, compared to other’s comments – unless you think most of us were “dyspeptic”, because most comments noted problems – I’m just being detailed and specific, I’m just being a full participant in these SOS threads, AND I offered alternatives to our fellow SOS participants, AND I offered suggestions for the vendor to overcome their own roadblocks … I still have not seen it working on screen yet … maybe someday, maybe someday.

    I actually thought the Soft-Xpansion episode was funny.

    Thanks for exploring this and sharing.

    Back to AbstractCurves …
    .

    #16453600 Reply | Quote
    Robert Ippolito Ippolito
    Guest

    Will not register correctly, uninstalling.

    #16453983 Reply | Quote
    Peter Blaise
    Guest

    [@Robert Ippolito Ippolito] remember:

    click the [ Key ] icon in the lower left of the main program window to open up a registration mini-window

    – copy-and-paste Name: [ SharewareOnSale ]

    – copy-and-paste SharewareOnSale exclusive license Key: [ xxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx ] from our SOS hub screen and from the email we should receive shortly after the SOS hub screen.

    – click [ Register ], it responds [ Congratulations. You have successfully registered your copy of AbstractCurves. ], click [ OK ].

    Then type [ Ctrl ][ N ] to create a new image, select something, anything, and play.

    If anything fails, please tell us specifically – did the install exit or lock up, did you select 32-bit or 64-bit, did the instll finsh but you can’t find the program, did you click [ Purchase ] from the [ Demo version reminder ] auto-pop-up, did you get lost trying to buy this using the SOS credentials, was there no main window, are you at something other than the main window, is there no key icon, is there no field for name, where did you copy-and-paste from, did you hand-type, did it not allow you to paste what you had copied ( this happened to me, I exited and tried again, and again, wondering what was wrong with cut-and-paste, the 5th time it worked, but denied pasting the Key the first 4 times – I pressed and held real hard on the mouse button until the paste appeared, weird, other programs accept cut-and-past immediately ), tell us more.

    For those of us who have success, we can share what we did, as I share above, but if you did anything different, or got anything different, we need specifics so we can help.

    That said, this is not a critical or productive program in terms of getting things done, like managing data, security, or other tasks, but instead this is an entertainment and creatvty program that makes pretty drawings ( or omnous drawings, that’s all in the eye of the beholder ).

    So if you dont get this working, it is not the end of the world.

    Alteratives: a gazillion, search for combinations of these words, and more:

    [ generate random graphics mosaics kaleidoscope fractals spirals curves lines patterns designs ]

    and the like, I remember DOS programs from IBM Software that did this in the 1980s, so this kind of stuff is out there for everyone to play with, much of it free, some pure math, some pure oscilloscope, some tethered to our sound so it plays with music, some freeze-frame, some dynamic, some tunable, some dancing, endless.

    Smokey Backgrounds Generator is fun [ http :// dragdropsite. github. io/waterpipe.js/ ]

    More at [ https ://www. templatemonster. com/blog/free-background-generators/ ]
    and [ https ://www. whoishostingthis. com/resources/pattern-generators/ ]
    and more and more and more.

    And of course, there’s free Steve Gibson’s Wizmo Gravatons Matter/Anti-Matter Collision Dynamics animated screen saver at
    [ https :// www. grc. com/wizmo/wizmo. htm ]

    C’mon, we’re house-locked, and it’s a -l-o-n-g- weekend, so PLAY!

    Tell us more what’s going wrong, or share what alternatives you like.
    .

    #16454041 Reply | Quote
    – bill
    Guest

    [@Peter Blaise]

    You seem confused: I in no way suggested that you should have submitted a review but merely suggested why AC might have ignored your comment (which you seemed to believe merited a response from them).

    As for Perfect PDF (which was hardly the first recent instance of your dyspepsia), now that I’ve read all the comments there in detail my suspicion is that the only problem people had with following the relatively simple SoS installation instructions was that they did not include the warning that while Microsoft’s File Manager presents the content of .zip files as if they were in a normal sub-directory the contents DO NOT ACT as if they were in a normal sub-directory hence if you execute the setup.exe file inside the .zip (or after extracting only it from the .zip) it does not see the rest of the content of the .zip which may be required for the installation to succeed.

    I now see that @Gary made that clear before your first response to him (and before I made the same observation later). Were you too righteously indignant to bother reading them? If so, your earlier statement “If anyone here can share how they got it working, great … what, nobody can share how they got it working, oh my” strikes me as downright incompetent given that @Gary had already done precisely that.

    All in all, hardly a good advertisement for the wisdom of crowds.

    #16454277 Reply | Quote
    Peter Blaise
    Guest

    Oh [@– bill], no, [@Gary] did not say how he got Soft-Xpansion Perfect PDF 9 Editor working, only that it worked, and only later claimed to also try email authentication, which I complimented him on for getting 2 installs on 1 free/purchase reciept, in spite of Soft-Xpansion trying to clamp down on excess installations; the problems others and I had were not ZIP file related, as much as we were experiencing blocked registration screens where Soft-Xpansion’s own program said that it could not phone home, and that was well after successful installation, well after successful use of the installation resources provded in the ZIP file, we all discovered the amazing and unique happenstance of successful installation of a program that will not even work as a trial, a program that demands to register or exit, but since it can’t register, it exits, so we all had successful installations that would not even come on screen to see how the program works, we then shared that it was a waste of time to install something that would not even let us see and try anything inside the program, hence our references to alternatives, and our call to skip Soft-Xpansion as essentially NRFPTY, Not Ready For Prime Time Yet – Nerf Putty.

    While I appreciate your apparently directive feedback on my posts ( “dyspeptic“, “dyspepsia“, seriously? “… a persistent or recurrent pain or discomfort in the upper abdomen due to the inability to digest something eaten …” … okay, maybe there’s an analogy there to Soft-Xpansion’s program and policy being an indigestible pain for our computers and for ourselves ), why not participate in any thread and instead write about the software under review?

    Oh, no one actually did that for Soft-Xpansion Perfect PDF 9 Editor.

    I do not wonder why.

    Thanks for exploring this, but we’re both writing off topic here, when discussions of Soft-Xpansion Perfect PDF 9 Editor belong at [ https :// sharewareonsale. com/discuss/topic/perfect-pdf-9-editor-sep-1-2020 ] … I’ll copy our dialog over there.

    Lets give AbstractCurves a break, and let everyone have this thread to discuss AbstractCurves.
    .

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Reply To: AbstractCurves / Sep 5 2020