> Good Point, Mr. Crisp. And just in case it is a 'sneaky advert', > I'd like to put my 2c in because the excrutiating hell I > experienced using Maptitude is a torture I wouldn't wish on my > worst enemy. I had a really, really bad experience with Maptitude > about five or so years ago. Don't know how it's improved since > then, but it was buggier than Joe's apartment. Don't mean to > slander, just sharing... >
Probably Maptitude 3.0 -- it came out in about 1994 -- buggy to the point of uselessness. They're on 4.5 now, and have made big improvements with each release. They still have room to improve, no doubt, but in terms of printed output (maps that look like they come from an atlas instead of computer drawings) Maptitude has made better looking maps in less time (compared to MapInfo) right from the start. It's little stuff like automatic highway shields (each state has it's own that looks like the signs the state uses), scalebars, and feature styles that work right (like double line roads aren't closed off at the end of each segment). It also comes with a bunch of data you can use, and it reads and writes MapInfo .tab, and imports Tiger/LINE (and a bunch of other stuff too). The one thing I find most frustrating in Maptitude is MapInfo's ability to have dissimilar object types on a layer. In Mapt. points can only be on point layers, lines on line layers, etc. Something to do with topology. You also can't have a file on two different layers at the same time. About 5 years ago MapInfo Corp. decided that their future was on the internet with big corporations, and with user's who do not require good looking output. Unfortunately I'm not any of those. If you (anyone) actually care about what Maptitude does, you can go to their website and see some nifty sample maps, and read some material that pretty well summarizes what you get, and what you can do with it http://www.caliper.com/maptsamp.htm Otoh, I went to MapInfo's site, looking for sample maps, to see if they had made any significant improvements. Or any improvements at all, for that matter (Since 4.02). I can't find sample maps. I can't find a good feature list. I found a brochure that is supposed to compare v7.0 with previous versions (so that I can figgure out if I want to upgrade). It does not really do that. They have some sort of slideshow style demo that's supposed to tell me what 7.0 does, but in order to get it I am supposed to fill out a bunch of personal information and set up a user account. No thanks. Bob --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 2891
