On-off-on-off-under-new-management PDF magazine Drag ‘N Drop has completed its seventh volume with the latest issue, which is now available to buy.
Volume 7 issue 4, also known to its friends as 7i4, is the ‘Summer’ issue, was published last week by editor Christopher Dewhurst, who took over from original editor Paul Stewart back in 2012. According to Chris, this issue has arrived a touch later than usual due to it being the holiday season. In other words, he’s been off on his jollies.So, what does this issue have in store?
As usual, there are news and hints and tips pages, reviews, a variety of type-in listings, and continuations of ongoing programming tutorials, such as Python Primary School. In a slightly bizarre twist one such series, C-Side, which you might expect to cover the C programming language, this month features a Python version of a program that appeared in an earlier instalment.
This issue’s type-in listings include a game, Hay Jump, in which a tractor is out of control, and destined to crash into haystacks unless you can make it jump over them. If it was a combine harvester rather than a tractor, I’d wager the driver had been on the cider.
Another type-in listing is a program called DrawJoT – short for Draw Join Text. When a PDF file is exported as a Draw file, any text within it is exported with each character treated as a separate object, each with its own attributes. If that Draw file is then run through DrawJoT, the text is joined up, which can reduce the file size – significantly if there is a lot of text – and makes that text more easily editable in other programs.
Another regular feature is the page numbering error which, having never commented on it before the last issue, will almost certainly be sought out for mention here on RISCOSitory whenever an issue is published in future. This time around, the mistake is on page 26 – or rather it isn’t, because there isn’t a page 26! The whole issue is 47 pages long, though, including the front cover, so it’s about a third as big again as the last issue.
The magazine costs £3.50 when bought through the website using Paypal, or for an extra quid it can be bought with the type-in listings already typed in. For a limited time there is also an option to subscribe to volume 8 for £13.00 – saving a quid on the total price of all four issues bought individually as they are published. It can also be purchased through R-Comp’s !Store.