Apple IIgs - Manual (Page 29)

Page 29 of 84 II gs
Printed: Thursday, July 25, 2002 12:14:50 PM
Graphics
There are all sorts of graphics applications: business graphics for converting numbers into
graphs; clip art applications for making personalized greeting cards and the like; art
applications for creating original drawings; and more.
For Business
Business graphics applications take numbers from spreadsheet applications (or numbers you type
at the keyboard) and turn them into graphs and charts. (Obviously, it's a lot more convenient
if your graphics application works with your spreadsheet application.)
You can use the charts and graphs you create to illustrate reports and presentations or just to
clarify statistics in your own mind. If you're going to be using your graphs for presentations,
it's handy if your graphics application has a slide-show option, which lets you arrange several
graphics in order and changes slides for you after a prearranged number of seconds or with a
keystroke. For a large audience, you'll probably want to print your graphs onto sheets of
acetate for use with an overhead projector.
For Fun
If you like to make your own greeting cards or garage-sale posters, or illustrate your
correspondence, but don't think you have an artistic bone in your body, clip art is for you.
Clip art applications come with a library of illustrations: animals, musical instruments,
sports equipment, seasonal symbols (a turkey, a firecracker), and so on. You combine the
pictures with a personalized message printed in your choice of type style to create greeting
cards, stationery letter-head, banners, posters, flyers, birth or wedding announcements, party
invitations, or anything else that lends itself to illustration.
For Art
Art applications are for drawing free-hand pictures, designing floor plans, making maps, or
just plain doodling.
The nice thing about electronic drawing is that you can edit your work. You can correct
mistakes, try out an idea and undo it if it doesn't work, enlarge a portion of your drawing for
detail work, and fill in background colors and textures with just a keystroke. And when you
finish painting; for the day, you don't have to clean your brushes!
Children can use many of the simpler drawing and clip art applications, but very young children
might have more fun with coloring-book applications, in which the kids color pictures by using
electronic crayons.
Education
Educational software is for learning and there are lots of ways to learn, aimed at lots of
different age groups. There are interactive nursery rhymes, in which preschoolers try to keep
Humpty Dumpty from falling off his wall; applications that teach teenagers how to dissect frogs
by using electronic scissors in a simulated science lab; applications that coach business
people on negotiating strategies; and lots more.
At one extreme on the creativity scale are the drill-and-practice applications. They present
information (on spelling, math, music, history, geography, Spanish, French, SAT questions you
name it) and then test how well you learned it.
Drill-and-practice applications for kids are often disguised as arcade games, in which the