Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RagTime (software)
- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was no consensus. Sandstein 20:57, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
- RagTime (software) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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PROD removed by page's creator. Subject lacks notability and coverage in reliable sources and is only sourced to self-published press releases. Meatsgains (talk) 16:32, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:26, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 06:31, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
- Keep Let's keep and improve upon this article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahmer Jamil Khan (talk • contribs) 00:33, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Ahmer Jamil Khan: Thanks for your feedback. Can you provide a reason why you think the article should keep? Meatsgains (talk) 17:02, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:38, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 17:00, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- Delete as it's too soon at best and searches found nothing particularly better. Delete as this is still too soon and there's nothing enhancingly better. SwisterTwister talk 06:33, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- Delete. Appears to be promotional. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 06:03, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
- Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
- Obendorf, Hartmut (2009). Minimalism: Designing Simplicity. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. p. 194. ISBN 1848823711. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
The book notes:
A small german company, Brüning and Evert Softwarepartner GmbH, produced in 1986 one of the first word processing applications for the German market, running on Apple Macintosh computers. Already in 1989, this softare integrated office and publishing tools: Ragtime 3, as it was now called, quickly captured a share of also the French market. In 1999, Ragtime 5 was released for Microsoft Windows and in 2003, a version for Mac OS X became available (Ragtime, 2005).
[Caption for photo]: Fig. 6.39 Ragtime 3 introduced the different content types still in use today. Screenshot Courtesy Ragtime.de
6.3.6.1 Analysis
Ragtime never aimed to compete directly with Microsoft Office, unlike other products such as StarOffice/OpenOffice.org, KOffice, or Abiword. What makes it an interesting example here is its very different philosophy: it does not try to accumulate features from domains, such as spreadsheets, drawing applications, or DTP layout software, and integrate these into a simple word-processing software. Instead, the basis for integration is not the continuous text but the layout of the page: In Ragtime, frame elements are positioned on the page. A frame's type defines both its rendering and applicable tools—there are frames for word processing, frames for spreadsheets, for diagrams, for bitmap and vector graphics, and for movies, pictures and sounds. When a frame is selected, the accessible functionality is adapted to the content of the frame: click and selection semantics change, context menus contain only useful commands (some general and some content-specific), and toolbars are exchanged to provide useful functionality.
Ragtime exemplifies the combination of different tools within a single application. Each single tool is much simpler than its competitors, e.g., the spreadsheet tool cannot create diagrams by itself like, e.g., Excel, and the word processor cannot create tables. This is compensated by a close integration of the tools. Ragtime's basis is the spatial layout of content areas on the virtual page. Each area is assigned a content type (Fig. 6.39, 6.40) that determines the tool responsible for rendering and manipulation.
The data in individual tools can be linked to create sophisticated renderings: the graphing tool takes numerical input from a spreadsheet, automatically updating the graph when the numbers are changed. The layout functionality uses direct manipulation for the content areas, much as special DTP programs do. This makes it possible to graphically combine, e.g., a spreadsheet table with text (Fig. 6.41). Each tool is responsible for strictly delimited tasks and can thus be functionally very simple.
- Cohen, Peter (2002-01-17). "RagTime business DTP software goes Solo, for free". PC World. Archived from the original on 2016-06-17. Retrieved 2016-06-17 – via Macworld.
The article notes:
ComGrafix Inc. today announced that it has made RagTime available for free, for private non-commercial use.
RagTime, developed by RagTime GmbH, is a suite of business publishing applications that combine word processing, spreadsheet, pictures, drawing, charting and slideshows. The software started life on the Mac and is now available for both Mac OS and Windows. The new package is being distributed as RagTime Solo and can be downloaded online.
The company noted that RagTime Solo's principal difference to its commercial counterpart is a dialog box that appears when first booting the program. The window asks the user to acknowledge that RagTime Solo is to be used for non-commercial purposes only.
- Ehrmann, Stephan (2007-07-03). "Office-Pakete: RagTime ist tot, es lebe RagTime" (in German). Heinz Heise. Archived from the original on 2016-06-17. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
- Software Reviews on File. Vol. 6. Facts on File (Infobase Publishing). 1990. p. 731. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
The Google Books snippet view notes:
Version 3.0 adds charting capabilities and support for 24-bit color. RagTime also supports four scanners: the Siemens, Agfa, Logitech's Scanman, and Apple scanner. With RagTime you can create a form, a business report, charts for
- Sorensen, Karen (1986-08-18). "Mac Program Joins Graphics With Text, Spreadsheets". InfoWorld. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
- Kellner, Mark (2002-01-07). "Publishers receive quality music with RagTime". The Washington Times. Archived from the original on 2016-06-17. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
The article notes:
Making music with RagTime: From Germany comes RagTime, a rather powerful desktop publishing program that also works well with spreadsheets and databases. It's on a par, in many respects, with Adobe's PageMaker, but there's a crucial difference that might perhaps appeal to those who want a high-quality program but are on a limited budget because they are a nonprofit group or hobbyist: the software is free for such purposes. Details can be found at www.besoftware.com, the Web site of the program's creators. It's free for individual, not-for-profit use; if you want to use it in business, copies sell for $500 from www.comgrafix.com, Web site of the program's U.S. distributor.
RagTime offers the professional look and feel of other desktop publishing programs, and is fairly easy to learn. In fact, a tutorial is included with the program and it launches each time the software starts, although you can learn to turn it off if desired.
...
While RagTime is easy to learn, make no mistake: there is a learning curve, and you will want to spend a fair amount of time with the software before attempting things that will go out to the world at large.
- Barker, Garry (2004-05-06). "Publish and be praised". The Age. Archived from the original on 2016-06-17. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
The article notes:
RagTime comes from Germany, shrine to solid engineering and source of such benchmark stuff as Graphic Converter and Toast. It runs on Mac OS X Panther as well as Mac OS 8 and 9, (oh, all right, and Windows, too).
The professional version, touted as a Quark killer, costs $1337 but, incredibly, there is a consumer version called RagTime Solo that is free. It is a 43MB download, and you need an equal amount of free disk space for the installation.
...
Take a run with RagTime Solo (ideally while playing Scott Joplin, on iTunes). It is easy, functional and, bless the beer-drinking souls of those German engineers, free.
- Obendorf, Hartmut (2009). Minimalism: Designing Simplicity. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. p. 194. ISBN 1848823711. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.