Brushes --- Any chance of improving them for a future XaraX+

[jclements]

Brushes can do some cool things, but in someways they seem combersome to manage.

I was wondering if the folks at Xara Ltd. think it would be worthwhile for forum members to comment here on any frustrations we may have with them or enhancements/suggestions?

[jclements]

Brushes can do some cool things, but in someways they seem combersome to manage.

I was wondering if the folks at Xara Ltd. think it would be worthwhile for forum members to comment here on any frustrations we may have with them or enhancements/suggestions?

[gwpriester]

Go for it John http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Gary

[BobInce]

I wouldn't say I've found them frustrating. I must be the only person here for whom they never crash! :-)

The only problem I've had is some weirdness about line colours changing brush object colours, which seems not entirely reliable. In XX I often found saving a changed-colour brush and reloading would lose the colour change, or dragging a window over a brush to get it to redraw would use inconsistent colours. Loading an object that did this into XX1 resulted in a brush where some but not all of the colours were changed - odd! These days I don't both try to use this feature, I just change the brush.

Biggest improvement to brushes for me would be live editing. Instead of having to copy-brush-objects-to-clipboard, paste, edit, make-new-brush I'd like to be able to open a new Xara window on the live brush objects, with any changes I make to them being instantly reflected in the main drawing.

Actually there are other places I'd like to be able to do this. Eg. clipview editing would be easier if one could open a new unclipped Xara view on the clipped objects and edit them directly. At the moment anything more complicated requires unclip-edit-reclip. Even being able to edit a group on its own in a separate window without having to ungroup it or deal with other objects would be cool.

[RTK]

Biggest improvement for me -

Give the user the possibility to create new, and modifying exisiting stroke shapes. As well as creating our own stroke and brush folders.

[Mark (theKeeper)]

One thing i've always liked about AI's brush tools is the ability to stretch a brush shape out along the path, instead of just repeating it. I think it resembles a natural medium better.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>with any changes I make to them being instantly reflected in the main drawing <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think you're talking about a pretty big chunk of code to do that Andrew. Xara Ltd have always been adimate about keeping their code down to keep Xara fast and light. That kind of function might weight things down a little.
Although, i DO like the idea. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[ivan louette]

I second the last two posts.

Add also :

- ability to change locally the line width after drawing.

- ability to stretch even bitmaps along the stroke (that was possible in the first betas of the first Xara X)

- ability to change even the bitmap contains of a brush without having to convert line to shapes (at the moment the solutions are there and there and there

- ability to copy/paste settings from one brush to another

- ability to copy/paste any object from one brush to another

kindly,
ivan

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Ah yes, "copy/paste settings from one brush to another" i second that one definately. Good thinking ivan.

[ivan louette]

The only problem about copying and pasting settings is that the spacing settings limits may be different from one brush to another following the complexity of the objects used. That could be solved perhaps in pasting a proportional distance from the spacing limits.

kindly,
ivan

[jclements]

I agree with what has been mentioned already.

One of main frustrations for me has been in editing existing brushes.

I would like a different method of preserving and accessing the original objects used to create the brushes to be considered. What first comes to mind is an interface similar how XPE works. Double click on the brush and up pops a new window containing the object(s) of origin where it can be edited; properties such as gradient blends, gradient transparencies, outline colors, feathering, etc., could be modified . All the properties of the original object(s) are stored as well as the properties of the brush stroke itself in a manner similar to the way XPE saves variations of a single bitmap without increasing the size of the .xar file.