Feature Suggestion:Direct editing of tileable pattern while it is being tiled.

[zzenn]

I propose that Xara adds the feature of being able to edit the canvas WHILE it is being tiled across the screen.
For example, you specify you want to tile the canvas 4 times across. The image is then tiled 4 times across the screen horizontally, and however many it ends up being vertically depending on the canvas dimensions.
You can then pick anywhere in any of the tiles and edit them however you want. All the tiles are then simultanously updated!


This would make it a lot easier making intricate blends between tiles, and doing Escher like designs, complex patterns, etc.
I've used Xara in the past but I do not recall it having this feature. IF it did, it would be incredibly useful and also open up a whole new market segment for itself. People doing fabric designs would LOVE this feature. It would also be great for regular texture design.

So far I've only seen a few other applications being able to do this, and it's texturemaker at www.i-tex.de. Unfortunately it only works with raster graphics and the drawing tools are very lacking.
Kali at http://www.geometrygames.org/Kali/index.html is another good example, but the tools are also very lacking and raster only.
Corel Painter does make it easy to do tileable images, but it does not provide for a tiled preview, and again it's raster only.

All other tools I've seen take the image or tile AFTER the design stage and then tries to blend it, invariably ending up looking like a cheap filter effect.
I am suggesting this here, for xara, because it seems like the developers are more responsive and agile than folks like adobe and corel...

Any thoughts or feedback? Suggestions for other applications or plugins that will help?

[handrawn]

If - as I think - you are proposing that xara has objects that are linked in such a way that updating one updates all the other similarly linked objects automatically - this has been brought up elsewhere - though unfortunately I haven't got the reference to hand - if I find it I'll post it up

[zzenn]

Almost, but not quite. Having "instanced" objects that update at the same time as the original is not quite the same as having the canvas tiled across the screen - AND editable.

For example, lets say you have a 3 point vertical line. If you grab the middle point and drag it to the left side unto another tiled canvas - the final canvas, once you turn off tiling, will look like it has a line that goes off the side and comes in from the other.

I've attached two pics to illustrate (a very simple example).

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/6088/tiled4ih7.gif
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2461/tileyj1.gif

[Fred C]

Zzenn,
Have you tried Inkscape? It will do tiled 'Clones' in many preset forms. 'Clones' in Xara is somewhat a misnomer; it just makes duplicate copies. In Inkscape each 'clone' responds to manipulations done to the master object.http://www.inkscape.org/

[zzenn]

Nope, I have not tried inkscape. I'll try it.

Painter X (and some earlier versions too) has a function where it will wrap around the canvas. For example, if you move the canvas down when defining a pattern, the bottom will start to come in from the top. It's probably the best way of making patterns in raster graphics I've come across.

It would be close to the ultimate way of doing vector graphics patterns.

I'm not sure clones for vector graphics will do what I'm looking for, but I will check it out and see

[handrawn]

on the subject of simultaneously updating in xara - if you have say 50 objects the same and you change one, then if you copy it to clipboard [ctrl-c], then select all [ctrl-a], then deselect the one that was changed [shift-leftclick] then copy attributes [ctrl-shift-a] all the others will be updated in one go.

this may not do everything you need, but it is a very useful feature

[handrawn]

and on the subject of tiling using duplicate [ctrl-d] with the horizontal/vertical [X/Y] values adjusted appropriately in utilities/options/general menu tab may help?

[pauland]

Xtreme almost does what you want already. I tried creating multiple views of a single tile. It does do what you want, but is let down by slider bars and window edges and being a pain to arrange and even find the tile inside each window.

Paul

[David O'Neil]

You can't tile a changing size canvas, but blends allow you to do what you want fairly quickly, even though it means editing four spots to change everything to the same.