Add color from drawing to color line

[Paladin]

If my feeble old mind remembers correctly, The new behavior of the color palletes was established for better export between Xara and other lessor drawing programs (Ummmm... PS, AI or CD for example). that is just what came to mind when I read this thread. I might have read it here or in the national enquiror. Again, I am relying on my memory, which is not perfect by any means.

Hi, John. Great full moon shot at your site. Maybe it's just me, but looking at this particular shot it appears that the Man in the Moon is wearing shades and has his mouth open. No, no, all I've had today is coffee.

With respect to export compatibility with other programs, I must admit to some doubt as to how changing the way in which new colors are named could affect, positively or negatively, such interchanges. In modern languages, colors are defined in structures according to the color model chosen. For example, the type, or struct, defining a CMYK color would require four properties. That for an RGB value would require only three properties, as would an HSV value.

When a color of a particular type is used, a reference to it (a name) is dimensioned and an object of that type is instantiated. To the object, which is entirely ignorant either of how many instances of that type may be instantiated, or of what names have been assigned them, the name is immaterial. It doesn't matter if the name is automatically assigned to the reference, as was formerly done when a unique color was added to a drawing, or if it is user-assigned, as is required now. The name simply points to an instance of a color object defined by the struct appropriate to the current color model. These color objects may themselves be contained in an array or collection of currently in-use color definitions, depending upon the internal structure of the program.

When the time comes to export, the program will look up the struct as defined in the target program, convert the structs as defined in the host program, and do the necessary conversion between the two. The name given to a particular instance of a hue in the host program is immaterial to the target program, which may have an entirely different name for that hue, or indeed, may not have names for colors at all, or may provide for industry-standardized names (light blue, aqua, red, alice blue, etc.) but not for named colors.

Since named colors are precisely the same objects, whether the name is assigned by the user or automatically by the program at the time of instantiation, I see no advantage to be gained by imposing the need to create one's own name for named colors at the time of creation, rather than allowing the system to do so itself.

Sorry for the technical swamp, but I'm basically a programmer-type geek.

cheers,
paladin

[handrawn]

there has been another change recently - the removal from xtreme of 'psuedo' bold/italic fonts - this cause a lot of complaining from those who had made great use of this feature up till then.

xara said it was done to ensure that all fonts used that were bold/italic were actual font variants only - this would avoid many problems when printing etc.

I'm not suggesting there is a direct parallel here, but changing the way a program works at this level is not without precedent, and is done for a reason.

The new html export feature makes extensive use of the layers and name galleries so I understand [not my thing website building] - and many of us are hoping for great improvements [or some at least] soon to both these galleries - I think this is all part of the way xara is headed

[raynerj1]

paladin,

I am glad you liked my full moon shot... I wonder which one it was... There are several on the site... Hopefully I can grab another one tonight.

You would have to get a call on this directly from Charles and crew on the named colors. I do remember having some real problems importing a map I composed into AI... Had 10 or 12 different blacks. I think this was related to that kind of problem. It is been a while, and my mind is not as good as it once was.

I too came from the geek zone. One of the original settlers matter of fact. Look up geek in the book, you will see my pic.

[Paladin]

there has been another change recently - the removal from xtreme of 'psuedo' bold/italic fonts - this cause a lot of complaining from those who had made great use of this feature up till then.

xara said it was done to ensure that all fonts used that were bold/italic were actual font variants only - this would avoid many problems when printing etc.

You know, not to be contrary (to myself, given my attitude about the named colors issue ), but I can actually see the point of this change. Just guessing here, because I have no direct knowledge of their algorithm, but I would imagine that creating the pseudo versions would require them to be rendered as graphics, since no true font variant of that type exists. If individual words or phrases were emphasized with bold or italics using this method, the result would be a data stream fed to the printer driver containing both font characters and inline graphics. I can see where this might lead to issues with baseline shifts and other problems.

I'm not suggesting there is a direct parallel here, but changing the way a program works at this level is not without precedent, and is done for a reason.

Oh, I have no problem with functionality changes when I can see a reasonable justification for the change, and for not making it optional. That was the problem with the original subject of discussion. I could see no value add obtained by the change, and no reason why it could not have been made optional behavior. Still don't.

The new html export feature makes extensive use of the layers and name galleries so I understand [not my thing website building] - and many of us are hoping for great improvements [or some at least] soon to both these galleries - I think this is all part of the way xara is headed

Boy I sure hope they don't let this trend impact the basic functionality of the product. Xtreme is a vector editor par excellence, superior (IMHO) to any other on the market (although I still occasionally use Illy for its gradient mesh capability). It is NOT an HTML editor, and is not even in the first rank as a WYSIWYG Web editor.

I suppose for personal sites, small business identity sites with a few pages, etc., it might be acceptable. However, and this is simply my personal opinion, Web development should be done using standards-compliant (X)HTML, CSS, and whatever client-side and server-side programming tools one is familiar with--javascript, vbscript, php, ASP, JSP, etc. I use Dreamweaver, TopStyle Pro 3.5, and Antechinus Javascript Editor, along with a suite of ancillary tools, and am currently investigating/learning Visual Web Developer 2008, part of Visual Studio 2008, because of its inherent integration of ASP.NET and the availability of vbscript Intellisense (I'm a VB MCP).

I would hate to see the premier vector editor lose its focus in the effort to be all things, and become just another horse in the race, not offering best-of-breed for anything by attempting to offer everything. As I said, just my personal opinion... YMMV.

cheers,
paladin

[handrawn]

yep - lots of us would be with you on the subject of keeping xtreme in the vector mainstream

but I have a commercial hat - and wearing it, I have the awful feeling that is not where the money is [for xara] at this time anyway

this is a discussion well thrashed out elsewhere on the forum - for example here [3 separate threads]:
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...ght=JokeArtist
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...ght=JokeArtist
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...ght=JokeArtist

and yes it is one of JA's pet themes

[PatentGuy]

But, that brings up another point, and this may just be due to my orientation as a programmer. Form a developer's point of view, while it is perfectly valid to offer options which may encourage a particular approach to workflow, it is much less so to force those changes on the user. [snip]

As a user of many graphics programs, [snip] if they all took the approach of making changes to the fundamental interface which impacted my personal workstyle I would be quite frustrated and far from a happy camper.

[snip] I still hold that if the change was to be made, it should have been provided as an optional setting alongside the old behavior, for those like myself who may not choose to exercise the option to employ the new workflow. It would not have been difficult, in programming terms (after all, the existing code had already been written and debugged), and being able to toggle between the old and new behavior would have kept us dinosaurs happy while providing the more disciplined approach to those who want it.

Unfortunately, Xara has a history of making interface changes that disrupt long-time users' workflow. There is another long-running thread that discusses restoring the space bar to its previous function.

I don't like changes to a user interface that I have learned to use and have become comfortable with. At least XXPro now includes an option to customize key short-cuts.