Bouton's Features Wish List for version 9

[Gare]

I think it's a far-flung wish to expect massive amounts of code to be torn up to accommodate artists and designers when the trend in new versions has clearly been to automate certain things to get results by people who aren't imaginative enough to figure out how to do an effect manually.

At the risk of sounding negative—because I am being negative!—the time and resources put into a feature such as the Clone Tool could have been spent on something we're asking for right here. I've been cutting holes in photos, feathering the edges and adding a replacement area manually for over half a decade, and I'm not intending to be disrespectful, but the core of my wishes is to improve the drawing part of Xara; that's what it's supposed to do, that's what stole my heart away from CorelDRAW, if I need to retouch something I own Photoshop.

So this is what Wish Lists are made of. :)

I'd love to see features that other programs have supported for years, and as Mike suggested, I'd like to be able to access them on a central palette. The Line Gallery would be a fine host for more features. I'd like to be able to make my own dashed line pattern because none of the presets offer me what I need on occasion. I'd like to be able to make my own varying width strokes, and I'd like to be able to do honest-to-gosh calligraphic strokes. I know that Expression has some patents on their "skeletal stroke" technology" but I find it very hard to understand why this can't be clean-roomed. Stretching a closed vector path to conform to another vector path can't be rocket science.

This is art created with a ten year old program. It's all scalable; some of the elements are bitmaps, but the wheat shafts are a stroke I created myself, and some of the paint strokes are vectors that have a transparency based on a coarse weave canvas.



I'm not showing off; this is not Great Art. But it is expressive, and frankly it's proof to me that a decade-old program can still be exciting.

I'd like less goofy stuff that has a vertical use, I'd like less new stuff that is done better in competing programs. I'd like fewer presets and more opportunity to create my own tools within Xara.

For artists, the new "canvas" is the web, and we really have to watch all the time to see what direction it's moving in.

Please give us the tools and features to meet the new media challenges!

TIA,

Gary

[angelize]

I'd like to see some of these requests ie custom shape profiles etc applied to the shapebuilder tool. I'd like to be able to create a small shape or group of shapes, apply fills and/or transparency, to it and be able to set it as a custom nib for the shapebuilder or the eraser tool. It would also be great to be able to save a folder of these custom nibs and be able to point Xara to it and easily use them.

I would also love to have a transparency slider available on the shapebuilder and eraser tool info bar instead of having to deselect everything and go to the transparency tool to adjust the transparency of these tools.

The Shapebuilder and the Eraser tools are a great start and I really hope that they will continue to be developed and improved.

[Gare]

@Frances,

Your wish is certainly a step forward, but please let me point out that a brush that produces a closed and filled path 1.) doesn’t advance the building block of vector graphics—the path—at all, and 2.) I think a lot of people would be obliged to invest in at least $100 worth of hardware—a digitizing tablet—to take advantage of any added elegance to the Shape Builder tool.

Me, I either use a perfectly decent Logitech mouse, or a physical pen and pencil (that I draw with and then scan); because a shape created using the Shape Builder tool is a “set piece”—it has no dynamic editability such as paths and QuickShapes do, you have to be precise with the stroke, or Undo and try again (unless you use a stylus and tablet).

I’d much prefer that if any more automated routines are added for producing shapes, that they are designed around what Illustrator and CorelDRAW do (and Expression)— that a “core” or “skeleton” is produced when you make a stroke, and this path influences the overall shape of what you’ve drawn when you then modify control points. The Shape Builder produces control points around the path which is produced, and as this goes, there is no hierarchical control to edit the overall shape of the shape once it’s been created.

I’d be happier with more features for paths, and you might be happier with LiveBrush; there’s a $10 and a free version I think. Here’s some examples of elegant strokes.



My Best,

Gary

[ad1066]

+1 to the editable stroke shapes, I've wanted that for years.

One thing I'd like to see is the ability to rotate the canvas (and then have a button that snaps it back into place when I'm done) for drawing lines or curves at angles that would be awkward to draw when the page is straight on. When I'm drawing on paper, I can turn the page around whenever I need to, I'd like to be able to do the same on screen. Yes I know, I can always rotate objects, but there are times when I want the existing objects' position on the canvas to remain the same. And yes I know, I can rotate the drawing tablet also, but that is not always convenient for people who do not have wireless tablets.

-- Ben

[MarcT]

A Rotating canvas would be awesome.

But I fear freehand drawing comes in a lower priority stack in this program, I'm ok with that though.

Transforming fills are really the next step in vector drawing, sketchbook designer has really innovated in this regard.
However much of the rest is clunky and limited.

See at about 22 seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6NIIY7UIMQ

If something like this could work on fills and transparencies, I'd be floored.

Marc

[mwenz]

I agree, Marc. There are a few nice and innovative features in Sketchbook, but mainly how the live fills work.

This is going to be a really long list...

Take care, Mike

[MEB]

...
Transforming fills are really the next step in vector drawing, sketchbook designer has really innovated in this regard.
However much of the rest is clunky and limited.

See at about 22 seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6NIIY7UIMQ

If something like this could work on fills and transparencies, I'd be floored.

Marc

Wow! That was impressive! The ability to conform the fills to the shape we want is brilliant. It´s a mix of the mold tool with the gradient tool in one
A great step ahead.

[Rik]

Those vector fills in SketchBook look awesome.
Would be a great tool in Xara.