FEATURE REQUEST: Xara Designer - Fill Command

Hi Xara,

(I tried using your contact form on the website, but it errors saying to select a "subject" which I did. So I am posting here in the hope this gets to the development people.)

Could you please add the option to be able to fill an area with a colour surrounded by lines that don't have to be joined.

Example, draw three separate lines to form a triangle. Select the Fill tool, choose a colour, click inside the triangle to create a shape that "fills" the space. (Adobe Illustrator does this if you want an example)

Without this feature it is very tedious to use Xara for any illustration work. As to simply fill an area you either need to join all the lines (which isn't even always possible if they overlap for instance). Or convert into a shape, draw a bounding box, fill, delete the original, reset the layer order. Then for every single time you want to fill something, it takes a long time.

Thanks, Jon

Hi John

there has been a lot of discussion about this on the forum in the past

one thing about illustrator - if you are filling simple shapes of unjoined lines it works well, but with complicated shapes it doesn't always do the job so well

I am moving this to the Dear Xara forum which is where requests to Xara should be posted :)

Firstly, I strongly disagree that without this feature Xara is "tedious." Hands-down, it is the best illustration software available, regardless. Secondly, in my opinion filling open paths is a crutch to cover up sloppy work. There really isn't a good substitute for doing it right. Thirdly, artwork using filled open paths often do not print correctly. Many of my clients end up sending me artwork they received from other artist "to fix." I don't think this is a good feature at all.

Welcome to TalkGraphics Jon

Many new users frequently have suggestions such as yours for how to improve Xara (and other products as well I suspect).

Any new program takes some getting used to. And each program has its unique personality and way of doing things. There is a logic, rhythm and flow that comes in time. It is like learning a foreign language. Give it some time and in a short amount of time everything should fall into place and make more sense.

I find the feedback Feature requests get here not very pleasant, really.
If you guys* don't want an additional tool which may help filling - why can't you just ignore the wish and go on filling like you are used to? By introducing a feature similar to Live-Paint Xara surely would not remove the option to fill the conventional way...

Instead fellow users assume that this User only needs a Crouch for sloppily done work.
Others who've seen it all give generous advice to investigate the program just a little further in order to discover the pure beauty of the missing option for filling of lines which already form a closed region.
"Dig into the program instead of making nonsensical Feature-Requests!"

In my opinion its not experience getting visible here - but just a narrow focus (assuming the way you use the program is the way anyone wants to use Xara) When doing Illustrations from Scratch you of course have all factors under control.
But what if you import stuff like for instant flattened 3D Geometry or work other people have made in other programs. They might come in as visibly closed regions but Xara won't fill them. Yes, then it is tedious and time-consuming to apply Colour.

I'm sure you guys won't like this comment, but it just sums up my observations from some months reading TG.
An open atmosphere is something different.


*not addressing handrawn here

Let me remind everyone that the Dear Xara forum is not intended for any sort of discussion. This forum is to explain your suggestions. It is monitored by Xara and all the suggestions are taken into account.
So please stop arguing. It will not help anyone, except for making it harder to read by developers.
Thank you.

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Originally Posted by covoxer

Let me remind everyone that the Dear Xara forum is not intended for any sort of discussion.

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This thread didn't originate here, it was moved here. As a developer myself, such exchanges are valuable to understand what the user community thinks of features and they are rare in the "Dear Xara" section. I'd hope that the Xara developers can read as well as the rest of us.

Polyxo, I don't think some of the comments always come across as being as well meaning as they are intended to be. New users to Xara often seem to think there's only one way to do something when often there's a perfectly good workflow without a specific feature being in place, so people will naturally suggest an alternative workflow in Xara.

About the fill feature request. It seems perfectly reasonable to request it. It's existed for years in Flash, but I can't remember when I needed or even wanted to use it last. Probably never. In terms of automated fills being poor quality - the Flash one seems perfectly good.

I'm sorry I don't understand. :-/

If I'm drawing free hand an illustration then there are many instances where I don't want the shapes to be linked together (or "bound" - what it would be called I don't know). Once I've completed the free hand drawing I'll then go back and remove unneeded lines and tidy it up. In exactly the same way as if I drew it on pencil and pad.

I then simply want to colour it in, I don't see why this is such a complex thing? On paper I might use a pencil shading or water colour... It's no big deal, well unless it's in Xara which is why I am asking the questions.

If I exported the drawing to MSPaint I could use the fill command to fill an area.. Likewise if I drew the piece in Illustrator I could fill an area.. So why is this simple feature in Xara not possible? Please explain this to me in simple terms, I am a designer not a programmer. My assumption is that it's just not possible to do in Xara which is why I don't use Xara that much. If I am missing something then please explain what I am missing.

And yes the solutions that are proposed to fill an area are tedious to do, it consists of merging this, inverting that, bla bla. Who has the time? I just want to click on an area and fill it, why is this so hard?

One of the comments is that it doesn't print well in some situations. That is fine, if this is the only reason then fine put up a message "this fill might not print correctly". People will work it out. If they want to print in that situation they can use the long handed workaround. But if it works most of the time, then what difference does it make? It would still be a huge net saving in time and would allow me to use Xara, which is otherwise a fine product, just one I can't use that often.

Please there is no need to be so defensive, it is a simple request.

Regards, Jon

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Originally Posted by jonwalker

click on an area and fill it, why is this so hard?

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It's not, really.

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One of the comments is that it doesn't print well in some situations. That is fine, if this is the only reason then fine put up a message "this fill might not print correctly". People will work it out.

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They would but for a lot of less skilled people, that message might come up a lot. The reason behind "the printing badly" comment is probably that a break in the boundary that looks small or isn't visible on screen, might become very visible after printing, making the artwork look sloppy (either because of broken outlines or fills that don't look right at the broken outline). But that argument is probably just as true when using xara or any drawing software.

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otherwise a fine product, just one I can't use that often.

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There are many people producing professional artwork for all kinds of things, including cartoons, that don't find this an issue at all - probably because it's pretty easy to do the fill manually. So "can't use often" is more about a willingness to adopt an alternative workflow.

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Please there is no need to be so defensive, it is a simple request.

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It is a simple and reasonable request, but any chance of it being fulfilled is probably a year or more away.

There's sometimes a bit of frustration on TG because members know that the lack of some tool/feature that's present on a rival product, isn't really an obstacle to getting great results with Xara. There's always an alternative workflow that is either almost as good, or sometimes better, than that requested by the Xara novice. Coupled with the speed of working generally in Xara, the absence of a specific feature isn't a major shortcoming because in the context of the speed of working with Xara as a whole, it's more a case of workflow adjustment. So, I think we're just sorry to see people concentrate on a small feature that few Xara users miss because there's a pretty easy alternative.

I support your request, but don't focus on this as a reason not to use Xara, because there is a simple alternative workflow.

a simple request - yes

a simple thing to do - no

[EDIT - sorry posted too soon by mistake]

you asked why it is complex - well because the a program cannot know where the colour should stop - only a human can determine that accurately, and indeed the human may want different boundaries parameters for different circumstances

in complex shapes an automatic system also often does 'strange things'

you can introduce a system of thresholds and other settings to control the filling, but then you loose the perceived ease of use advantage

this is just my opinion

I am not being in any way defensive and I would not object to such a tool in the program and have supported it in the past

but I would not use it much these days, because based on the implementations in illustrator/inkscape/toonboom-studio it is far more precise to do colouring on a separate layer/sub-layer, which can itself save loads of time later

it all depends on the level of complexity of the work I think

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Originally Posted by handrawn

a simple request - yes

a simple thing to do - no

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Back in the day, flood fill algorithms used to be all the rage for bitmaps, but it might be easier for vector.

For vector it should be about locating line edges surrounding the fill point and using them to construct a fill shape. Xara already has all the nodes, so it's not the big deal you might imagine. Xara are bright enough to do it, Flash did it over ten years ago.

HI Paul

yes - however I was including unclosed shapes into the equation that is, ones that have gaps - for the very simple work where the lines are not joined and there are no gaps its not such a big deal

but even then, flat colour fill to the edges of the outlines is rather 'painting by numbers' to me - again I am not being dismissive here, just speaking from my own point of view....

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Originally Posted by handrawn

HI Paul

yes - however I was including unclosed shapes into the equation that is, ones that have gaps - for the very simple work where the lines are not joined and there are no gaps its not such a big deal

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I was talking about the ones with gaps, and indeed areas enclosed by multiple lines.You can find the nodes (regardless of which line is involved) surrounding the fill point. Where the nodes don't form a closed enclosure, you need to find the smallest gaps between connected edges and then those are bridged for the fill shape.

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but even then, flat colour fill to the edges of the outlines is rather 'painting by numbers' to me - again I am not being dismissive here, just speaking from my own point of view....

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I think some people would consider it a way to enhance creativity by removing a little tedium, but I take your point. Even when doing tedious tasks, it does give us time to think.

ok - that is fine if you need the fill to follow along the midpoint of the missing piece of the line, but I'd suggest that once you have a gap filling mechanism there will be an assumption than it should fill to the outer boundary of the line and sure, you can manipulate nodes but already our perceived ease of use is slipping

and if the gap be a large one or over a cusp or otherwise 'complex' point, then the notional path of the missing piece of the line may be not at all what you need - I realise this may be academic if the work itself is not complex

yes enhancing creativity by removing tedium is good - so is enhancing creativity by not tying yourself to just one way of doing things

somewhere there is a tutorial by gnurf for colouring line art - I think he used a pencil scan, but whatever - what he did was to quickly run round the line art with the pen to create one closed,and therefore filled, shape and then feather it to blend it to the line art

Perfection is not required. In Flash you can decide the size of gap that it will not bridge. It's always going to be easier to tweak a complex fill shape than make it entirely by hand. The flash fill is rather good I think.

I don't really follow why a fill function is a problem - nobody that finds it less useful than hand filling would be required to use it. I don't think it's a must-have, but I understand why someone would want it.

A fill function may not suit your needs, but it doesn't harm your workflow either, so I see no harm in it.

I wonder if the fill command might prove quite popular. Years ago I made comments about the fact that Xara lacked the finesse of some modern tools and in particular the queues offerred by other tools (cough, Flash, Vellum, etc). It didn't get much of a reaction but now designer 7 has moved that way and our stalwart Gary has fallen in love with a facility ( the smart guides/magic snap) he probably didn't see the need for before.

I think there's a vacum between telling someone why a fill command is pointless and showing them why it is pointless (no pun intended)..

not saying its pointless - just saying why I may not use it

I am sure it would be popular

in fact I am sure that somewhere there is a reference made by Xara themselves to the filling of unclosed shapes in the program [pre-designer at least] being entirely possible but just not implemented [can't find it of course - it was in a discussion re Ivan's workaround I think - long time ago]

This feature has been has been requested often, I remember a very long thread on this topic!


I think a paint-bucket/boundary-fill tool would be a good productivity improvement.
I also guess this might not be an easy feature to implement.

It could simply work using the existing paint bucket and clicking in an empty space in between objects, no new commands on menus.


Along these lines a "join lines" command with gap tolerance would also come as handy in my opinion.

Xara shines in many aspects but joining lines out of already created geometry may not be one of its greatest strengths.

Selecting the objects, finding overlapping nodes, moving the node and bringing it back to join it, can become a lot work for a very simple operation when many objects are involved.


Marc

I think that the double-click as per CorelDraw on the last node to close a shape would be a good enhancement. A right-click context menu with the same command would be a good enhancement.

With either (thought if only one I would prefer the double-click method), one can copy and paste-in-place to obtain the fill shape. Fill the shape behind, unset any line properties and Bob's your uncle.

The page coordinates and path start-end coordinates are known for any line segment. If XDP could simply create the same, but closed shape behind it sans any line attributes, and perhaps group it with the path-shape, one could then select it in the layers tab and fill it.

Any of these would be a worthy addition to the vector side of things.

Take care, Mike

Jon, perhaps (in a new non "Dear Xara" thread), you could take the time to make a small example of something where you think using a fill command would be a real time saver. Then perhaps we'd see some of the existing ways to do the same using xara without a fill command?

Pauland - yes I agree this may be helpful, good suggestion, thank you. :-) There seems to be a lot of talk about this and that being good. But I'll make a simple example to illustrate why this kind of simple command would be quite practical and helpful. Picture, thousand words, etc.

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Originally Posted by mwenz

I think that the double-click as per CorelDraw on the last node to close a shape would be a good enhancement.

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You can do this in Xara by pressing 'Enter' with the last node selected.

A common example would be to create an shape outlining a line drawing with a heavier stroke.

In this example done in illustrator a rectangle is drawn outside the drawing and the shape builder tool Attachment 82922 is used to "fill" this area in green.

Marc

Attachment 82921

Attachment 82920

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Originally Posted by ShapeShifter

You can do this in Xara by pressing 'Enter' with the last node selected.

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Yep. But my hand is already on the mouse. While it may not be a great amount of extra time, there are drawings I do that moving the hand to the keyboard and back again do add up in time used.

Sometimes product requests are more in the enhancement category than a whole new thing.

Take care, Mike

I use my other hand.