most wanted drawing feature - for Rob

Rob asked me what my highest priority was...

Ok – I could spend a lot of time on this but I don’t really have it, so here are my thoughts right now:

The bottom line is number 1 - that is what I need right now most of all, as I don’t do the line art in xara, I import it as SVG vector having created it in raster and vectorised it – but I’ve included the rest because they are important [to me]

1] clipping
When you are adding highlights and shadows to a drawing one classic way of doing this is to constrain the visibility of what you are adding as you add it – my preference is to use photoshop style clipping, in other words the ability to ‘paint’ or ‘contrain’ objects you are creating within the boundaries of an existing [clipping] object as you add them – in xara you cannot do this, you can only clip afterwards so you cannot actually see what you are doing in realtime – you can edit afterwards, but this is not organic it is a real time waster

2] brushes
custom brushes need any overhaul, this has been well covered. But for me a greater priority would be absolute pixel nibs for the shape builder tool, thereby bringing it into line with inkscape’s calligraphy tool – otherwise when using the angled nib to draw with, as opposed to editing, you cannot zoom at will and keep the nib size relative to the drawing

3] layers
It has been said that groups in xara are the equivalent of layers in photoshop – ok, but this is not helpful if you are porting from xara to photoshop in PSD; you really do then need nested layers otherwise organisation in photoshop and equivalent editors is difficult


4] group editing
Following on from 1] there is often a difficulty with xara drawing in that you cannot see the actual results in real time – another example of this is group editing: being able to edit within a group by double clicking is great, but you cannot see the effect in context until you save and exit the group – how to solve? I guess you could have an optional view rest of document behind [locked of course], or you could make the new view update in real time

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

Rob asked me what my highest priority was...
1] clipping
When you are adding highlights and shadows to a drawing one classic way of doing this is to constrain the visibility of what you are adding as you add it � my preference is to use photoshop style clipping, in other words the ability to �paint� or �contrain� objects you are creating within the boundaries of an existing [clipping] object as you add them � in xara you cannot do this, you can only clip afterwards so you cannot actually see what you are doing in realtime � you can edit afterwards, but this is not organic it is a real time waster

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Despite that I support the idea for clipped real-time drawing, you gave me the following idea:

The shadow tool could offer a "link" to another object to clip the shadow. I don't really know how the GUI for the link would look like, but maybe like when linking a blend or text to a path, you select the "shadow" (which in Xara terms is actually the object creating the shadow) and the clipping object and then click that shadow-clip button. And since we can specify white as a shadow color, it would even be possible to use this for highlights.

But this would be more fixed to a tool, while you actually talk about clipping everything one does. And if "everything" includes dropping a shadow with the shadow tool, then I'd of course support the big concept and not the small concept.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

4] group editing
Following on from 1] there is often a difficulty with xara drawing in that you cannot see the actual results in real time � another example of this is group editing: being able to edit within a group by double clicking is great, but you cannot see the effect in context until you save and exit the group � how to solve? I guess you could have an optional view rest of document behind [locked of course], or you could make the new view update in real time

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I want to see the objects in the background, too. When version 6 (?) brought the edit-a-group-without-ungrouping feature, I immediately thought that Illustrator lets me do that ontop of the other objects. Inkscape does it, too.

been asked to make clear in this thread that this is for version 11 see here: http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...432#post511432

Thanks Handrawn. Now for £20 I'll put a good word in for you :P

slushfund=0;
do
nothing;
while (income=peanuts)

:D