FEATURE REQUEST: Xara Designer - Fill Command

[jonwalker]

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

[handrawn]

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

[graphicsfactory]

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.

[gwpriester]

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.

[Guest]

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

[covoxer]

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.

[pauland]

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

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.

[jonwalker]

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

[pauland]

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

It's not, really.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

[handrawn]

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