better brushes

[angelize]

My favourite new features are the shapebuilder and Eraser tools, they are a great step forward. What I would like to see in future is the ability to create custom nibs for the shapebuilder.

But what I would really like to see is a brush tool that stretches your brush along a path.

Better brushes would make it easier to create custom frames for photos and text boxes, create swirls, and design elements and I could see it be useful for websites, and perhaps it would open the door for a new type of templates that would include brushes!

[Albacore]

That has been my cry for many years Frances. It would help many people expand there use of our programme just think using custom vector brushes with cartooning and your suggestions it would be a big step forward. I thought that when the brush engine was improved with D Pro 6 that when 7 came out we would have it, but no.

[Boy]

Definitely +1.

[handrawn]

brushes should have heads and tails, and perhaps segments within the body of the brush

classic example of this is a brush that paints a train - you want the engine [locomotive] once, you only want the guard van [caboose] once, but you want the carriages [cars] to repeat between the two ends - and if you can define segments you can have more than one self contained sequence of carriages

[angelize]

That would be great! And to improve the way the brushes behave on corners so that a rectangle with sharp corners would look good with a brush applied. The ability to be able to set corner pieces with in a brush ( like Illustrator) would also be a good thing. Imagine if say someone is doing a website for a bakery and they could simply draw a rectangle and apply say a gingerbread brush and have an instant frame for a section for cookies & biscuits! And of course there would need to be a way to set a brush as either repeating or stretching along the path in the edit brush options.

[MarcT]

Abso Lutely!

[ad1066]

+1 to this. Expression 3 purported to have this, but I found the rest of the program clunky. This would be a welcome addition to Xara's repertoire.

-- Ben

[handrawn]

cf: the train - expression 3 [creature house version, pre MS]

the custom stroke shape system is simple and effective too, but I don't see it being implementable without skeletal stroking

[Big Frank]

yeah put me down for a better brush toolset