Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11

[Albacore]

Yeah, Gary B, have used this frequently in cartoons but it is a bit of a fiddle when your working in small areas like eyes & mouths. You have to double click the tool and open the dialogue box and give the end points a value and then the sides to make it idiot proof for me but of course you then can save it to your library. No I just want plain old brushes that you can do 1 to 5 here in Vectortuts: http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials...el--vector-301
Forget the rest the borders, scatter, maybe don't with the art brush it's handy!

[MarcT]

Hi,

I am fairly certain any of these suggestions would benefit illustrators.
I don't know which are easier to implement so here's a basket.
(many have been suggested already) :


Functions:

-Line width editor
-Skeletal bitmap / vector Strokes - Deformation along a Path
-Flood fill - Join tool
-Bspline tool
-Point deformation / warp tool with falloff
-Path driven gradients.




Improvements on existing tools:

-Mould tool beefed up.
-Icons bar for simple alignment
-Node transformation as objects. (scale, rotate and align with blobs, etc)
-Possibility to see rest of drawing when editing group


Ergonomy Details :

-Temp Shortkey for colorpicker
-Right-click in color picker set line color


Bug fixes :
Line profiles when exporting SVG


Marc

[Zupdude]

How 'bout a way to save our work-space(s).... If you upgrade a computer and re-install the program, you have to reconfigure your workspace from scratch. Hate that!

[handrawn]

.... so an option to put new layers above/below the current, to me that's doable, easy, a programmer should be able to do it with eyes closed and one arm behind their back - but I bet it's not, or it would have been done by now

a kindly Xara employee has pointed out to me that you can already do this - and whatever else may or may not be said about version releases, Xara remain the most helpful of companies for my money - the trick is to right click on a layer and select new layer from there and it will be placed immediately above

so I am mortified that I did not know this, but at least pleased to know I was right to think it could be done - Granny told me never to gamble, I lost the bet

[Zupdude]

Here's one:
Let's say that I delete an object, then as I continue to work, I realize that I need to use that deleted object. If I were using any other program that I know of, I could "Ctrl Z" back to the point before I deleted the object, copy it, "Ctrl Y" back to where my work had previously progressed, execute a "Ctrl V" (paste) and continue my work from there. With Xara, when I backup to when I deleted the object and copy it, "Ctrl Y" isn't available because Xara handles that "Ctrl C" (copy) as an edit to the file and "forgets" my other edits and I would have to repeat all of that other work again.
I asked someone from Xara about this and they thought, for various reasons, that Xara was handling this condition correctly and "as expected". Considering what that person said, I checked to see if what I was saying was true. I checked it with Coreldraw and PhotoPaint (ver.12 and x5), Word and Photoshop and they all handled it as I said. That was even true here, posting to this thread! So, two questions:
Have any of you employed (tried to employ) this little "trick" and, if so, is it important enough for us to ask the Xara folks to remedy it?
...if you're one of those Xara folks, might you look into this as a matter of curiosity?

[handrawn]

I often do it the other way round - realise I've edited a vector and not kept the original, so copy the edited object then ctrl+Z back to the original and paste in the edited version - tends to happen when I am converting line to shape and combining shapes

have to say, although I am used to it in xara, that I don't think ctrl+c is an edit but xara does use it's own clipboard system so that is possibly a factor - drawplus will do what you suggest

[Sadler]

Here's what you can still do with Expressions free open beta version 3 circa 1994. First you make a drawing, then click the Define stroke button and you get a bounding box around the drawing that you fine tune, and then tell Expressions that you want the stroke ro repeat:

Attachment 103001

Gary

Can't you already do this? Draw your shape, click on "Brush tool", click on "Create Brush" in the toolbar, then "Edit Brush" to change the spacing, rotation, pressure profile etc. About the only thing this doesn't achieve is bending ones shapes around curves.

If this isn't what you meant, please elucidate.

I participate in a forum for another software where the developers will ask for clarification of good or interesting ideas and will try to explain why certain ideas are not feasible. Their release schedule is every two years though since they are only a four man team. I realise it is not fair to compare developers responses between different companies and products but it might appease some of us if there were a bit more informed input into these sort of threads.

[Gare]

Hi Sadler—

To open this discussion to better understand what I'm begging for, is yes: I do indeed need the stroke along a path to follow the path along curves, because after all, if you're making a vector path which is flexible, and coating it with a vector repeating design, why can'tr the design element distort just like we can distort the underlying path?

One of the almost late, great, and almost Dead Creature House Expression is that to a certain extent, you build your own tools and then use them. They either have or had a patent on something called Skeletal Stokes; these are underlying vector paths you use to draw/paint, and then reshape or redefine, or refine a brush. Xara's Custom Brushes do not operate as Expressions' do because Expressions distorts—curves and fits and just enhances the path, while can see in your example that the individual vectors don't match up. I'm trying to clarify here, and not be antagonistic, because you and I are talking apples and oranges at the moment.

Here's a different example:



Fool disclosure: it took me about an hour to draw all three shapes, but then saving them as a strokes took about 30 seconds. I drew these three path, they can be edited any time to change the overall design, they can have different drawings assigned to to the existing skeletons (paths) they can be scaled and the program knows when to and when not to repeat a segment and to round off corners.

This is a pipe dream of course, and Phil, thank you for stepping in with the best reply. I don't think any of us want one line of code broken to introduce someone's dream feature, but perhaps compromise might move the drawing tools forward— some of use use Xara as the best illustration tool, and not necessarily for image editing or website creation.

I cut my teeth on CorelDRAW, and when CorelXara was introduced I stopped using DRAW almost completely because I fell in love with the anti-aliasing and the speed of CorelXara.

I would settle for a calligraphic pen, not the Shape Painter tool that immediately produces a "dead", non- refineable path, but some facility for building your own pressure profile, make it repeat, make the brush stoke editable, let us change the path with the Shape tool, and let the paint stroke update until you want it simplified into individual shapes.

I'd also like to see the Smart Shape Polygon tool created dynamically editable shapes: you can add control points after the object is created AND you can set a property for both the control points and the curves that are bound by two control points. IOW, you could add a few control points to a polygon shape with 22 sides and looks like a circle, make these segments straight path segments, and then pull them out of the general polygon shape with the Shape tool so you have a drawing of a gear, which presently requires several Boolean steps to get the outer path looking right, plus a couple of moves with the Blend tool.

More intuitive new tools would add weight to the claim that Xara is the world's fastest drawing program, not just because tight code, but because you have the tools people have been asking for, for years.

Me? If something is not do-able, I'd appreciate a comment addressing my request just as you did by a programmer, that says, "No can do" and I'll shut up about the request in the future.

Thanks!

Gary

[Sadler]

Since Hsu coined the term in 1993, perhaps the patent on Skeletal Strokes expired last year.

[Gare]

Could be good news for anyone who likes this feature!

Thanks for the heads-up Sadler!

-g