IM bugs & ideas
1 messages in this thread
Ben, some ideas/bugs re: Imagemaster.
-IDEA: Sometimes one has to try several values for a parameter slider
before the effect is satisfactory. This usually involves clicking
"Replace primary" to see the result, then pressing "u" or clicking
"undo" to delete the undesirable result and return to the original.
You then have to click your way through a few layers of menus to get
back to, say, the Radial Wave panel.
How about using the "a" key to bring up the control panel for
whatever operation was last selected? This would emulate the
well-engrained Deluxe Paint keystroke, and make it much easier to try
variations on the same function. Pressing "a" <"again"> would bring
up the Radial Wave controls directly.
-BUG: if you go back to the "Select rectangle by coordinates"
requester, you'll find values slightly different from those you
entered the last time.
-BUG: when you release the mouse after dragging a control point in the
Morph screen, the point end up one pixel northwest of where you
released the mouse.
-BUG: the line draw routine should work like the one in other paint
programs: if I drag out a line 100 pixels to the right and 1 pixel
up, DPaint will draw the "break" at the halfway point. This looks
natural. Imagemaster, however, waits until the last column before it
moves up one pixel, giving the impression of a purely horizontal
line… except for that lonely little pixel at the end. This is not
what an almost-horizontal line should look like; the breaks should be
equally distributed between the endpoints.
-IDEA: well, since my mention during Sunday night's CO seemed to come
out of the blue, here it is again, as an official suggestion: how
about a modifier key (like Shift) to be used when you're painting
(after the paint panel has disappeared and you're expected to draw a
solid or dotted freehand line); the key would serve as a "pen up/pen
down" modifier. This would allow someone to draw several brushstrokes
in one shot, without having to endure screen redraws. "You can turn
off auto-redraw", you say, and I agree. But even without that
annoyance, I still drop out of freehand mode, back into the paint
panel, as soon as I release the mouse button. I then have to click on
the Paint button in order to get back to my drawing and trace the
second brushstroke. Being able to draw several brushstrokes without
interruption would be helpful to those who try to treat Imagemaster
like a paint program.