Proposal: Draw

I note we have a ‘Paint’ proposal, so following comments I made on the ‘code review’ section about potential uses for Draw, I thought I should draft some Draw proposals:

- Choices… iconbar option.
The ROL implementation offers sensible options to choose the default paper limits, grid on/off, grid colour, etc etc.

- Menu reconfiguration:
The current Draw menu structure is not very ‘RISC OS’ like (or rather hasn’t moved with the times). Unhelpfully the first menu item is ‘Misc’. The ROL version goes some way but does not fully consider the consistency with other applications or desktop (such as Filer and Pinboard).
Proposal: ‘File’ as the top menu option. The second option would be the current object menu. Consistent with filer, this would say ‘Path’, ‘Text’, ‘Group’, ‘Image’, ‘Selection’, or be greyed according to the object. The context-sensitive menu if you Menu click when you have right-clicked a path would move to the ‘Path’ menu. Front/Back/Group/Ungroup would all be applicable items for these menus.
‘Edit’ as the third. This would have select all / clear selection / copy (duplicate is better to avoid confusion with ‘copy’ / ‘paste’). In the presence of universal copy and paste, these would go here.
‘Style’. Menu options are overused in the submenu. This should be a subwindow with combo boxes.
The aim would be to have a menu structure consistent with newer applications / filer / pinboard.
- Support for named group items (object 6) in the UI.
- Support for clip to path in the UI.
- Support for alpha transparency in the rendering interface and in the UI.
- Paint and Draw should have consistent toolbox implementations (free-floating, or attached, or attached but detachable). Personally – I prefer Draw’s or a detachable toolbox. YMMV. A consistent approach should be seen between applications however.

The only thing I’d want is anti-aliased rendering. That should benefit other apps too, such as browsers or PDF viewers. For the rest, I’m content to use ArtWorks.

Michael: Is that not the equivalent of: “I see you have turbocharged that Ford Fiesta. I’ll stick to my Rolls Royce” ;-)?

Regarding Draw I had also some wishes which are not necassarily a competition eg to ArtWorks.

In my opinion it would be nice if Draw would allow dynamical expansion with menu and handling for special Draw objects. You have always to make workarounds like using special named groups in case you want to use Draw as an editor for special purposes. I have two examples:

1. During my study I wrote a program called polygon placer allowing you automatically arranging of polygons on a polygon/rectangle try to minimize the waste. The program itself runs in a taskwindow, However it would be nice to have a simple editor to mark the polygons with attributes.
2. Think of home automation where showing lights, open windows etc. in accordance to some sensors. The direct control and display could be handled simple by using the inbuild RISC OS drawfile routines. But writing an editor to add some attributes to the draw file is quite timeconsuming. It would be nice to have the ability to expand draw easily for such purposes.

Is DrawWorks still maintained? My copy is dated 2007, version 2.63. As far as I knew it is not maintained any more.

Still listed as on sale via APDL who rehomed the web site (people with an aversion to violent colour combinations and irritating animations please avoid: http://www.apdl.co.uk/isv/dwxl.htm )

If it is not still maintained I see no issue with implementing competing features, if it is still being maintained would be nice to know.

Spirit of competition and all that. I suspect the income derived by Dave Holden from the current sales wouldn’t keep him in biscuits.

Well it is good to know that there is a newer version available. And as it is still a viable product I guess we do not wish to compete.

Look closer, with dark glasses, the version number listed appears to be 2.63 so probably no development since the version you have.

Provision of a budget level¹ art program would be useful, Artworks is holding the top level niche at the moment.

¹ Built in therefore free

Spirit of competition and all that.

Is this the Morally Acceptable definition, or the Microsoft definition? ;-)

Is this the Morally Acceptable definition, or the Microsoft definition? ;-)

MS version = announce something better than competition with extra features as a cheap/free update.
Deliver less than announced, late, and chargeable but the competition died due to sales dropoff due to FUD.

The offering needs to be good but not as good as Artworks, bring the customers in and then point them at the Wurthner emporium.