[ANN] Taming Fills

[ANN] Taming Fills

Hi Subbu,

Thank you for your comments.

I was hoping you would notice my work and I would get
the kind of feedback you have given.

Now, I would like to know what you mean by them.

Can you draw me a picture of what your handles look
like?

My decision on four handles (an their current colors)
are a first pass. And I have found better ideas come
out of the woodwork in second and third passes.

I was mostly aiming on getting the functionality to
work on this pass.

The dismiss handle is technically surperfluous (you
can call up a halo and dismiss the handles that way).
By anchoring the last corner of the square it helps
visulization.

The brown anchor is the origin and serves as host to
the others.
 
The blue and yellow handle in their shifted version
are the unlimited actions.
They are complimetary.  

Blue scaleRotate is the analog of a polar
transformation (angle and radius)
and works as you describe the second handle to work.
 while
Yellow stretchReflect is the analog of a cartesian
transformation  ( scalling x and y  separately ). And
works like the yellow growth handle works on the halo.
Except my yellow handle allows for reflection.

The unshifted handles are constrained s.t. the blue
mimics its halo handle and the yellow can only scale
and reflect w/o changing the aspect ratio.  The yellow
halo handle behaves that way currently when it is
shifted. Except my yellow handle allows for
reflection.
 

My experience is that you want the handles to be
limited in their normal operation and unlimited in
special operation. That provides the user a choice not
to change invariants such as aspect ratio, in the case
of the yellow handle, or scale, in the case of the
blue.

My current thought is to substitute a checkbox for the
shift key. With both handles being either limited or
unlimited as the check box gets toggled.

I did add balloon help to the handles to indicate
their purpose. I think your comments show that neither
the shiftkey nor the balloon help is a good way to
convey that to the hands on user.  That's an insight
worth having too.

Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace



***
>subbukk subbukk at gmail.com
>Wed Aug 8 12:29:08 UTC 2007
>
>
>On Tuesday 07 August 2007 11:39 pm, Jerome Peace
wrote:
>> Solution: Have handles for the fill that allow
>> manipulation of all the parameters until the user
is
>> satisfied. Then allow the removal of those handles.
>Jerome,
>
>It is nice to be able to control the fills directly
through handles, but the
>handles are too many.

>A simple 'rubber band' with two handles (anchored and

>movable) is sufficient.

What do you mean by rubberband?

Circular gradient will need a ellipse with two
>orthogonal 'rubber band' lines.

Lost me here.  Where do the lines go and what do they
do thats different?

>
>Use a color dropper on a handle to change the color.

Ah but fills can be much more glorious than two
colors.  I was thinking of something like a slider
with multiple slides each one capable of defining an
new color on the ramp. And of course a midpoint or two
to add even more colors.


Drag anchored handle to
>change origin and moveable handle to scale and
rotate. Shift click on the
>rubber band to dismiss the handle. This would be
consistent with operations
on mixed curve and border width etc.

Shift-move on the blue handle does scale and rotate.  
But try shift-moving on the yellow. That is what it is
really there for.
And try it on a bitmapfill.

I can see the check box is really what’s needed.

I want to see what your rubberband looks like.

Thanks again for you help.

>
>Regards .. Subbu
***




       
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On Thursday 09 August 2007 6:49 am, Jerome Peace wrote:
> Can you draw me a picture of what your handles look
> like?
Attached. The handles show a circular fill from orange to blue. The two arms
are fixed at right angles always (like a T-square).

The origin can be picked and dropped. Shift click on origin to get a color
picker and a color panel. Pick and drop the color on any handle to change the
origin/second color.

The outer handles rotate (if dragged at right angles to their arms or
stretch/shrink if dragged along their arms. Shift drag to preserve aspect
ratio.

This type of control is simple and flexible. By changing the angle between the
arms, we can get linear (angle=0) and cylindrical (angle=180) styles. If the
arm is curvable, the gradient itself can be adjusted. By allowing more than
one handle on the arm, the gradient can accomodate more than one color.

Monsoon season is in full swing now. Direct fill will come in handy in
modeling clouds, rain drops and ripples :-).

Subbu