Plotter Tool Drags Item

Before the plotter tool did not have a way to let you know what item you clicked last. That was changed. Now if you hold the CTRL key down it while in plotter mode it will drop or pick up the item your placing. The item will follow the cursor. If the item is under 50x50 it's placed to the right of the cursor. If you have created any image grids you can plot items under 50x50 onto the grid. So the placement of the plotted item will let you know if it's able to be put on the grid. Items over 50x50 are way too big for image grids.

Also fixed an error with the cropper tool not moving it's indicator buttons.

I've been working on the back end practicing adding seed beads. Fixed some server side stuff and a couple reference problems.

The search and browse panels were changed to reposition side by side, and not hide the canvas when opened.

New Delete Process & loading errors fixed

I've finally got the delete system for deleting several items at one time in the drawer and search board. Seems to be working right. Send me an email if you find an error with this.

I also found the downloads for items were not starting correctly. Fixed that.
Then a couple days ago found a reference error in loading images grids. That should be fixed also.
Fixed loading from the adds page after the canvas has loaded.

Masking seems to be working great. But still needs a little more testing.

I wanted to start on as3 code today. But came up with another hair brain idea. I think I save it for January and continue on.

Be sure to update when prompted so you get all the fixes.

I have been working on the masking tool all week. It seems to work better. I also change the tile loader. It should load very quickly now. Also the images can now be masked with a tile as long as the mask has no inner tiles in it. If some of you are not sure what that means don't worry. I don't think anyone will go that far to use it. But it is possible.

So the brush is up. Now I want to put in a new panel to view and reload any images uploaded, At this time you can only save the image in a file. And if you delete it from the canvas it has no way of being viewed again.

So that will be this week I hope!

I have 3 servers now for the project. I'm still setting up craftboard.biz on the new server. I seem to be having trouble getting the dns names to work. So it's takiing me a while to get it back. It's been lower on the priority list, and wanted to get the new tools up first.

See ya next week!

New stuff and new server

Be sure to read the post below!
We also have a new server being setup for perlygates and for craftboard.biz.
Craftboard.biz is being setup today, so there has been some interuption there.
However perlygates is on an interim server. There should be no interuptions.
This server is hosted within our own offices. So users should get better service with less downtime. And easier management for admin.

New Stuff in the Tool Bar!

I've been soooo busy programming and not enouph blogging! So what have I been up to for the last 2 months? Well, the craft board has 3 more important tools. All of which took 2 months to write.
1. Image tool with cropping ability. You can now open your own images into the craftboard and use them to make the image grids described below. Or you can draw shapes and use the mask tool like a cutter to cut quilt shapes.
2. Image grid tool takes any image or shape pattern and turns it into color blocks. You can then use the plotter tool to plot items on the color blocks. It will fill in blocks of similar colors. You can contol how similar the colors can be. You can search for similar colors within a region, or within the whole image grid. This could be used for seedbead patterns or weave patterns.
3. NOT UPLOADED UNTIL OCT 11 or 12. The last tool I made is the brush tool. With this tool you have 3 different shapes you can brush with. It can have many purposes. For masks you can make shapes that are irregular.

Here is how the craftboard tools might be used together:
Let's say you want to draw a lucky 4 leaf clover for an applique design.
1. You could use the circle shape for making 4 circles and a square for the stem.
2. Then use the curve tool to draw the stem a little better.
3. Then use the brush tool to fill in the blank area between the curved lines and the stem.
4. Then select all the shapes you used to make the 4 leaf clover and open the clip tool.
5. Click the checkmark in the clip tool. This puts the pattern in the clipboard.
6. When it opens in the clipboard turn on the tile tool there.
7. This takes all the shapes you just made and keeps them together when you drag it back to the canvas.
Now you have a lucky clover on the canvas. Use it with the masking tool to cut patterns out of your own images or to create an image grid for seedbeads.

Fixed an error with opening a file with tiles. Before it would stop due to a mislinked reference.
I also made shapes change with multiple selections.
So if you select multiple shapes you can change the line of all selected items with lines.
I tried to make fonts load in a different way so there would be more fonts with less loading.
But that didn't work. It was a waste of 3 hours!

I'm going to make some files for sharing today while testing more.

While I'm writing I keep thinking of new ideas. But will never finish with as2 if I write them.
There have been several users signing up. We just need more people to report if they find errors.

So that's it for today.
Hope you're day is a good one.

Tricia

Version 2 is up an running!!!

I've been at it non stop for 2 months trying to make version 2 ready.
I've found and fixed quite a few errors. Please contact me with the lady bug if you find more.

The new version has icons for menu's instead of drop down menus.

Also I've completed the vesion 2 download. It's posted at http://perlygates.net/download.php

New features include resizable application window.
New carousel in the adds panel.
New menu for better panel viewing.
Tiles and clip loading is enhanced.
Selecting items can handle large selections now.
Opening files still takes awhile, but were working on new ideas for that.

Let me know what you think or share any ideas.