Doug Downey
www.freshink.net
Corel certified user!
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Freshink Creative Design Group
376 Romeo, Street
Stratford, ON N5A 4T9
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Dave Grundy
AKA "applicator" on mIRC
"stickin' sticky stuff to valuable vessels and vehicles!"
in Granton, Ontario, Canada
1-519-225-2634
dave.grundy@quadro.net
www.quadro.net/~shirley
Vector amount Control for Contour as in corel ocr-trace.
Layered Color Graphics interpretation
Maybe these are already incorporated into 9+
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Ron Percell
Percell Signs
707-769-0639
Petaluma, California
percell@percellsigns.com
Percell Signs Web Site
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Corey Wine
signCONCEPTS
Airdrie, Alberta, Canada
The ex-Californian Canadian
signconcepts1@home.com
"I cooked a meatloaf recipe that I downloaded off of the internet. A day later, I got a stomach VIRUS....Coincidence?"
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Stein Sæther
GullSkilt AS
Trondheim
Doug
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Freshink Creative Design Group
376 Romeo, Street
Stratford, ON N5A 4T9
I keep that darn book next to my head while I sleep and it is still not sinking in!..
Would love to see some shock pulse brain sensitive pads for quicker absorption for us dummies!
Drmwvr
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Robert Beverly
Dreamweaver Graphics House
Arlington, Texas
"Dreams come a size too big so that we can grow into them"
But.... it made me look back at you original post too..would you also like to recieve a couple of Corel files of how I set things up to create "cuttable" vinyl graphics?
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Dave Grundy
AKA "applicator" on mIRC
"stickin' sticky stuff to valuable vessels and vehicles!"
in Granton, Ontario, Canada
1-519-225-2634
dave.grundy@quadro.net
www.quadro.net/~shirley
- to have some kind of real cutting program to purchase (I don't like messing with adding outlines, no fill, etc. Too many steps. I adore all the features in Signlab for cutting, but cutting and pasting from corel into lab is a step I could do without)
- to quit changing font names with new versions. Just add new ones.
- to incorporate better quality outline/shadow features with way less nodes. They need to look at Signlab for this one. NO comparison.
- to quit changing the menus on where to find things. AGGRIVATING! I like the menus in Corel 8 best.
- to put the contour feature back into the EFFECTS menu. (I know I can do this myself, but if one reinstalls, this is alot of work tweeking things back. I don't have the time nor the will)
Email is on the way Doug. Thanks for asking us take part in this.
(P.S. - Dave, I'm dying to know what you requested. )
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Graphic Impact
Abbotsford, BC, Canada
gisigns@sprint.ca
As for the things others have mentioned here, most are available in Corel 9 and 10 and some have been available since version 1.
For example...Corey, If you use "contour" you can get a vector outline or inline that you can specify to 1/1000th of an inch. I found using the pen tool and then converting the pen outline to vector was a pain in the butt. (P.S. Version 9's "contour" DID suck big time but it has been reworked to the same setup as version 8 which was very accurate.)
Ron...In version 9 and 10 you can select your contour and use a sliding button to interactivly reduce the number of nodes in the contour, if that was what you were refering to.
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Dave Grundy
AKA "applicator" on mIRC
"stickin' sticky stuff to valuable vessels and vehicles!"
in Granton, Ontario, Canada
1-519-225-2634
dave.grundy@quadro.net
www.quadro.net/~shirley
I have used my own 'workspace' setup for a long time now which satisfies the 'where is it' problem that with each new version corel creates.
I have one drop down menu which holds all the most common sign related items, and i'd be lost without it.
The trace progie could still do with sum tweekin and version 10's plt export is a nightmare... have to keep ver9 in place to send out to the router.
But from the perspective of teaching this program to signmakers (as i do) the drivers are about it.
As a user... well what can i say, I want it all!!!
cheers
gail
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on chat T2
Gail & Dave
NSW Australia
taurus@kooee.com.au
sumtimes ya just gota!
Rock on Corel!
-shane
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Halo Graphics
Clearlake Oaks, CA
http://www.halographics.com
ntshane@halographics.com
you know the way when you use the option to radius a rectangle instead of a square. couldn't they have the choice of uniform radius corners or not. just one that comes to mind.
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'To be born once is natural, To be born twice, now that's a miracle.
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From the sometimes sunny south of Ireland,
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Ken Henry
Henry & Henry Signs
London, Ontario Canada
(519) 439-1881
e-mail kjmlhenry@home.
Some days you get to be the dog....other days, you get to be the fire hydrant.
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Freshink Creative Design Group
376 Romeo, Street
Stratford, ON N5A 4T9
No time for E-mails, print this string as our professional testimony
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Ron Percell
Percell Signs
707-769-0639
Petaluma, California
percell@percellsigns.com
Percell Signs Web Site
I can't say for sure with Photo-Paint 10, but 9 won't export a Selection/Mask as a vector. You're right; that's a huge hole, considering Adobe's been doing that for years.
I still use my trusty old Photoshop 3, which creates a Path from any selection. Then I just go to File > Export > Path to Illustrator. The AI file imports easily into CorelDRAW, is superbly accurate, and BEST OF ALL, node reduced.
Hands down, CorelDRAW is the best illustration program. But for bitmap editing, Photoshop is by far the best ... waaaaaaaaaaaay better than Photo-Paint.
IMHO,
Jim
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Jim Doggett
Vice President
Summa, Inc.
Seattle, WA USA
jim@summusa.com
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joe pribish-A SIGN MINT
2811 longleaf Dr.
pensacola, fl 32526
850-944-5060
BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND
(And keep in mind, incorporating all of the sign specific features and drivers into CorelDraw may not be as wonderful as you might think. There is already a feeling that "any joker with a computer and some cash" can get into this business. Well now those tools would be in the hands of a much, much larger audience automatically, resulting in a lot of new "signmakers" with maybe not the highest regard for quality. Perhaps. Perhaps not.) This is something that the high priced sign specific software probably tempers somewhat. Besides, I still love Signlab and I think it does everything it's supposed to very well and productively.)
-----<snip>-------
Ok Doug, here are a few things that I could think of that I have on occasion wished CorelDraw had:
(If they already exist in CorelDraw, I've never seen them - please let me know)
Multiple Guide Layers. Sometimes when I'm working on a complex drawing, I have a lot of guidelines all over, and I want to add more to another section. Well, the guides extend forever and often get in the way. It would be nice to be able to have mupltiple guide layers ( with different coloured guides) that you could change if they are visible or not, and also an option to make each guide layer snap-able or not. That way I could keep all of the guides in the file instead of deleting most of them as I go. I don't think that's possible now.
Numerical node movement. It would be a nice feature to be able to move nodes like you can move regular objects in the numerical position boxes on the property bar. So if I wanted to move a node over 1 1/2", I could type +1.5" in the x,y box. etc.
More CAD-like tools. Drawing arcs by a three point method comes to mind (similar to how the anglular dimension tool works). Also snap-to-midpoint of lines and curves would be really great too, even if there is no node at that particular midpoint. Also trim and extend functions for line drawing found in CAD applications. Some of those types of features are sort of half-implemented in CorelDraw now, but they are not quite the same thing. You can do many of these things manually in CorelDraw, but it would be an improvement to have these extra tools available for people who could use them. Also to put AREA, PERIMETER, LINE LENGTH (useful for determing length of angled lines) info in the perhaps the Object Info Docker.
This has sort of been mentioned, but I thought that I would clarify it. Colour layers. Orignally I thought that having a function that would put each colour used on it's own separate layer would be great for signmakers, but it would probably be too hard to incorporate into the program, given the way it handles layers now. But if they forgot about incorporating that into the actual layers CorelDraw uses, and created the ability to turn objects on or off based on colour right on the palette - it would have the same effect without confusing the current non-signmaking user base with more options. They might even find this useful. So basically, just like a well-known and dearly loved dedicated signmaking program, holding down the ALT key and clicking on a colour in the palette would hide all objects except objects with that colour, or holding down the CTRL key and clicking on a colour would hide only objects of that colour. (and back again)
Another nice thing would to have the ability to save presets for each of the effects. Of course, it would also be nice to have the ability to create Hotkeys for these presets, like I can for graphic and text styles. So for instance, one of my hot keys might be set up to instantly apply a lens with 3.0x magnication to a selected object. Another hotkey would apply a 1 1/2" inset border that I frequently use to illustrate frame extrusion. etc. Since I work in many different scales, that preset would have to adjust to which scale I'm in, so that it is always 1 1/2" in whichever scale I'm in. ---otherwise, that preset would be pretty much useless to me unless I happened to be in the scale that I originally created it.
-----<snip>-------
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Bob Darnell
London, Ontario, Canada
Portfolio: www.members.home.net/bob.darnell
Where I work: Excellent Signs and Displays Inc.
In politics it's often said that it doesn't matter what they say about you, just so long as they spell your name right ... no doubt Gary Condit hopes that's true. Oops, went OT 
Back on topic. I am super appreciative of the kind things that people have been saying about CoCut on this BB and elsewhere. But, I thought I should add that CoCut, the sign making plug-in for CorelDRAW made by Eurosystems, is spelled CoCut, not Co Cut or co-cut.
OK; I'll assume everyone is now wondering 'Why so %$#! A.R. Jim?! This is the web, where spelling doesn't matter!!' Please let me explain.
CoCut has been around a long time. It works with CorelDRAW like nothing else on the planet. And it has a vast, worldwide following. But not so long ago, a dealer began selling SignLab's ShortCut under the brand name Go-Cut, then Go Cut. ShortCut is a nice product, but it's a far cry from CoCut. Hence, I worry about any confusion and want to be sure that people mean CoCut when the say co cut or co-cut.
Are we all talking about the same product? What say ye?
Thanks,
Jim
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Jim Doggett
Vice President
Summa, Inc.
Seattle, WA USA
jim@summusa.com
[This message has been edited by Jim Doggett (edited July 13, 2001).]
Wondering if you can put any footnotes in this post about how the meeting went. How receptive was the information you provided received? I have read they are floating the idea of separating DRAW and PAINT into separate packages for the next release. Any talk of that? Also appears that they are reaching out, more than the past, to various market segments for some rather deep research. Did you get the same vibe? Any lose timeframes discussed?
An inquiring mind wants to know? (Or he just wants to be nosey!)
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For what it's worth
Bob Gilliland
The InKnowVative Group
Harrisburg, PA
717.564.7650
bgilliland@inknowvativegroup.com
"People who want milk shouldn't sit on a stool
in the middle of a field in the hopes that a
cow will back up to them"
Curtis Grant
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Brian Diver
PDQ Signs
Everett, Wa
(425) 252-6110
Brian@PDQ-Signs.com
www.PDQ-Signs.com
