posted
Ok everyone...know is the chance to let me know what you are looking for in changes for the next Corel that would suit the sign industry. I have a program designer and a marketing geek from Corel coming to my office on Tuesday. They are wanting me to show how Corel is used in the Sign industry and what we want as a wish list. Know is the time to e-mail me what you would like or liked changed in the program.E-mail me at design@freshink.net
posted
Hi Doug...This is a GREAT opportunity for all of us Corel users. I hope you get lots of responses. I have already sent you a couple of suggestions.
------------------ 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
posted
How'z about an outline funtion like that in Flexi or such where you can call for an outline of .326 and get it instead ofgetting your outline then converting it then deleting what confuses you or what you don't want. I'v just been learning Corel myself for the last year and that's my beef.
------------------ 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?"
posted
Doug...I sent you an e-mail of a couple of suggestions..I guess some folks didn't read your whole post before responding! LOL
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?
------------------ 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
posted
I'll email Doug but also post here. I love reading what others wish Corel would do.
- 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. )
posted
Actually Donna...I only had 2 wishes...One was for the benefit of others...That CorelDraw come with plotter drivers for some of the more common cutters. That would allow folks who don't have Rolands to cut from Corel. The second wish was that there be a "script" or a function that would do simple "prisming" of letters in vector format for those occasions when I feel too lazy to do it manually myself.
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.
------------------ 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
posted
I would agree dave, that the drivers addition would be great.... with that one step corel would move to a complete sign making software package.
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
------------------ on chat T2
Gail & Dave NSW Australia
taurus@kooee.com.au
sumtimes ya just gota!
Posts: 794 | From: 552 O'Regans Creek Rd Toogoom Qld 4655 Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Drivers: YES YES YES! If they do that, I'll buy Corel 11, 12, AND 13 (that oughta cover me for a few months). The weed borders thing is cool, especially if you could draw boxes and bezier curves that had no outline but a certain curve thickness (kinda like the extrude tool).
posted
having trouble emailing at the moment so I'm posting and maybe someone would include this in their wishlist.
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.
------------------
'To be born once is natural, To be born twice, now that's a miracle. ------------------------------------- From the sometimes sunny south of Ireland,
posted
I'm not sure if this isn't already possible, but it might be very helpful to be able to save a mask from Photopaint, and import this into Corel as a vector. This could then be used as a very accurate cutline for bitmapped images that you wish to cut as a vignette....example: a hand holding a wineglass.
------------------ 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.
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
------------------ Jim Doggett Vice President Summa, Inc.
Seattle, WA USA jim@summusa.com
Posts: 500 | From: Sherman, TX USA | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
ron....co-cut is COREL. do you remember when corel 5 came out...it was minus the plotter engine, corel leased it to co -cut/euro-cut for 2 years. thats why cocuts big pitch was "it works seemlessly from inside corel"...because it was corel.....version 5 and 6 of corel draw will not cut to plotter. and doug...if your in tight with corel...tell them to come here.....if they are so interested in making corel a "sign maker freindly" program....they can learn a lot from checking in here......and maybe they can give a little support to the site....just a thought...
------------------ joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-944-5060 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND
Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I sent this via email, but for those interested in what people are asking for:
(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>-------
------------------ Bob Darnell London, Ontario, Canada
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
------------------ Jim Doggett Vice President Summa, Inc.
Seattle, WA USA jim@summusa.com
[This message has been edited by Jim Doggett (edited July 13, 2001).]
Posts: 500 | From: Sherman, TX USA | Registered: Mar 2000
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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!)
posted
I use both Co-Cut and Eurovector which does a good job scanning/tracing (much better than Coreltrace). Since it is the only program I have "known" for my sign business I think it works just fine. I did have a bunch of problems with the scanning/tracing taking forever but the eurovector seems to have sped up the process quite a bit. My 2 cents.
------------------ Brian Diver PDQ Signs Everett, Wa
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