X9-service pack 3 - Gradient Fill

[Joelle]

Installed the upgrade 3 last night and was eager to see how the Gradient Fill Tool now works.

I always edit with Window>Tabbed Windows un-ticked.

After Service Pack 3, I can no longer fill an image with the Gradient Fill Tool when in that mode .
I click on a new image to Fill it, nothing happens.
I then double-click on the title bar to open the image in it's own window and the fill (that didn't show) now shows.
I can then go back to my normal way of editing and the fill will show, but it's a lot of clicking.
Very annoying. Does anyone else see this>

I like the new Opacity Stop that has been added, but using the Gradient Fill Tool is very hit and miss.

Joëlle

After more investigating: The Gradient Fill Tool only works if dragged!

[DaveQ]

Agreed...it has to be dragged.

[Joelle]

Not very intuitive, is it. A fill is a fill, not a drag, although in this case it IS a drag

Joëlle

[Cassel]

In a way, i wonder if it is not by design.

If you just want to fill with a gradient as is from the material palette, you can use the old Fill tool.

if you want the flexibility of adjusting the gradient, using the Gradient Fill, then you need to tell it what angle you want (since you don't want the one from the Material palette), in which case, you have to drag it to "create" a line to identify an angle. No?

[Joelle]

The concept is good, but it's fiddly. and the drag is likely by design.
I have to admit that I prefer using Xara for a lot of these things, text,the Heal tool, gradients, blending with transparency anywhere you want it etc is a lot easier there.
Every time we see an announcement of something 'new' it turns out to be a bit of a hit & miss affair

Joëlle

[JoeB]

Cassel is correct, it is by design. On Corel's site the brief description of the new Gradient Fill tool says that you move the nodes to achieve your desired effect. The video tutorial about the tool is pretty good at showing how to effectively use it. The idea isn't to just fill an area with a specific gradient but to be able to fill different parts of the gradient with different colors by simply grabbing the colors from swatches and placing them where you want, and then using the nodes to easily adjust each part of the gradient, adjust the angle, etc, and do it all in real time on the image so that you can see the effects immediately. It seems to me to be quite useful for those who use gradients a lot and want to be able to make fast, easy color and other changes to a gradient and see the effect in real time. I've always found the Gradient selection window to be a PITA.

[Joelle]

It's not something that I use daily, thank goodness

Joëlle