The Evolution of Trim, Intersect, and Weld

You probably are already aware of this triad of commands that looks at overlapping objects and causes one object to affect another. In the past, these three commands would only work on individual objects; now you can trim into, find the intersection of, and weld together groups of objects. Chapter 11 is devoted to these three tools.

Select All Grows Up, Too

We hope this will be seen as an improvement. The command Edit Ø Select All gives you three choices: Objects (i.e., truly all), Text (all text objects), or Guidelines (which are now treated as objects). This is very handy in special circumstances; otherwise, it costs you an extra keystroke or mouse action to choose Objects. Advanced users ran right to Customize to create a hotkey or special icon for the traditional Select All command; in DRAW 9, Select All inherits Ctrl+A, and a fourth choice is added to Select All to select all nodes in an object.

Objects Can Be Locked

Mentioned earlier with reference to guidelines, any selected object can be made untouchable, even if the layer it resides on is editable. You lock an object from the Object Manager’s context menu, or from the Arrange menu.

Witnessing the Move

If you want more detail as you move objects, version 8 can supply it. Click on an object and move it quickly—the action is the same as with previous versions. Click, pause, and then move, and the object displays in full color as it moves. You can disable the moving display of complex objects (textures, bitmaps, lenses, blends with many steps, etc.) from the Properties sheet of the Pick tool.

Filling Open Paths

With version 8, you can fill the interior of an object that is not closed. Why would you want to do this? We haven’t a clue, but we’re sure that somewhere, there is someone who has found some reason to do this. Figure 2.9 shows two examples of this, one plain and one dramatic. The top-left object is a square that is missing one of its corners. By all known laws of DRAW, this object cannot be filled...unless you first visit an impossible-to-find option (buried in Tools Ø Options Ø Document Ø General Ø Fill Open Curves) and check it. Once done, you can produce the top-right graphic—an object that is filled, even though not closed.

The lower image is even more logic-defying, as it is not at all clear which is the inside and which is the outside.

FIGURE 2.9  Don’t stop the presses, but DRAW 8 can fill an object that isn’t closed.

Text Features

Improvements and additions to DRAW’s text handling abilities are few but significant. We count five new features, all but one of them likely to be helpful to your creative abilities or your workflow. See Chapters 8, 9, and 10 for our lengthy discussions on text creation, formatting, and manipulation.

In-Line Graphics

Your desktop publishing software can take a graphic and attach it to the flow of text; now DRAW can, too. Anything that is in the Clipboard can be pasted to the current cursor position. Figure 2.10 shows one light-hearted application for it, and you’ll notice that this isn’t just single-color line art. Full-color graphics and even photos can be inserted into artistic text strings and paragraph text frames. Once done, the graphic can be selected, sized, and even kerned, just like text.

FIGURE 2.10  In version 8, anything can be inserted into the flow of the text, even full-color graphics and photos.

Automatic Text-Fitting

Another text feature that promises to be one of our favorites, this new command will resize the text within a frame so that all of the text fits. Figure 2.11 shows the simple dynamic, as the frame on the left does not contain all of the text that has been flowed into it (as evidenced by the little downward-pointing triangle at the bottom selection handle). But the one on the right has been set to Fit Text to Frame, and has had its text automatically sized down.

Two points of interest with this feature: (1) if you type more text into a fitted frame, you will have to reissue the Fit Text to Frame command; and (2) you can use this command in the opposite direction and instruct the text to be expanded to fill out the frame.

Easier Cursor Placement

One small but annoying flaw was corrected in version 8 that seems to make all the difference in the world to the text-editing process. To begin typing into a frame or string of text, you can double-click to place an editing cursor. You no longer have to press F8 or click the Text tool in the toolbox.

FIGURE 2.11  No more copy-fitting with DRAW 8. You can instruct a frame to force-fit its text.

Complex Text Linking

When Corel demo-meisters showed this feature, everyone oohed and aahed...while we shrugged our shoulders. You be the judge: Figure 2.12 shows two new capabilities of DRAW 8. The first is that the middle text looks like a conventional string of artistic text being fitted to a line. Actually, it is paragraph text. The second new item is that all three pieces of text are linked and flowing dynamically between the normal frame at the top, the text fitted to the line in the middle, and the frame shaped like an ellipse.

We are impressed with the technology, but where’s the beef? Last edition we asked, “Please tell us, is this a feature that you think you might ever use?” We received exactly zero responses.

Internet-Specific Features

No question that DRAW 8 was developed with one eye on the World Wide Web. Entire DRAW pages can now be exported as HTML pages, there is a more robust JPEG export, better downsampling of 24-bit images to GIF format, and built-in FTP access from within DRAW itself. Also, PHOTO-PAINT is much more mature in its facility for creating animated GIF images.

FIGURE 2.12  These three strings of text are all linked. Impressive? Definitely. Useful? Doubt it.

These features will be covered in depth in Part V with three chapters dedicated to the creation of graphics for the World Wide Web.

Font Navigator

Veteran DRAW users will remember a version of FontMinder that shipped with DRAW 5, much to the delight of all typeface enthusiasts. But Ares sold its fine typeface management program to Adobe the following year, and DRAW users had a lean season in the typeface management department. Meanwhile, the original developers of FontMinder went to work for Bitstream and produced FontNavigator, an evolution of FontMinder, a copy of which is included with the program. You would be hard-pressed to find a comparable typeface management utility.

Backgrounds

When you set up your page, you can ask to include a solid or a bitmap-tiled background. This is very handy for Web page developers, and you can determine whether the background will be included in any print jobs or export operations.

When All Is Said and Done...

The final piece of commentary to be made about DRAW 8 is the timing of its release. Many users pointed to the 18-month development cycle (stretched from 12 months) as the primary reason for the success of DRAW 7. The extra six months gave Corel engineers more time to solidify the product and it gave users time to prepare. By prepare, we mean emotionally—versions of DRAW tend to shellshock users with their annual assault. Corel returned to the 12-month cycle to release DRAW 8 at the end of 1997, and this did not sit well with many users. Summing up this sentiment was Rebecca Austin, a user from Chicago and loyal reader of these books. “Tell them to cool their jets,” she writes. “If Corel really wants to keep us happy, they should stop making us run around in circles all the time. I just upgraded from 5 to 7, and I’m having a hard enough time getting all my hardware to adjust to the new version. I certainly don’t want to (and won’t) go through all of this again in a few months.”

Austin has put her finger on the one point that DRAW users keep coming back to over and over again: they get overwhelmed with the constant upgrading and don’t feel as if they ever get quality time to truly learn any one version. Irrespective of the intrinsic value of version 8, Corel’s quick trigger-finger might cloud an otherwise positive impression that the program merits.

Otherwise, DRAW 8 should be seen as an evolutionary step, with some very significant productivity enhancements and a small handful of new features. Software continues to become more refined as the market matures, and version 8 is a clear indication of this thinking, with a streamlined interface, a central location for user settings, and a continual reliance on context-sensitivity to place the most important tools where they are most accessible.

CorelDRAW 9

If we had to choose one word to describe DRAW 9, it would be refined. This release is equal parts new features, redesigning, and problem-solving, and in all three departments, Corel seems to have kept a close focus on refinement of the finished product. As a result, we hold many aspects of this version in high regard.

One thing you won’t find in DRAW 9: lots of new effects. At least not in the conventional “Oh wow, gee whiz” sense. There is no new Squiggle effect or Node Discombobulator tool, and that suits us just fine. The improvements to this version are more subtle...and that suits us fine, too.