Washishu

Maybe so. There are a lot of others who found it just as frustrating as I did at the start, so, yeah, maybe they did change it and just forgot to tell us. Thanks for your time anyway.

Dave, hello again. No I'm not v2. I'm producing stuff only for my personal use and v1 suffices for that. I don't think I use AD often enough that I need to consider updating. I've discovered how to make it work now, I am content at last. But out of general interest; 1. is my starting point. 2. the crop—I can get this easily by drag/dropping as your sheet shows. 3. Is what I have to do to get the clipping. Any further to the left and I'm back to the crop in 2 again.

I've not looked here for a while. I had no success whatever with using a vector shape to clip a photo image; just couldn't find that magic single pixel to hover over to make it work. I gave up on it and resorted to cropping the image(s) in P'shop and placing the crop. And then one day— I found by chance that it is the horizontal movement that matters; I drag the image to the right side—the far right side—of the vector layer and I get a photo image clipped by the vector object. But I don’t see the blue bar under the layer as you indicate. True, it doesn’t extend all the way under the thumbnail as with a move, but it does extend part way under it—about half way under. If I make the exact same move you illustrate in no.3, it doesn’t work. Moving the cursor up, down and around below the centreline as indicated by your red arrow and green box, I can achieve only no2, a crop or no.5, a move. No-one else appears to have experienced this so I wondered if I have something switched on or off in the preferences, something like Clipping mask only works when cursor is at the right side of the panel and not as directed in Dave Vector's crib sheet, but I can’t find anything like that. What’s going on I wonder? I don’t really care, now that I know how my version appears to be different from others and that I have to move the cursor to the far right, but I am curious and wondering what else might be different.

I find these comments around old v. new technology to be very interesting. After serving an apprenticeship as a compositor, I made the decision to move into graphics, in the main because I found it more interesting and exciting, but also because by that time it was evident that letterpress was a dying technology and litho was the new-and-improved process and comps would need to find something else to do. Producing artwork from film-set material (or the old IBM golfball) and Letraset, allowed layouts that I could not have achieved with metal. Digital type took this even further and whilst I admire the structure and formality of, for example, the Swiss typographers, or Jan Tschichold, I also find the typo-chaos of Chris Ashworth and David Carson immensely exciting. I love the questioning—who says that you can’t have negative leading, or that you can’t set text in caps? Once, on a visit to Atlanta, I remember standing at a newsstand browsing the multitude of unfamiliar magazines. Two cool dudes stood nearby and one picked up a copy of RayGun and sung it’s praises to his friend, “It’s terrific. You can’t read a word of it but it’s brilliant”. With my early experiences of DTP/digital graphics, I recall being both amazed and tremendously excited that I could, in minutes, with a beige-coloured box on my desk, produce artwork that would in the past have taken the labours of three or four skilled craftsmen (or women), labouring for hours perhaps. And artwork that they could never have produced at all too.

I had a query—a gripe even—about Leading override and I did what I’m supposed to do and searched first. Wow. Jackamus my man!! I’m with you all the way. I understand your confusion. And I know exactly what you mean by ‘body size’. The size of the type body as it has been used for almost half a millennium. The depth, top-to-bottom, of the type character of any individual point size. The ascender-to-descender measurement, plus a notional allowance to prevent ascenders/descenders touching when the type is set solid. Solid = type set with no leading. Sometimes, for convenience, type would be cast with, for example, 12pt matrices (12pt Helvetica for example) but the 12pt mould would be replaced with (say) the 14pt mould. The result being type that is 12pt but on a 14pt body, or 12/14pt. This would obviate the need for the compositor to ‘lead’ the type manually. I’m ok with, say, 12pt solid (12pt type, no leading) being expressed as 12pt leading. I understand why that is done—it’s not my preference but I’ve become accustomed. But it’s not 12pt leading. Twelve point type with 12pt leading would be lines of 12pt type with a 12pt lead between each line (24pts baseline to baseline). I liked QuarkXpress because—maybe because it was one of the earlier DTP systems —they chose to follow custom and terminology as far as possible so’s not to alienate their potential users. I'm completely baffled as to why I would want to ‘override’ the leading on a piece of typesetting. In the olden days, when we wanted, for example, a piece of typesetting to have 3pt leading instead of 2pt leading, we would take out the 2pt leads and replace them with 3pt leads. We called this changing the leading; we didn’t call it overriding the leading because that’s not what it was; it was changing the existing leading for a different value. And putting the default value in square brackets in one palette and parenths in another just seems to be saying ’that’ll confuse the b***ers’. And like Jackamus I want to decide what leading I want not the fount designer, and definitely not the software designer. I’m ok with the leading being in the Paragraph palette—it’s not the way I’d prefer it but I can cope. I would prefer that ‘Leading’ meant leading, not point size plus leading; and as Jackamus and others have said, for convenience 12pt type with 2pt leading would be written as 12/14pt. A typographer/typesetter would know immediately what that meant. In DTP terms then, I would select 12pt from the type size menu and 2pt from the leading menu. That’s the way I would prefer it but I don’t get my preference and I’ve adjusted to that. I’m even ok with the standard point becoming 72 to the inch rather than it’s traditional value which if my failing memory serves was slightly less than 72 to the inch. And this refers to the point system in use in the UK; other point systems were available. But I repeat, I don’t understand why I might want to override the leading rather than just to change it? I have to play around everytime and hope I get what I want, never being 100% sure that I have.

I don’t want to sound like an Illustrator complainer, I really don’t. I made the decision to leave AI behind and embrace AffDes and I’m content with that—there’s no going back. There are a few features that I still feel I prefer the AI way, but there are many features that I much prefer in AffDes. However—yes there is a however—after working through the unfamiliar interface period, there are still some aspects that I find very puzzling. Getting to grips with a new interface and software is largely about trying to tune in to the logic that underlies it. Here’s where I have difficulty with the Layers palette. I just cannot figure the logic behind it and therefore, when I want to perform some action that I’ve not done before, it’s sometimes a matter of many minutes of trial and error, rather than a logical thought process—if I do this, then I’ll be able to… This stalls my learning process very considerably; I might get the result I want but I’m not sure what I did to get it. The concept of Layers it seems logical to me, is as layers, i.e. they are akin to veneers or skins successively laid one on the other. A group is not a layer; a group exists on a layer. So why, when I group all objects on (for example) layer 3, does it become a group and the layer (3) disappears? It doesn’t make sense. I can’t create a new layer and then move an existing object onto that layer. It seems that I must first either create some temporary object on the new layer, move the desired object onto the layer, then delete the temporary object. Or I must cut/paste the object onto the new layer. I can’t just move the object from Layer 1 onto Layer 2 if Layer 2 is currently empty. I can’t change the fill/stroke properties of a group (or all objects on a layer) by selecting the group (or layer). I have to select each individual object within the group. This is very time-consuming when I want to add a new stroke to all objects within the group (or layer), as I did recently. There is no indication in the Layers palette of what is currently selected. I click a layer; all objects on that layer are selected. I want to shift-deselect certain objects; there is no indication that I’ve deselected the right ones. Clicking on a layer—to make it the active layer—should not select everything on the layer. Because you can’t shift-deselect objects from this selection—or, more accurately it some circumstances you can’t but in others it seems you can. I have yet to establish what those circumstances might be. It’s possible to delete locked objects—makes no sense; it’s not locked if I can delete it. Can’t add a new stroke to a type object—or the group after converting to curves Deleting an object does not mean that I want to select the object below, or the object I previously created, I’m not sure which. All it means is that I want to delete that object. So before I buy the new Designer, I’d like to know if some of these peculiarities have been attended to and possibly revised. I’m far less concerned about new features; the current version satisfies most of my needs—although I would welcome the introduction of something that performs the same function as the Blend tool. And I repeat, I don’t want to sound like an Illustrator complainer. I just want to understand.

Well Done Garry. The first document was 72dpi, the last res. setting I used and I just accepted it without thinking about it. The later document I obviously had something in mind—probably that I was going to print the docs so higher res. would be better—and I changed the res. setting. Didn't think about the difference. I'm accustomed to the notion of vector being resolution independent—I don't recall this being necessary in the olden days (with AI).

I’ve made a digital mock-up of a picture frame. To create the wood grain effect I used a filled rectangle underneath a ‘pencil’ brush clipped (or cropped: I still haven’t memorised the difference in AD) with a duplicate of the rectangle. It works satisfactorily. However, copy–pasting the frame into a second document resulted in the stroke properties being altered. It’s not disastrous but I’m curious as to why this happened. The first shot is the original, the second is the pasted copy.

I don't know this for 100% certain but I have a suspicion that it might something to do with the direction you are drawing the line in. Try drawing a simple line from left to right and then right to left. This should show if there is any difference.

Thanks for that info. Mick. I wasn't aware of that. Seems like a major issue that would need dealing with. After all, some form of 'scale-to-fit' has been a feature of every single software application I can recall having experience of—and certainly all the ones I have now. Now that I know, I shall do the same.

I recently decided to establish the print area of my desktop printer when printing from Desgner. I created a simple A4 image extending the full length and width of A4. Although a relatively new user, I'm sure I must have printed from Designer before, but I have never studied the print dialogue closely. I printed my test file at each of the three scaling options: Scale (with the scale shown as 100%); Fit to printable; and Shrink to printable. Excluding very small differences (0.5mm) which might be attributed to movement of the paper during transport or the fact that this is not a precision-engineered device, there is no difference at all between these three settings. I would expect the 100% image to be cropped—which it was, giving left/top/right/bottom margins of 2mm, 2mm, 4mm, 14mm respectively. And the image depth was cropped to 281 mm, the width to 204 mm. I would expect Fit to printable area to scale the image to fit within these margins. There was no visible or measurable scaling of the image—bar the small differences mentioned, it was exactly the same. I'm not sure what I would expect from Shrink to printable that would be different from Fit to printable. And there wasn't any—this also gave exactly the same result as the first print. So the point of the three different settings is…?

Ahaa…I see. The difference (I would argue) is so slight that it is—and until now has been by me—very easily missed. Thanks. I can now use the Layers palette with renewed, if still slightly frustrated, confidence.

Thanks for a prompt reply Walt. My point exactly; how far is too far? One centimetre? Two? One point six three four? I can't do vids of the screen. My frustration (to date; I repeat, eventually I'm sure I'll become accustomed), is that it's hit-and-miss much of the time and I waste time trying to get what I want from it. I think AD is, in some ways, much better then AI, but that Layers palette is not one of them.

As far as the user is concerned I struggle to see any difference here. I'm one of those people who don't care how the thing works, just as long as it keeps on keeping on. It may be that any layer is, for a software developer (which is what I think underlies your point(?)), no more than a convenience for the benefit of the user. But as a user, it's a layer; there are things I can do with and to a layer that I can't do to a straightforward object and vice-versa. Also, because those first objects are 'layer-less' (because I still forget that if I want one I have to create it first), they clutter up the palette and I later (when I remember) have to spend time organising them. It seems an unnecessary complication that has no value to me as a user. I will, with enough practice, become accustomed to the concept, but I doubt I'll ever prefer it.

Walt, hello. It’s a matter of opinion, clearly, but my own is that having this—what I still maintain is a too precise—positioning of the cursor in something used so extensively as the layers palette is irritating. I repeat, yet again, I don’t want to sound like a wish I could still afford to use Illustrator moaner, and I’m willing to tolerate the inevitable frustrations in learning a new software and software interface, however, I’ve just done a wee experiment and put together the following. In the example, I want to move the 7x7 test image from the Images layer up to the frame layer. • 1. I drag it and drop it to the left of the frame layer thumbnail; as I do this I get a blue bar beneath the target layer. The 7x7 test image goes between the frame and the images layers. • 2. I drag and drop the 7x7 test image directly onto the frame layer thumbnail; as I do this I get a blue bar to the right of the thumbnail. The result is a cropping or clipping mask (I’m still not sure of the exact difference in AD-speak). • 3. I drag 7x7 test image and drop it to the right of the frame layer thumbnail; as I do this I get a blue bar beneath the frame layer. It appears no different to 1. above and the result is the same as 1. above.