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Version 3.1

May 4 2009

New Tools
Gestures for Glass Trackpads

EazyDraw Version 3.1 released May 4, 2009

Major Revision, new tools for Corners, Bind Group, and Clear Color (instant alpha). Full support for Gestures on the new Glass Trackpad notebooks. For OS X and iPhone developers, this version is now operational on Snow Leopard.

Reviews by macobserver and David Karlins of MacWorld (4 mice!)

Our Jay Pedracine (second from left in team EazyDraw photo, below) hooked up with John Martellaro of the Mac Observer at Macworld. John defines EazyDraw as Best of Breed . Check out other reviews: Media Reviews .

Additions Pack (PDF Manual, Libraries, and Tutorials)

Now Includes WebColorPicker

The EazyDraw Additions Pack is available for $15, one year subscription. It includes the read along users manual (350 pages) in PDF form, EazyDraw libraries, topic specific tutorials, and example drawings. Go to the Additions Pack web page to learn more about this addition. Recently additions include Network Diagraming Libraries and fully native EazyDraw Digital Vector Maps .



	The download is a disk image file (dmg), its size is 22 Meg.

Hot Topics

Web Color Picker

Pre Press

Network Diagrams

AppleWorks Import

Additions Pack

Ungroup PDF

Walls and Ribbons

Digital Maps

Claris Draw

	EazyDraw Exhibit, Macworld Expo, San Francisco, Jan. 2009.



	Thanks to the support of existing and new EazyDraw users we had a terrific expo at Macworld 2009. It was a great launch for Version 3.0. Above is a photo of the show staff; looking pretty good considering this was taken before show opening morning after the DJAM bash.
	Booth design: studiohammer of Chicago. Booth fabrication CKG Marketing Nashville. Photo Asa Mathat Photography San Francisco.

EazyDraw Version 3.1.0 ---- May 4, 2009

Major Revision. New Tool: Corners, Bind Group, Clear Color (Instant Alpha). Support for Gestures with new Glass Trackpad notebooks. Snow Leopard (OS X version 10.6 - developers only, pre-release) support - now fully operational on 10.6. Ability to set and manage a default text color. Improved stability on Tiger, OS X version 10.4. Numerous stability and performance improvements and enhancements.

Version 3.x Upgrade Policy And License Codes

EazyDraw version 3.x marks a major revision update from versions 1 and 2. Version 1.0 licenses will not work with this version. Version 2.0 licenses will fully enable EazyDraw Version 3.0 for a grace period extending to March 2010. Version 2.0 licenses naturally continue to work fully with Versions 2.x of EazyDraw. Those not interested in the purchase of an upgrade to Version 3.0 may want to continue to use EazyDraw version 2.7.0 available from the Support web page. Special upgrade pricing for Version 2 purchasers is found on the EazyDraw web site, the online store section near the bottom of the page.

Clear Color (technical term: Instant Alpha)

Added a new menu command for removing a background color of a bitmap image such as a digital photo. This is called "Instant Alpha" in Keynote, the new button in EazyDraw is called "Clear Color." The menu command is located on Format main menu, on the new Images submenu. Documentation is complete (in EazyDraw Help pages) for the new feature, search phrase "Clear Color". Those interested should review the Help pages. To use the command, select the target image, select the menu command, click on the area to be removed, drag out a control-indicator circle to expand the range of match colors and hence the areas to be cleared to transparent. The technique works with JPG, TIFF and other bitmap graphics. It works with both RGB and CMYK color models. It is rather CPU intensive, it is highly optimized and runs well on newer intel cpus. There is no tool for the new command on any of the existing tool panels; the Clear Color action does have a user customizable button for the main toolbar - use Customize toolbar to add the command button if desired.

Corner Tool (alternate form of Arc)

Added a new Corner Tool. It is found on the main tool panel about 2/3 the way down, on left. It replaces the orthogonal path tool which is still available on the Technical tool palette, near the top. The new tool provides a way to create an arc with a span of 90 degrees. This solves the issue that arrises when it is needed to connect two orthogonal lines with an arc or rounded corner. The other EazyDraw arc tool is quite flexible for creating arcs but is difficult to adjust in this situation where the two ends are easily positioned but the location of the center is not readily identified. The new tool is fully documented, use search phrase "corners" to research the capabilities. The corners have Smooth, Shape, and Round settings similar to the shaping available on the Transform menu. The Shift key will lock the "height and width" of the corner to provide a quadrant of a circle. The Command, Option, and Control keys change the shape and orientation of the corner as it is being created. The Corner graphics are fixed at a 90 degree span; they may be rotated to any orientation after creation. The Corner graphic responds to Guides snapping so it is easy to draw a corner between any two orthogonal lines, not just those with horizontal and vertical orientation.

Gestures with Glass Trackpads (new Mac Notebooks)

Full support is now provided for the new Glass Trackpad notebooks. Gestures for pan, rotate, and magnify are now integrated with EazyDraw. The EazyDraw preferences panel now has a new setup panel to personalize the use of Gestures with these new notebooks. The setup parameters provide a method to turn off Gestures completely or enable them for one or more of the supported actions. It is possible to adjust a trigger level for initiating gestures and enabling them independently for use in rotating graphics, zooming drawings, and scaling graphics. User preferences provide a means to adjust the "gain" of gesture motions to provide slower more precise control, or faster gesture response. The full support of gestures naturally corrects the problems that EazyDraw version 3.0.0 had with unanticipated gesture events. Documentation is complete, use search phrase "trackpad" for details on this new capability. NOTE: The new Gestures capability only applies to notebook's that have Gestures capability, at this time these are the MacBookPro, the Air and the MacBook's with Glass Trackpads. This addition to EazyDraw will not "add" gestures capability to other systems.

A new Bind Group

Added new form of Group, a Bind group. The distinguishing characteristic of a Bind group is that a resize or scaling will not resize the included graphics of the group. The positions of each graphic will change with a resize but the individual sizes do not. For example, if a "brick wall" is drawn with a number of individual rectangles representing the bricks as a Bind group resizing the Bind group will add space for the mortar between the bricks but each brick remains same size.

New Images Submenu

Changed the Grouping submenu, moving the ungroup pdf and ungroup PICT command to the new Images submenu. This provides better organization and was needed as the number of grouping actions have grown a bit since the early days of EazyDraw development. This then provides room to evolve new image and grouping capabilities.

Improved JPG support - smaller save file sizes

Changes were made in the manner that imported JPG images are saved in the EazyDraw native file formats (Graphic and Binary). Perviously EazyDraw always saved a TIFF representation of the imported image. An imported JPG with image compression would have a smaller (sometimes significantly) data representation compared to the full pixel-by-pixel TIF file format. This would cause an EazyDraw file to be much larger than the imported JPG (which may have been a very large file to begin with) image file. Now EazyDraw retains and saves the original JPG data, then the full TIFF image is reconstructed when the EazyDraw file is next opened. This approach requires more CPU memory which is not usually the major issue in this work flow. Bottom line - all works much better and file saves are much faster. All modifications to the image, such as a Clear - Color action are saved and re-applied to the JPG when the file is opened.

Default Text Color (and defaults for other text attributes)

Added support for default color for text and other text attributes such as bold or italic. Previously new text was always black with no applied attributes and no way to change the default text color or other attributes. Now text attributes behave in the same manner as other graphic attributes: if no text is selected a text style change is applied to the default settings for new text. There is a new color well at the bottom of the master Font panel (Text main menu); this controls the default text color or may be used to set the color of selected text (selected text, or selected text box).

More Convenient Ways to Add Text

Added another method to initiate text entry. Double Click on the drawing area will initiate a new text area and allow typing to begin. The other way to initiate text is to click the text tool and drag out an initial text box. Added Method: if the Text Tool is clicked and typing begins immediately (no click on the drawing area) a new text box is initiated at screen center with a nominal size derived from the visible area of the drawing, respecting zoom amount. These additions also corrected an error when typing would start with a single mouse click (no text box drawn), in this case the text box width would be very small and require formatting the size after typing and deselect of the text box. Now there is a viable 4 method to create a new text box, click the text tool, click the drawing and begin typing.

Improvements and Bug Fixes

Added a way to set the DPI (Dots Per Inch) for TIFF images copied to the system pasteboard. The main EazyDraw preferences panel, the Copy Paste Format section, now has a "Copy DPI" parameter. Nominal value is 72 DPI, don't use large values over about 300 DPI. You may need to test before using values other than 72 DPI as receiving applications are probably expecting 72 DPI. This parameter is needed primarily when working with the new Microsoft Office 2008 as this version no longer accepts Classic PICT data from the pasteboard, and has stability issues when provided PDF data (these reported issues will likely clear in the near future); thus one needs to copy TIFF but the increased resolution will be needed for better quality representation in the Microsoft application.

Added a few new presets to the drawing scales popup menu. The added settings are probably most useful for metric users.

Improved behavior of Flipping of Arcs and Math functions. Previously an Arc (or Pie shape) was converted to a basic Bezier path then flipped, thereby loosing the convenient arc controls. Now the Arc remains an Arc of a circle (or oval) with appropriately adjusted angle and axis settings. Previously several of the Math function curves (such as the Sine wave graphic) flipped in a mathematical sense rather than a geometrical transform. This would move the math function graphic in a manner different than other Bezier graphics, causing problems for groups containing the Math function curve. Each math function's performance under flip has been adjusted and tested to perform precisely in the geometrical sense thereby insuring consistent performance when included or nested in groups with other non-math graphics.

Corrected bug with Dimensions that were reporting Area and set to provide Alternate units. The Alternate unit value was scaled linearly and therefore did not report the proper scaled area.

Fixed problem entering size values for rotated images in the Graphic Details drawer. Previously the entered values interacted with the rotation angle of the image confusing the width and height values. All is correct now, width and height entries correspond to the "pre-rotation" dimensions of the image rather than the width and height of a bounding rectangle of the rotated image. This should be less confusing and is now internally consistent.

Fixed problem with Burst gradient fill. Crash was possible when adding a custom burst shape. All is corrected now.

Fixed possible problems dragging and dropping layers from one drawing to another. Checking for duplicate layer names was not working (problem introduced with EazyDraw version 3.0) which could lead to problems. Biggest issue was dropping a duplicate layer with the name Paper which would result in two of the key layers with the unique name Paper and it was not possible to change the name of either of the resulting layers with this reserved name. All fixed now.

Fixed problem duplicating grid graphics created with the grid tools found at the bottom of the Technical Tool palette. After duplicating the actual grid would not appear in the new copy, there would need to be a change or save and reload of the file to trigger drawing of the actual grid. This is now fixed, duplicating these graphics works normally.

Fixed problem with dimensions when used in complete user input mode, that is with Dimension Form set to Nothing. The problem happened when editing user text in the dimension panel, after typing each character the insertion point would jump to the end of the text, making new entries tedious to type. This is now corrected.

Fixed problem with comment dimensions used in the user input mode (Dimension Form set to Nothing). Comment dimensions would persistently insert the report labels (for example, cX: cY:) these insertions should not be present when in full user input mode. They are now removed.

Toggling Italic and Bold text worked in an odd fashion when a few words of a text graphic had one of these traits, and if the trait was toggled for the full text graphic, the few words or phrases with the trait would toggle as well. The behavior is now changed, the toggle is based on the first character of the text graphic, then all text of the graphic is changed to the new toggled trait. The previous behavior would likely never be the goal of a toggle, the new behavior should provide the desired result with a single click in most cases.

Guide lines were present when exporting as PDF and other formats. Normally this is undesirable. Now guidelines are not printed when exporting unless the special purpose Guides layer is the active layer. This should provide the commonly needed output while leaving the ability to print guides with an output if desired.

Fixed possible problem saving AppleWorks imported files. These drawings could have trouble saving unless Page Setup was used to set a printer. Problem is now fixed, after import a default printer is automatically set to avoid save and open problems for the new EazyDraw drawing.

Corrected opening a file with a rare combination of orthogonal connector connected to a text box embedded as centered graphic in another graphic. This would cause the file to fail to load. Problem is corrected. .

Corrected problems with the text menu being update while typing and entering text. Previously the menu did not always get updated to reflect changes such as bold or other font style changes. Now it reflects the selection faithfully and is update with any of selection.

Corrected problem on the Paragraph panel, the numeric fields accepted new values with the Enter Key, but did not update with a Tab key change to the next text field . Entries now are accepted and updated on Enter, Tab or any other completion of editing of the individual fields.

Corrected a Tiger (OS X version 10.4.x) only issue that was introduced with the new on drawing layers and graphic details design. Drawing saved with both the layers and graphic details drawer open, and the drawing rulers showing, would open with a corrupted drawing window. The drawing window and EazyDraw were stable, no crash or data loss, but the drawing area would not display the drawing and would often have random broken images of other drawing window graphics. This is now corrected. To repeat this issue only was a problem on Tiger, Leopard (OS X version 10.5.x) users did not have this problem, it related to the numerous newer Leopard style drawing window components that must be simulated on Tiger.

Corrected problem with undo - of resize of the height of multiple graphics by way of numeric value entry on the Graphic Details drawer. The graphics would resize correctly but the undo would incorrectly change the width rather than the height of each graphic.

Corrected issues with rotated text that contains a gradient fill. The gradient was not drawing properly. This is now corrected, the gradient spins as expected with the text upon rotation.

Modified the Preferences Toolbar Colors popup menu. This menu is used to select the color palette for main toolbar color pickers. The menu now only presents solid colors. Previously the host of pattern colors provided with the normal EazyDraw installation were included. This could lead to confusion, hence the change. This menu had not been documented, a new documentation page for the EazyDraw Help system was added.

Corrected problem on Graphic Details drawer for Text - the size tab view. A Tab after entry of these values did not register the new value, and a simple change followed by a mouse click on another parameter or elsewhere on the drawing did not register the new value. Previously an explicit Enter was required to establish a new value for these parameters. The problem was also found on the Label text view. This is now corrected, these values now behave the same as other parameters on the Graphic details drawer.

Corrected problem flipping and rotating several graphics found on the Charting palette, when the graphic was embedded in a Group graphic. The flip or rotation would work correctly, but subsequent operations such as duplicate or copy and paste would have problems with the orientation of the Graphic. Most noticeable issues related to the symbols from the Electronics libraries that used narrow triangles.

Corrected problem exporting a Gradient added to a Text Box, when the gradient had an orientation. The exported orientation was not at the same angle. The gradient also did not display the correct size when the drawing zoom factor was not unity. All works correctly now.

Improved the AppleWorks import to properly handle Japanese fonts. The import now recognizes the Hiragino Kaku, Hiragino Maru and Hiragino Mincho families and two Osaka font families.

Improved AppleWorks import, added capability to identify AppleWorks files. Now the "cwk" extension is not required for EazyDraw to locate an AppleWorks classic OS drawing file. EazyDraw peaks in the file and identifies the exact binary structure.

Corrected behavior of the "Other" buttons found on the shortcut color, pattern, and gradient toolbar pull down menus. Previously these would toggle the corresponding full interface panel, resulting in closing the panel if it was open. This would not be the intended action. Now the button will bring the corresponding panel to the front of all panels as one would expect.

Corrected Problem sending multiple graphics to a new layer using the Layers popup menu found at the bottom of the Graphic Details drawer. This action would reverse the drawing order on the destination layer. Drawing order is now preserved properly.

Changed the behavior of Option Drag to duplicate, in the case of multiple layers that were enabled for selection and the situation where some of the original graphics are not on the Active Layer. Previously all new graphics were entered on the active drawing layer. Now the new graphics remain on the same layer as the individual original of each duplicate. In other words: Option drag holds to originating layers.

Fixed Tool Tip on the "hand" tool, Pan tool of main toolbar. It now reads: Move Tool, Option Key to Pan, Space Bar Pans With Arrow.

Fixed the Report Dimension when used with Orthogonal Paths having finite radii. There was a problem in that the Report Dimension did not enable and report a Radius. All is fixed. To use an automatic dimension for the a radius on an Orthogonal Radius Path (Technical Tools, top row, second Column): attach the report dimension to one of the virtual vertices of the path, use Dimensions Palette -> Report Popup menu to select "Radius".

Corrected rare problem that could occur when converting a graphic with contained text to Bezier path. The convert would fail and the selected graphics that were being converted would disappear. This situation is handled properly now.

Corrected import of ClarisDraw files using the "Rounded Ends" setting for rounded rectangles. This was not working in some cases in ClarisDraw files. It worked in all cases for AppleWorks import, so the bug did not affect the other classic mac imports, only ClarisDraw. All is correct now.

Corrected issue with "Option Drag" duplicate, from one layer to a new empty layer. Drawing order could transmute in this situation. Note that this was rather rare, "Select Others" needed to be in use and the destination layer needed to be empty. All corrected now.

Corrected issues flipping parallelograms horizontal and vertical. This was not working properly for the generalized parallelogram tool and for parallelograms drawn as rectangles with a Free Transform distortion. All corrected now. The generalized parallelogram is changed to a normal Bezier upon these two flips and the Free Transform version behaves properly for all flips and 90 degree rotations from the menus, the Arrange Palette, and directly from the Distort palette.

Fixed problem with Arc and Pie graphics related to the elliptical handles (light blue ones) with a non-zero elliptical axis for the degenerate case of a circle (both axes equal to 1.0). The center blue adjusting handle could get out of sync and cause problems. This would be initiated with setting the elliptical factors to unity in the graphic details drawer. This ill-defined state is now blocked and corresponding start and end angle values are compensated when this state would previously have initiated with a numeric entry. In short, all should work as expected now, in all cases.

Corrected problem with Page Stamps. Problem introduced with the new canvas margin capability of EazyDraw version 3.0.0. The page stamp was computation was not respecting the value for the canvas margin. So page stamps in lower right corners would be incorrect if the canvas margin was not zero. All is correct now.

Corrected issue with selecting graphics for the situation of smaller graphics inside larger graphics, when there is no fill applied to the enclosing larger graphic(s). The issue was introduced with EazyDraw version 3.0. The mouse down would select the larger enclosing graphic, which is often not desired. Problem is corrected and behavior is again as it was in previous versions of EazyDraw.

Corrected problem exporting bitmap formats of text with soft bitmap shadows. The shadows were omitted upon export, pdf export worked but formats such as png and tiff did not. All is correct now.

Corrected problem with dimensions of very small spacing. In some cases the dimension call out value (the numeric text) could disappear. This is now fixed.

Improved the user interface elements for specifying decimal (and fractional) precision. The changes are on the Dimension palette and the Graphic Details. This interface is now a contextual popup menu rather than a simple integer value. The popup menu presents decimal or fractional precision entries in accordance with display form (decimal or fraction). This will provide a clearer indication of the meaning of each selection.

Corrected problem flipping Orthogonal Path. The Flip commands (Horizontal, Vertical, rotate 90 degrees, ...) were distorting the path. All works correctly now.

Changed the polarity of the stepper on the Stellates palette. The up/down was backwards to the thinking of many users. It has had the same polarity since the beginning of EazyDraw but enough users have complained so it is now reversed. There is no real correct polarity, we'll see how many complaints this beta version generates and respond appropriately before the next release.

EazyDraw Version 3.0.0 ---- January 6, 2009

Drawers - Graphic Details and Layers

The Graphic Details Drawer and Layers Drawer have been redesigned in the style of a project or drawing manager. They are technically no longer drawers; they now appear on the drawing window proper making them less obtrusive and more inline with the OS X Leopard desktop design. In most respects they are used in the same way as in earlier versions of EazyDraw. The documentation still refers to them as "drawers." .

Editing Handles - Special Note for Previous Users

Previous users of EazyDraw will notice a new appearance for on screen graphic editing handles, they are now round and outlined with a few color changes as well. The "old style" look is readily available if this new look is somewhat unfamiliar and the EazyDraw version 2 look is preferred. See "User Interface Theme" discussion below. .

Updated Documentation

The documentation has been significantly revised. The written / pdf manual is updated to bring the documentation and illustrations current with the new Version 3 feature set. The new manual is available as a printed 370 page manual or in pdf format for electronic delivery. All Help pages were redesigned with updated illustrations and a new look for improved appearance and usability. .

Revised Icon Graphics

Application icons and buttons are updated to provide a more consistent and pleasing appearance on OS X version 10.5. Revisions were confined to style rather than the core basic look of the icons; this done to keep the transition minimal for existing version 2.x users. Nearly all user interface graphics are now provided in dual representation tiff format to provide best appearance and display resolution independence on newer displays and Snow Leopard. .

Faster Launch, Quit, and Improved Performance

Significant optimizations were added to improve performance and responsiveness of the application. These focused on situations for large drawings, in terms of graphic count, with numerous inspection palettes open. Users in this situation should notice a marked performance improvement. Another group of improvements relates to working with drawings containing a large amount of text. The complete revision and re-layout of the 375 page pdf manual was done as a single EazyDraw drawing. (The last revision of 2005 was done with each chapter as a single drawing). These optimizations allowed convenient responsive, reliable work on the full manual with several hundred graphics, nearly 400 pages and over 100,000 words as a single drawing. As a note: the pdf output from EazyDraw (on OS X version 10.5) went directly to the publisher's electronic prepress workflow, which happened to be a Windows based workflow, without the need an intervening application or cross platform translation. .

"Canvas" Style Page Layout

A new "canvass&uot; drawing page layout option is now available. This is the style many artists are familiar with from using other vector design applications. The active drawing area is centered on the drawing window, with an active "scratch" area available around the drawing borders. This mode is elected on the Page Layout panel, set a non-zero margin area to switch to this page layout option. The default setting remains a "top left" drawing area to avoid confusion for existing users. Documentation is complete for this option, use search phrase "drawing size" to study more. .

Floating Morph Panel

By popular demand, the "Morph" capability has been upgraded with a new floating dialog design. The Morph dialog control panel is no longer a "sheet" that pulls down from the top of the drawing window and closes after a morph command. Now the Morph dialog floats over the drawing and remains open until explicitly closed. This allows inspection of graphics as the morph command is setup and executed. Since the dialog remains open it is immediately available for another Morph command. The floating dialog is tied to the drawing window, it may be "parked" anywhere on the window, it will snap to edges and corners. It is designed to fit at the bottom of the Graphic Details drawer area which is often a free bit of drawing window real estate. .

Guides

A new guides capability featuring a special "Guides" layer. This feature set was requested by numerous Canvas users. Now a guide line may be added to a drawing by simply dragging from a ruler onto the drawing. This new capability is managed from the Guides palette. Documentation is complete user search phrase "guides layer" to learn more. .

User Interface Theme

New "User Interface Theme" capability is provided on the reworked Preferences panel. This provides a way to customize the appearance of numerous elements of the user interface. For example, the color and size of the editing handles may be changed; even the shape (round or square) are under user control. With version 3.0 the factory defaults have changed to round editing handles with a black outline. If the old (EazyDraw version 2) appearance is preferred, the preference panel has a selection to choose the the EazyDraw Version 2 settings rather than the new Factory settings. The UI Theme panel has a provision for saving named user interface themes, this allows different styles and selections that might be appropriate for different drawing activities to be switched quickly without the need of visiting each of the parameters individually. The style of tool and parameter palettes in Version 3.0 have been modernized a bit with a squarish flatter look; the UI Theme has a setting to use the older more standard OS X "chicklet" look which may be more appealing on OS X version 10.4. The new user interface theme customization capability is fully documented in the new Version 3.0 manual and the EazyDraw Help files - search phrase "user interface theme." .

Fillet and Chamfer

Added capability to construct fillet and chamfer joins. These are found on Tools main menu, they are added to the Combine submenu. These actions apply to a pair of straight ending graphics, the fillet is applies at the intersection of the graphics. Individual graphics with straight line vertices such as a rectangle or orthogonal path accept the commands as well. Documentation is complete, use search phrase "fillet and chamfer" to investigate the details of operation. Note that fillets may be applied to wall paths as well; .

Text Flow

It is now possible to have text flow around other graphics. This is enabled with a menu command now found on the Paragraph submenu of the Text main menu. When enabled, text is typeset around graphics that are to the front of the text (as in the Send Menu). Graphics behind the text do not impact typesetting. The flowing typesetting is live and will respond as either the text or the other graphics are moved or re-shaped. The text flow respects the filled state of graphics, if the graphic is not filled (solid color, gradient, or pattern) text will flow around the outline path of the graphic but not the "interior" of the graphic.

Text Links

Linking of text boxes is now supported. This is enabled with the Text Link menu command found on the Text main menu (3/4 of the way down). When enabled a selected text box has two new handles, light green with small arrows. These link handles are used to link one text box to another. Click and drag from one of the link handles to draw out a link path, connect the link path to another text box to create the text link. When linked text is typeset sequentially into all linked text boxes. As text is edited, or a text box is resized, the text content is re-typeset in the sequence of text boxes. Documentation is complete for this, use search phrase "text links" to study the full documentation. The text link is shown by a pseudo orthogonal connector, you cannot select this connector directly but if a linked text box is selected then the link path appears and may then be selected in the normal fashion. Use this sequence to select a text link for deletion, this is how a text link is removed. .

Rotated Text

A new rotation handle is now provided for Text Boxes. The rotation handle is the same color an appearance as the rotation handle for rotated rectangles and rotated ovals. Now one may rotate text with a click and drag of this handle, without reverting to use of the rotation tool. It works in the normal fashion, the shift key may be used as a modifier to lock the rotation angle at even degree increments. Editing of rotated text is now easier, simply double click on the rotated text box and an edit block (unrotated) is presented directly on the drawing. All of the other ways of rotating text are still available (such as converting to an Annotation), but now they will need to be executed explicitly.

Tabs With Leaders

A new full capability Tabs palette is now available. It is accessed from the Text Main menu, Paragraph submenu. Help documentation is complete, search phase: "tabs". Tab position, spacing, and alignment are all now available for user specification. Full capability Leader specification is provided including; solid dashed and dotted leader lines, arrows for leader lines, user shift specification, leader line weight (thickness), color, and alternating colors. Note that this rather detailed parameter palette requires a corresponding larger screen size. But it is designed for convenient use with Window Shade shortening, and/or the mini-palette form. If you are not familiar with the Window Shade or Mini-Form parameter palette features this would be a good candidate for learning the capability.

Text Insert

Inserted text now is typeset to follow the exact contour outline of the containing graphic. Previously the text was simply typeset in an interior rectangle. Now inserted text conforms to the shape of the host graphic. Centered Text is still typeset in a simple rectangle, which is centered at the geometric center of the graphic. The new "flow" behavior is not used for Centered Text, only Inserted Text.

Grammar and Expanded Spell Check

Improved Spell Checking, with Grammar support. The Spell check palette has several additions to provide a word count and indicators for checked and misspelling counts. New elements are provided more user control over a spell check session. Access is now provided to clean "learned" words from a dictionary. Grammar checking is only available on Leopard, not supported for Tiger (OS X version 10.4.x). The new capability is fully documented in the Help content, search phrase "spell check".

CMYK Support

CMYK color model conversion, managed with the popup found at the bottom of the Layers drawer, has been improved to properly work with images and text. The whole process of color space conversion is now more robust and should perform at a robust professional level. You can now precisely inspect a color by pausing the cursor over any color well, a tool tip popup will indicate the color space for the color and the numerical amount of each component. A color space conversion now operates on all text, it applies properly to the text and all text marks such as tab leaders, strike through, underline, and text drop shadow.

Improvements and Bug Fixes

The plus and minus keys now zoom in the exact same manner as "i" and "o". This was added for consistency with other older drawing applications.

Added another choice for "Move Image", the new choice is "Live Graphic". In this mode the actual graphic(s) are drawn on-screen during the interactive move process. This can add to cpu load, but responsiveness is negligible for less than a few 100 graphics in motion. The advantage of this mode is more accurate placement of the graphic. The normal move uses an image of the graphics in motion during the move then the actual graphic This can result in one or two pixel jumps of the moved image. Some users have complained about this jump, the new selection provides a precise solution to this problem. Factory Default behavior remains as in previous versions, users with this concern will need to overtly change the preference.

Import of MacDraw drawings is now supported. MacDrawII and MacDrawPro graphic file formats were supported with previous versions, but the original MacDraw version was not supported. Most early users of MacDraw upgraded to at least MacDrawII, hence most users required the MacDrawII import. There do remain isolated cases where requiring support for the revision zero version. This is now fully supported. Use the normal Open command to import these. Read the note "AppleWorks, ClarisDraw & MacDraw" for more introductory information.

Fixed a bug that would cause EazyDraw to use high percentage of the CPU resource. This related to two or more, overlapping, annotations or dimensions. If clicked in the right sequence the cpu usage would spike until a clearing click on an unrelated area of the drawing. All fixed now.

Fixed problems printing very large drawings. This was associated primarily with the use of the electronic printer options. The print operation could fail, and then upon quitting EazyDraw the application could hang or crash. Now the hang and crash is corrected. There should be no issues printing very large drawings either to printer or for "Save as PDF". Exporting very large drawings as PDF or EPS had a potential for an operating system imposed arbitrary size limit, but not the hang or crash, this is all corrected as well.

Corrected problem with the Tape Tool live cursor. When used with an origin not at the top left of the drawing the live cursor readout provided incorrect position readings. A shift of the origin was double compensated. This is corrected and works properly now.

Corrected problem exporting graphics that have both a gradient and a bitmap shadow. The export quality for graphics with both of these attributes active was poor. Now corrected graphics have full quality for these exports now.

Corrected problem ungrouping PDF with CMYK colors. The ungroup could abort or not properly represent colors. This is now corrected, CMYK colors in PDF content will ungroup properly and graphics are created with correct CMYK colors.

Corrected possible problems flipping (flip - horizontal, flip - vertical, ...) group graphics that contained arc or pie shapes. All works properly now.

Corrected possible problems using the contextual menu to increase or decrease line width. The problem could happen if the Color and Style palette was not open. In this case line width could go to zero or a very large value.

Corrected problem, only on OS X version 10.4 (Tiger), entering feet and inches values on Graphic Details drawer. In some cases entry would not process properly. Again - only on Tiger. This is now corrected.

Corrected rare problem with Sending a graphic with a Command Key shortcut command. In rare cases the graphic would need to be deselected and selected again to allow the command key to work. All fixed now.

Corrected occasional problem with the Area Report Dimension that could happen when the graphic target of the report dimension was nested in a group graphic. Sometimes the total area of the group would be reported instead of the area of the targeted graphic. This could have happened with other report dimensions as well. All is corrected now.

Functions keys F1 and F2 now open the Layers Drawer and Graphic Details drawer respectively.

CMD drag of a ruler now simply resets the origin. Graphics remain in place.

Fixed long time nuisance with converting text to Bezier outlines. Ligatures would cause an extra faint rectangle to be added to the text. Corrected.

Optimized converting large bitmap images from RGB to CMYK color space This is now three to nine times faster.

Improved rendering of gradients. improvements include better screen drawing of small and intricate gradients such as those applied to text glyphs. Added full support for gradient transparency for printing and pdf output.

Improved data entry in Graphic Details drawer, when using fractions and fractions with feet and inches. Previously in some rare cases entry of a numeric value would pop back to the previous value, preventing changed. Previously decimal notation was required for feet and inches input. Now decimal or fractions may be used when entering as feet and inches.

Further improvements for ungrouping PDF content. Recent work has been ungrouping of PDF from FreeHand. Text from FreeHand pdf now formats better and corrections were made to avoid dropping of text from these documents.

Corrected export of bitmap formats, when anti-aliasing is not in use. Normally a border of 2 pixels is provided for anti-aliasing to apply to the edge of the exported graphic. When anti-aliasing is not in use this border was still applied, now it is not. Turning off anti-aliasing now works to export the exact size in pixels.

Several corrections to text editing, especially with respect to undo and redo of undo's. Now selected ranges and insertion points are restored to exact conditions when undo or undo-redo actions are performed. One annoyance was that when editing text and deleting text so that the text box shrinks in height, then a left-over gray background area would remain below the text now smaller text box. This situation is now corrected.

Corrected problem with default Time Stamp format. The default format had the month twice and not month, day. Corrected. Upgrading users may need to use the Time Stamp Format panel, correct the format and save as a new default to clear the problem. New installations will not see the problem. Removing EazyDraw preferences file will rebuild the preference in the correct format, but all other persistent defaults will be cleared by this approach.

Improved Guideline Snapping for squares. The snapping would show on the drawing, but the size of the square would not always adjust properly to the guideline snap position. Now all works properly when creating and editing squares.

Corrected minor problems with Find and Replace. Fully tested again, on Leopard.

Corrected problem forming a group, that contained a group which contained graphics with inserted text. The painting order (front to back ordering) of the graphic with inserted text could jump to a different painting order position and possible obscure other graphics of the newly formed group. All is correct now.

Added support for Space-Bar panning. If the space bar is held down, the cursor changes to the Hand cursor and mouse down and drag actions will pan the drawing, as in scrolling. Panning is allowed even if graphics are currently selected. Panning sequences are allowed, lift the mouse - move over, click down again and pan further in a given direction. The panning mode persists until the space bar is lifted. This action does not work id a Text box is in editing mode, or key board focus is in text entry mode on a palette or the Graphic Details drawer.

Upgraded the Underline capability. The Underline menu found on the Text Style submenu has been expanded with different styles and underline patterns. The menu on the Graphic Details drawer was upgraded as well. A Strike submenu was added to the Text Style submenu.

Added the ability to "pan" a drawing by holding down Option key while doing a click and drag operation. Pan operation is performed in place of drag-select when the Option Key is used.

Changed the behavior of the Graphic Details drawer during creating of a graphic. Earlier versions updated the drawer as the graphic was initially drawn - at creation step. Version 2.6.0 had this behavior optimized out, no longer showing the details of the graphic as it is initially drawn. Users have requested to return to the older behavior, now again the the Graphic Details drawer is "live" as a graphic is created.

Corrected problem exporting FAVICON files. Exports on Intel processors did not work, the exported file had a corrupt header. Exports on PowerPC's worked, the problem on happened on Intel processors. Now all is fixed, the standard FAVICON settings for the ICO export now produce valid FAVICON.ICO files.

EazyDraw Version 2.6.0 ---- April 4, 2008

New tools for drawing Spokes, as in spokes of a wheel, added to the Stellate palette. Cross-overs for schematics to indicated connections or lack thereof, boolean Combine submenu for Union, Intersection, or difference of two graphics, New Parallelogram tools on Charting palette. New Free-Hand tool on main tool palette. New Pinning capability on Format main menu, Draw Tangents and/or normals to curves from the Tape Measure tool (type "t" or "n" ). Improved Knife when cutting cyclical math curves (sine waves).

Cross-Overs

New Cross-Over palette is found on the Tools main menu. This feature provides a method to indicate the state of two crossing lines or paths. The indicators are used to show schematically whether or not the crossing paths are physically connected. The easiest way to think of the concept is that of a "jumper" that would indicate one path "jumping-over" another and not making a connection. Several indicator shapes are provided: jumper, bridge, gap, and other. There are also indicators such as a "dot" that can be used to indicate the opposite state, that of a physical connection..

Boolean Combine

A boolean Combine submenu is provided for forming a new graphic from two graphics source graphics. The Union, Difference and Intersection operations are found on this new submenu about 2/3rds the way down on the Tools main menu. These are compound operations that cut two overlapping closed graphics, then recombine the sub-paths according to defined logical rules. Documentation is complete; use search phrase "combine" for detailed definitions of these operations.

Free Hand (Pencil) Tool

Added a new Freehand pencil path tool to the main tool palette. The new tool provides simple freehand drawing, the path placed on paper will follow the cursor with minimal smoothing. With this tool one does not need to lift and click the mouse to drop vertices, as is the case with the other Bezier path tools. The fitting of the mouse trail to the created path is sensitive to the degree of zoom of the drawing. Therefore if a more detailed (jagged) path is needed, zoom in. If a path is too jagged, zoom out. After completion the Smooth or Round commands found on the Tools -> Transform menu may be used to improve the continuity of the path, if necessary. The new Pencil tool takes the place of the radius - orthogonal path tool, the orthogonal path tools are still available on the Technical tool palette (near top).

Tangents and Normals

Added a new capability to draw tangents and normals (perpendicular) to a curve. For straight paths this was done using the guides capability but it wasn't possible to get a precise automatic line oriented with respect to a curved path. Use the Tape Measure tool to access the new capability. When ever the tape measure cursor is indicating the slope of a curve at a given point (the light green cursor read-out) simply typing "t" or "n" will add a tangent or normal line to the drawing. The line added has the center and angle pinned so resizing will not loose the precise orientation. It is recommended to review the EazyDraw.

Pin and Lock

Newly expanded Lock capability, now referred to as Pin and Lock actions. There are two new submenus at the bottom of the Format main menu with new individual selections for locking a graphic. The lock menu now allows a graphic to be locked independently against moving and deleting. The new Pin submenu allows the fixing of the center, length, or angle of a graphic.

The Pin selections are of primary interest for simple lines, using these choices will offer several new useful interactive editing forms for a simple line. The Pin Center selection works with lines, rectangles, and rectangular shapes such as those found on the Charting palette. When the center is pinned, interactive on-screen size changes are made relative to the rectangle (or line) center. The Pin state of a graphic is indicated by a new handle mark shown at the center of the graphic, no mark indicates no pinning. The new lock-against-delete state is indicated by round rather than the normal square handles. Documentation is complete; use search phrase "pin" to access.

Parallelograms

Added 4 new charting tools. Three new forms of parallelograms were added. We were missing two geometries of the orthogonal parallelogram form, two more of these were added, now all forms of this shape are possible. A free form parallelogram tool was added, it easily creates any possible parallelogram. A new "Bow Tie" shape was added to fill out the row of 4 tools. They behave and draw in the normal fashion, no new documentation needed. Full support on the Graphic Details Drawer is complete.

Spokes

Added 3 new stellate tools for drawing spokes. There are 3 forms, a simple straight spoke, a Bezier shaped spoke, and a rounded rectangle spoke. They are found at the bottom of the Stellate palette. They behave and draw just like other stellates.

Ungroup PDF - For Import from Canvas X

Made several improvements to the PDF ungroup. These focused on ungrouping PDF file generated from the Deneba Canvas application. The PDF ungroup now detects use of tile-pattern-fills in the PDF translates these to EazyDraw patterns. The text generation from Canvas is rather non-standard with individual character placement, this situation is now handled and the text streams are recombined into EazyDraw text boxes and positioned with normal typesetting attributes. This means that more text from these files is imported, sized, and positioned correctly. The import is somewhat slow due to this construction. Optimization will be added in the future after we have have more feedback and testing on the basic ungrouping correctness and accuracy.

Improvements and Bug Fixes

Improved Knife, when cutting cyclical math curves, specifically all variations of sine waves and the triangle wave form. Before the knife tool would cut the cyclical math curve correctly but the resulting two or more curves were reduced to Bezier curves, loosing their cyclical control functionality. Now a cut sine wave will result in two new sine waves. The period and phase of each new cyclical function is adjusted to exactly match the original wave form. This improved functionality does not apply to the discontinuous cyclical wave forms, square wave, pulse and saw-tooth; these still drop back to Bezier paths when cut. If one of the resulting cut wave forms would have less than 1/2 of a cycle, the waveform is still reduced to a Bezier curve.

Changed behavior of superscript and subscript commands (both from Text menu and Attributes bar). Previously these commands only changed the baseline of the target text range. Now the commands change the baseline and decrease the font size by 2 points. The inverse command (No(rmal) on the attributes bar and "use default" on the text menu) returns the baseline and adds 2 points of font size. The independent raise or lower baseline commands behave as they did before.

Corrected inconsistency with the Knife tool when cutting a simple line. It was possible to drop the vertex of a line with the knife, the result would be a line with only one point. This inconsistency is now corrected, it is not possible to drop-cut either of a line's two vertices or end points.

Corrected problems adjusting the size of some Free Transform interactive graphics, that contained rectangles or charting shapes nested in group graphics. These now all scale properly.

Corrected possible scaling problems with the new Cut Circle graphics that were introduced with version 2.5.0. Previously they would scale properly in a group, but if the containing group was removed by an Ungroup the Cut-Circle graphic's resize handles would be misplaced. All is correct now. Cut Circles are the graphics found on the Technical Tool palette, second row from the bottom.

Corrected problem introduced with EazyDraw version 2.5.2, version 2.5.0 and earlier did not have the problem. It was a rare problem causing EazyDraw to launch incorrectly. It could only happen to users that were upgrading from an earlier version of EazyDraw. The trigger of the bug was custom (or inadvertent) additions to the colors found in the "eazydraw.clr" color list (in Colors folder found in the home Library folder). If fewer than 8 custom colors were added, the problem would occur upon launch. - very rare situation. All fixed.

Corrected problem importing MacDrawPro and ClarisDraw drawings with bitmap images (JPG, TIF) on Intel machines. Some bitmaps that would import correctly on PowerPC processors were not interpreted correctly on Intel CPUs (byte swap issue for those who understand what that means). All corrected now.

Corrected problem exporting TIF images. It was possible to have a dark line at the top of the image. The line was only a present when using a white background, transparent backgrounds were drawn correctly. The problem was introduced with version 2.5.0, and the dual-rep TIFF capability. It is corrected now.

Corrected problem importing MacDrawPro and ClarisDraw drawings with custom colored patterns. The patterns would import correctly but after saving the EazyDraw file and re-opening the Patterns would return to the default black and white pattern. This is now corrected.

Corrected problem rotating text with a filled text box, filled with solid color, pattern, or gradient. In this situation the rotation would not restore after a save and re-open of the file. This is now corrected. Another aspect of the problem was that text would be inverted (up side down) while rotating, this is now corrected as well.

Corrected issue importing ClarisDraw files related to long text fields. A new format variation was encountered and included in the text interpretation. This may help some users that were having trouble getting all their text to import.

Improved the Ungroup PDF for older versions of PDF that are commonly generated on Windows machines. Text size was not translating properly, one would see a corrupt text box with reported font size of 1.0 - this situation is now handled with the PDF conversion.

Corrected arrow at the end of a rounded or radius connector. The end arrow was not pointed in the correct direction. It now behave correctly. This only happened with the one particular form of a orthogonal connector that was drawn the had its corner shape changed via the Connector palette.

Corrected problems rotating some graphics 90 degrees clockwise and 90 degrees counter clockwise with the flipping menu commands or attribute bar buttons. Text was not flipping the actual text, only the text box. Other graphics were being changed to raw Bezier paths unnecessarily, for example a rectangle was not maintained as a rectangle with the flip action. All is correct now.

Corrected problem changing the text color from the toolbar button. If the text had multiple styles of typeface, a subscript for example, the color would only change up to the point of typeface change. Corrected now.

Corrected possible problems exporting to Keynote drawings that were imported from a Classic drawing application such as MacDraw, or ClarisDraw. In the old classic environment it was possible to "color" a line with a pattern color. This is not acceptable to Keynote and while EazyDraw would handle the situation, upon export to Keynote a block was encountered that would prevent the file save. All is fixed.

Corrected problem saving the color of a Grid Graphic, the ones found on the bottom of the Technical Tool palette. The color would revert to black, or default unless an outline was showing for the grid. Now the color saves and restores correctly.

Optimized the internal code for opening a new drawing. Opening a drawing or creating a new drawing was beginning to take a noticeable amount of time, especially on PowerPC processors or any processor on Tiger. The drawing initialization code was optimized, now there is no noticeable time to open a blank drawing. Opening larger drawings will still require a time in proportion to the size and complexity of the drawing.

Removed the support for creating and updating file icon previews in the main file open dialog. This was an older feature of relevance on Jaguar and Panther and no longer needed. The QuickLook technology in Leopard has superseded the older file icon technology that was used for these previews. On Tiger and Leopard support for the old feature would unnecessarily "touch" files while browsing the Open dialog, thereby changing the File-Modified dates - an undesired consequence. Removing the feature all together corrects the issue.

EazyDraw Version 2.5.2 ---- February 14, 2008

Customizable Toolbar improvements, Ability to convert a Blend to component paths, Improved MacDrawPro Import, Improved ClarisDraw Libraries Import, Fixed possible customizing toolbar lock-up.

Customizable Toolbar

Several improvements were made to the main window toolbar - when used in the Text label mode without icons. In this mode the palettes such as the color picker and gradient picker are presented as menus. These menu presentations were significantly enhanced to provide reasonable submenu organization for a more efficient user experience.

Lock-up during customizing toolbar

Corrected possible random behavior when customizing a toolbar. Extremely rare problem which would occur during customization of the toolbar on one drawing if another drawing was closed a minute or two before the customization action. The bug would take several random forms, possibly hanging the window or not completing a customization task but most in most cases there would be no visible sign of the problem, just a message in the system log files. All is fixed now.

Convert Blends

Added the ability to convert blends into individual paths or lines. This lets one use the blend capability as an interactive form of advanced duplicate, for linear duplication tasks. The blend function can generate a family of curves transitioning across a small set of defining curves. The new capability, found on the "convert to" submenu, allows the full family of curves to be "ungrouped" for individual management and editing. This is also useful for complex illustrations, the individual paths may behave better for scaling and distortion as a nested grouped component. The individual curve may in some cases draw more quickly as well, in the case where thousands of curves might be in use.

Graphic Details Limits

Added minimum limits for several parameters on the Graphic Details drawer. It was reported that a zero-radius circle would cause KeyNote to crash when exported. This problem is found with several other graphics, for example a zero width rectangle. Therefore minimum limits are now in place for several parameters. However, in some cases very small values might be required, for example a small dot of a circle. To allow entering very small values EazyDraw sets the minimum limit in accordance with the zoom of the drawing. Therefore, if a very small value is needed for a parameter it may be necessary to zoom in on the graphic before entering the value.

Import ClarisDraw Libraries

Corrected problem importing ClarisDraw libraries. The problem was related to library graphics that included text. This is now corrected, we have imported several large complex libraries that have been submitted by users. The ClarisDraw Library import is now quite robust.

MacDraw File Convert

Corrected import issue with MacDrawPro drawings. The problem was with certain forms of Bezier paths that contained vertex points with no control points. This seems to be a rather rare construct, one needs to know to option click a control point in the reshape mode in MacDrawPro in order to even create one of these curves. So the problem probably did not appear for most users. All is corrected now.

EazyDraw Version 2.5.1c ---- January 27, 2008

Attributes Toolbar, Charting and Graphing Tools, 512 based Icons, improved PDF ungroup, Multi-Rep TIFF export (for developers), Hex Grid for Game Design, New Scale Worksheet.

Attributes Toolbar

Improved performance of the new Attributes Bar, when text is selected. Users of slower PowerPC CPU's reported sluggishness when using the Attributes Bar. The updating of the attributes for text has been optimized to minimize CPU load in this situation. Please note that the Attributes Bar has the newer Leopard appearance, to maintain Tiger compatibility EazyDraw needs to simulate the buttons and their detailed gradients when running on Tiger. This takes a fair amount of CPU load, and may be noticeable on an older PowerPC. PowerPC - Tiger users should consider upgrading to Leopard or turning off the Attributes Bar. Of course, for performance and stability the Leopard upgrade is strongly advised for all situations.

New Default Toolbar

We have a new default toolbar configuration. This configuration compliments the Attributes Bar better than the previous toolbar, some elements previously in the default toolbar are now present in the Attributes Bar, allowing other elements to be added to the main toolbar. If you have used EazyDraw before you will not see the new default configuration and you may want to customize your toolbar or customize and move the new default configuration to your toolbar.

French Localization

Additions and corrections for French localization. Dash and Arrow palettes formatted better for the French labels and wording. Export panel localized fully now. Fully tested on Tiger and Leopard using the French user interface. Corrected issues with Open AppleWorks files, using French interface, the open dialog would not show the option to select another file type for Open: now all works properly. Further work on the French PDF manual is now available, this project is still not complete.

Improvements and Bug Fixes

Corrected a possible "unexpectedly quit" that could occur when applying a transfer property (shadow, or gradient for example) from a library. These are the property library elements that are placed in a user library using the small LL icon found on parameter palettes. The unexpectedly quit would happen when applying the property from the library to a graphic in a drawing. All is corrected now, the Library property transfers all work as documented now.

Improved the Keynote export. Support for arrows has been added. Corrected possible position errors for lines when exporting just graphics rather than full drawing area, now lines are precisely positioned in all situations.

Fixed a problem on Dash panel, the default list of defined named dashes was not provided. Now the menu has 8 named dash patterns properly listed and available for use.

Fixed pasting images into MS Word and other older technology applications that prefer the Classic PICT data format. Images often would paste up-side-down. A vertical flip was added, this should correct the issue, if unwanted flips are noted please report the problem.

Changed behavior of including an anti-aliasing border when exporting bitmaps. If anti-aliasing is on and you select to just export graphics, or selected graphics, a 2 pixel border is included to allow anti-aliasing of outside edges of the graphics. This is not desirable in some cases such as creating a background image for a web site where the image may be tiled, as an undesired white border will be present on each tiled image. The border is not included if you export "Full Drawing Area" and now it is also eliminated if anti-aliasing is turned off. Previously the border was still included when exporting just graphics without anti-aliasing, this was logically inconsistent.

Corrected rare annoyance associated with the pattern and gradient toolbar tools. The problem was that the use of one of these tools could inadvertently change the temporary default for a pattern or gradient, then new graphics would have a gradient or pattern. Then it would be necessary to open the Gradient panel and turn off gradient so that new graphics would draw without the gradient, (or pattern). This was rare but annoying. All is fixed now. The toolbar tools can be used freely without worry of this happening.

Corrected problem on EazyDraw Preferences, restore all to Factory would not close the pull down panel. This is fixed now.

Corrected problem with the new modified circle graphic, it was possible to set the minor radius larger than the radius on the Graphic Details drawer. This could then prevent the file from opening. This is corrected, and files saved with this error are now senses and corrected so that they are opened properly and the inconsistency is corrected.

Corrected possible problem using independent scales for different layers. If the scale panel was not open the grid could draw incorrectly when linked to rulers. All corrected now.

EazyDraw Version 2.5.0 ---- January 4, 2008

Attributes Toolbar, Charting and Graphing Tools, 512 based Icons, improved PDF ungroup, Multi-Rep TIFF export (for developers), Hex Grid for Game Design, New Scale Worksheet.

Attributes Toolbar

A new Attributes Toolbar is now available. It is a mini toolbar located at the top of the drawing area, above rulers and below the main toolbar. It is accessed from a menu selection at the bottom of the View main menu, you can turn it on / off from there. The preference control for showing the toolbar on new drawings is found on the Page Layout palette. Documentation is complete (EazyDraw Help, but not the PDF manual at this time) use search phrase "toolbar" to learn more, we refer to it as the "attributes toolbar". This toolbar is actually a family of toolbars, they are context sensitive, they change when graphics are selected or deselected. The tools shown are chosen to be relevant to the selected graphics on the drawing. This feature is similar to the mini toolbar found in the iWork '08 suite (Pages '08 and Numbers '08), use of these tools should be natural for iWork08 users.

Scale Worksheet

There is a new Scale Worksheet, access it from your Scale palette or the new attributes toolbar. The worksheet helps arrive at a proper scale for a scaled technical drawing. It interactively displays the relationship between your choice of paper size and the dimensions of the project. A great help for both a novice that may need assistance in understanding how a scaled drawing will work, and the expert planning a project and presentation format.

512 icons

All new 512 based icons for the application, drawing files, and library files. These were drawn with EazyDraw and saved in the updated OS X, Apple Icon Image format so that they look great on Leopard.

Charting and Graphing Axis Tools

New charting and graphing tools on the Technical Tools palette, near the bottom, are now complete. These now have full support on the the Graphic Details drawer and Help documentation is now complete . There are 4 new axis and grid tools to be used as integral components of a graph or chart. They consist of an integrated tick-mark, a compound text label graphic, rectangular grid, and hexagon grid. They can be used to build axes and labels for chart graphics. These have been highly optimized to display quickly. It is better to use one of these compound graphics, especially for text-label sequence, compared to a conventional group array of text or tick marks. To learn more use these search phrases in EazyDraw Help: "graphing tools", "text labels", "grid tools".

Unjoin Bezier

Added new command to Unjoin a Bezier path or curve. This will separate segments of a complex path at points where the path jumps (MoveTo segments) from one stroked portion of the path to another. This is useful and recommended when complex paths have been imported into an EazyDraw drawing. This situation is found when text is converted to Bezier or stylized. It also occurs with ungrouped PDF files, and is common for PDF files that originate from AutoCad. You may think of it as one more level of ungrouping available in these situations. An example might be a semi-colon, this would let one separate the two marks of the semi-colon. It is found on the Tools main menu, Convert submenu. If a complex path is not converting as desired, use this new Unjoin then attempt the convert.

Hex Grid

Hex grid tool on Technical Tool palette is now complete with Graphic Details support. The grid can be rotated and fully adjusted with respect to the origin. The sides can be extended or shortened for different appearance. When fully extended an isosceles triangle grid is attained. Documentation is complete.

Multi-Rep TIFF Export

Added the ability to export multi-representation TIFF files. This format is the new Apple standard for application images and icons. The format is a tiff file but it actually contains two tiff images, one at the requested DPI resolution and a second at 4x the DPI resolution. These will become important as Leopard moves onto higher resolution displays (think HD) in the future. This is of primary interest to software developers drawing buttons and icons for Mac and web applications. There is an example of one of these TIFF files in the examples folder, Preview displays the files and shows the two resolutions. TIFF Export now provides color space control. RGB, RGBA, CMYK, and CMYKA are supported. The DPI for TIFF saved files is now saved with the file so that the file opens with a proper nominal size in Adobe applications.

Improved PDF Ungroup

Improved the speed of PDF ungroup, the improvement can be quite significant (100-1000 fold) for some complex PDF images. Corrected problem opening a drawing that was the result of a PDF ungroup - the first time after the ungroup; opening would take a very long time for large PDF - fixed now, opening time is normal for the size of the file. Improved PDF ungroup in several respects, it now handles PDF files that originated from AutoCad more intelligently, more quickly, and with better results.

Problems Addressed

Corrected a detail point on the export of TIFF graphic files. Now the physical size of the image is properly represented with respect to the Dots Per Inch (DPI) that was specified when saving the file. The correction does not actually change or improve the bitmap image, but other applications such as Photoshop will now show the image at a more representative size.

Corrected entering lengths in the Graphics Details drawer when units and fractions were in use. In some cases the length entered, if it had a fraction, could become about 10 times larger than the value entered . This is fixed now.

Improved the Convert To Lines for complex paths. Now disjoined jumps in a complex path do not confuse the conversion. Previously one could see extra lines added at these jumps.

Corrected problem on Graphic Details drawer, when entering the radius for an Arc and completing with a Tab key, if Tab was hit again the radius would go to zero. Problem is now corrected, two tabs hit in succession now simply advance the entry point to the next then the next text fields on the Graphic Details drawer. All fixed now.

Corrected bug setting text alignment for larger text blocks with multiple font styles and sizes.

Corrected problem with palette layout selection at launch of EazyDraw. The problem was that a user defined palette layout for launch would be respected only on every-other launch. Corrected now, any selection for Palettes At Launch, EazyDraw preferences, is now respected each launch.

Corrected rare problem that was possible on Leopard, not Tiger, that would result in a bad drawing window opened when EazyDraw was launched. The bad window would not display and not respond to key clicks and could not be closed. This is fixed now.

The French PDF manual has been updated, it is still not complete, the work is still in progress. The newest version has updated figures and more pages complete. It is in the International folder.

Improved AppleWorks import, main improvement relates to images that were imported into AppleWorks. In some cases the size of the image was not correctly reproduced in the EazyDraw drawing, more situations are now handled properly.

Corrected problem resizing groups that had no width or height, for example two horizontal lines grouped together. This would produce different results, often the group would disappear. This is now corrected, if a group has virtual (not including line widths) zero width (or height) the selected group will not show the two handles or for width (or height) adjustment. Resizing will only apply to the other (non-zero) dimension.

Corrected problem with the undo of a group action, in particular when the grouping action involved a group (group of a group). The new group would un-group just fine, but the Undo action would change the Group-Edit for the group that was originally placed in the group. In other words: the sub-group would not return with the same Group Edit, upon undo. After the undo the original group would not have resize handles as the Group Edit would be placed to Solid. Now all works properly, Undo of grouping a group returns everything to original states.

New Features EazyDraw Version 2.5 see below

EazyDraw Version 2.5.2 Improvements ---- February 14, 2008

Customizable Toolbar improvements, Ability to convert a Blend to component paths, Improved MacDrawPro Import, Improved ClarisDraw Libraries Import, Fixed possible customizing toolbar lock-up.

New Default Toolbar -- Update your toolbar!

French Localization

Keynote Export

Arrows are now supported for the KeyNote export. Added minimum limits for several parameters on the Graphic Details drawer. It was reported that a zero-radius circle would cause KeyNote to crash when exported. This problem is found with several other graphics, for example a zero width rectangle. Therefore minimum limits are now in place for several parameters. However, in some cases very small values might be required, for example a small dot of a circle. To allow entering very small values EazyDraw sets the minimum limit in accordance with the zoom of the drawing. Therefore, if a very small value is needed for a parameter it may be necessary to zoom in on the graphic before entering the value.

Text Only Toolbar Mode

Lock-up during customizing toolbar

Import ClarisDraw Libraries

MacDraw File Convert

Attributes Toolbar

Improvements and Bug Fixes

Fixed a problem on Dash panel, the default list of defined named dashes was not provided. Now the menu has 8 named dash patterns properly listed and available for use.