Hi,
I'm working on a blueprint for adding bevel to objects. I'm still
doing the mockups and need some input (I will post them shortly). So
far the mockups will show some examples of the intended result. I
haven't done the UI yet because I'm not sure on what features people
need. There are some ideas on the blueprint page:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/+spec/bevel-lpe

What i suggest is that the color of the bevel to be independent of
the objects color, so the bevel color should be editable on the LPE
dialog. I'm not so sure about the stroke configuration.

The above leads me to the following suggestion. I'm planning on doing
(on the long run) blueprints for LPEs for shadow, emboss and
extrusion, and a widget that let's you see and edit a color (for
general using on those LPEs and on future ones) could be useful. What
do you think? The point is that all named LPEs have a lot in common in
the way the should work:

* Bevel LPE: needs color selector for stroke/fill of the bevel and light
                    needs adjusting the position of light
* Shadow LPE: needs color selector for shadow
                        needs adjusting the position of shadow
* Emboss LPE: <none?>
                         needs adjusting thedirection of emboss
* Extrusion LPE: needs color selector for stroke/fill of the extrusion
and light
                          needs adjusting the position the extrude and light


Doubts, suggestions, ideas...:

1- Is it a good idea to set stroke&fill independently from the objects
attributes? (I find this useful but want your opinions about coding
and usability).

2- What are your thoughts about creating a color selector widget? Just
a swatch showing a color that jumps to the Fill&Stroke dialog when
clicked.
Would it be any good to have for these LPEs and future use? or is
better to use the current one? but how? The LPE settings dialog should
show this information somehow and the problem is that using the
current dialog like that won't make clear what color are you setting
exactly.

3- The selection of direction and position has similarities between
LPEs and maybe some code could be shared. Or use a widget like the
Gimp is using, but I would prefer on-canvas editing.

4- The color of the light should be added to the color of the objects,
so the final aspect of the object depends on both. CorelDRAW X3 does
this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzlaE4IJzr8 (@2:10)

5- Should rounded corners be faceted or not (with an option for the
number of facets)?

6- CorelDRAW does bevel with soft edges, but this can get things
complicated as we would need blur and a clipping path.

I think that's everything for now.

Regards. Pablo Trabajos.

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