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.