New Gradient Editor

[Josh Marinacci]

Hi guys. Last night I pushed up a new gradient editor. The special palette for rectangles is gone. It really only did two things: make round rectangles and set gradients. Now you can change the roundness of the rectangle using a special handle. To use a gradient fill on a rectangle choose the gradient from the bottom of the color chooser. Then the rectangle will have two handles for the gradient. You can drag them around to resize the gradient, snap them to the edges of the rectangle to make it resize automatically with the rect, and change the color using mini-color popups. The goal here is direct manipulation. Auto-popups are better than palettes. Direct manipulation handles are better than auto-popups. Please try it out and give feedback.

Thanks!
Josh

Blasting forth in three part harmony!

[filsanet]

thumbs up to the new gradient editor. It's much faster to use than the previous one... 

nitpicks:

1. finding the gradient box is difficult and non-obvious, in part because it is so small, and also because it is presented with all the other color selections. perhaps there is a better way to present it.

2. once you find the gradient box and turn on gradients, it is great to use.

3. the placement of the gradient color boxes (to the right of the handles) works when the gradient is vertical. it doesn't work as well when the gradient is horizontal... the left-handle colorbox gets lost inside the object, and the right-handle box sit out in the canvas somewhere.

nice work, Josh!

[Josh Marinacci]

On Dec 23, 2010, at 6:08 PM, filsanet wrote:

> thumbs up to the new gradient editor. It's much faster to use than the previous one...
> nitpicks:
>
> 1. finding the gradient box is difficult and non-obvious, in part because it is so small, and also because it is presented with all the other color selections. perhaps there is a better way to present it.

Yeah, the current placement is definitely sub-optimal. I have decided on the right solution though. I could put a couple of gradient swatches at the top of the picker. Or we could find a way to split the picker in half, but the two halves wouldn't be equal size. And there will eventually be texture/patterns as well. Ideally I'd like all 'fill's to be in a single popup. It's going to take some thinking to figure out the right answer.

> 2. once you find the gradient box and turn on gradients, it is great to use.

Awesome. I'm glad to hear it. Direct manipulation for the win!

> 3. the placement of the gradient color boxes (to the right of the handles) works when the gradient is vertical. it doesn't work as well when the gradient is horizontal... the left-handle colorbox gets lost inside the object, and the right-handle box sit out in the canvas somewhere.

Yeah. I thought of that but haven't addressed it yet. I could make the color boxes always be 180 degrees from the direction of the gradient line? Would that be better, or feel to awkward because the box is always moving?

- J

>
> nice work, Josh!