The WonderBrush Tools

		Copy The Copy tool can be used to copy a rectangular area of bitmap data to the system clipboard. The rectangle can be adjusted and when the tool is applied, the area gets copied. The Paste menu item is available when the system clipboard contains bitmap data. A Bitmap object is created when pasting it onto a layer. Bitmap objects are also used when loading normal image files into WonderBrush, or when the objects on a layer are flattened by the Freeze command. The editable objects are then replaced by a static Bitmap object.
		Crop The Crop tool can be used to cut off or extend the canvas document. The rectangle for cropping can also use fractional coordinates. When this option is turned on, objects are shifted by fractional units when the tool is applied. In one of the next versions of WonderBrush, the Crop tool will also offer rotated cropping.
		Transform This tool works on the selected objects. A bounding box is displayed at any time which encloses all selected objects, when the box is transformed, the transformation is started. Any change to the transformation can individually be un- or redone, until the tool is applied or the selection is changed. The transformation box will then be reset to the identity transformation. Skewing is only indirectly supported as of now.
		Edit Gradient This tool lets you edit the Gradient property of a selected Object. The Object needs to have a fill Mode of Gradient, which you can set in the Property list of that object. When a Gradient mode object is selected, the Edit Gradient tool will display a transformation box enclosing the gradient, which you can use to define the position, rotation, size and so on. The tool configuration area displays a control with the color stops and a couple of additional settings. With the Gradient control, you can add color stops by dragging colors from somewhere else (ie the Swatches area). The last clicked color stop is displayed with an underline, to indicate it is the active stop. You can use the cursor keys to move the stop to the left or right, or to activate the next or previous stop. To remove the active stop from the gradient, press the delete key. The other controls define the gradient type and the method of interpolation between the colors. The less obvious control is the Inherit Transformation check box. This feature is on by default, and it means that when you move the parent object, which is filled with the edited gradient, the gradient will move with the object. In another words, it inherits the parent transformation additionally to its own transformation, which defines the position and size within the object. So the gradient transformation is relative to the parent object's transformation. When you turn this feature off, the gradient has an absolute transformation, which means that you can move the parent object, and the gradient will stay fixed relative to the canvas. Note that when you export your document in SVG format, only Linear and Radial gradients are supported, because the SVG format does not accept other types of gradients.
		Brush The Brush tool works best with a graphics tablet, because opacity, radius and hardness can be dynamically controlled by pen pressure. Only circular brush shapes are supported yet, but the underlying brush system is much more flexible. When clicking the brush preview, a Brush Panel opens, which gives access to persistent sets of brushes. The config options include a setting for subpixel tracking as well as solid (non anti-aliased) rendering. A spacing setting controls the brush placement distance along the tracking path.
		Pen The Pen tool creates strokes that are always one pixel wide. Even when scaling those objects, the width stays uneffected. Opacity can be controlled by tablet pen pressure, subpixel tracking can be turned on or off and the Solid setting disables anti-aliasing.
		Eraser The Eraser is working exactly like the Brush tool, only it creates Brush objects with their rendering mode set to "Erase". Through the object properties, any objects rendering mode can be set to "Erase", even that of a Fill, Shape or Text object.
		Pen Eraser What the Eraser tool is to the Brush tool, this tool is to the Pen tool.
		Clone Brush This tool is mostly useful for retouching an image. Warts, wrinkles and dust can easily be removed by cloning a clean area of an image over the parts to be removed. The interesting bit about the WonderBrush implementation is that the Clone Brush objects are rendered on the fly. They maintain vector data and scale up without loss of information. If the area of the canvas changes which they clone, they rerender themselves. When using the tool, the first click defines the source location on the canvas, the second click defines the offset used for cloning and starts generating the underlying Brush stroke. To reset the tool in order to define a new offset, press the Command key once.
		Blur Brush This tool is also based on the normal Brush tool, but the stroke image is used to apply a selective blur to the canvas. It is also rerendered on the fly when the canvas image changes underneath a Blur Brush object. Scaling this object also scales the blur radius.
		Fill The Fill tool can be used to flood areas of similar color with another color. Additionally to the Tolerance, WonderBrush offers a Softness setting. This one is hard to explain in words, basically it means that the Fill object generated can have soft edges based on the Tolerance used to determine if a pixel was to be filled. After a Fill object has been created, the rendering mode can be set to "Erase" as required.
		Text Text objects can be used to generate labels, headlines and simple blocks of left-aligned text. The text rendering itself is of very high quality producing 256 levels of anti-aliasing. Character and line spacing can be controlled to tweak the appearance of the font. In the future, the layouting options will become more powerful, but for now, the ability to change the text or any other property of the object at a later time is quite a time saver already.
		Shape The WonderBrush implementation of the Shape tool tries to give the quickest possible access to the many options of editing a Bezier vector path. There are no editing modes to toggle between, except for holding down a modifier key on the keyboard for some advanced options. When switching to the Shape tool, a new path is started by clicking on the canvas to add the first point. As long as the path is not closed, new points are added just by clicking anywhere but onto the path itself. By clicking on the curves or lines of the path, new points can be inserted, while the shape of the curve is maintained. Clicking on existing points and dragging them will move them on the canvas. Holding down the Command key when clicking on a point can be used to produce sharp edges or restore a smooth curve, depending on the context. Holding down the Option key can be used to remove control points. Once the path is closed, clicking outside the path will start a selection rectangle (which is otherwise available by holding down the Shift key) to select groups of control points. The selected control points can be transformed. Any editing step can individually be undone or redone as long as the tool is not applied. The Shape objects have an Outline property, any path is either filled with a solid color, or drawn as an outline with a specific width.
		Ellipse This is a so called auto shape tool. It produces a predefined Shape object, in this case an ellipse. When you click (and drag) on the canvas, the ellipse From is created, with the current settings of the tool. While you hold down the Shift key, the object's aspect ratio is constrained when dragging to resize it. Useful for creating perfect circles. As long as you have not applied the tool, you can still edit the object's settings, like Outline mode and Outline Width. When you later double click the created object in the list, the Shape tool will used to further edit the object.
		Rectangle This tool works just like the Ellipse tool, only it creates rectanles instead of ellipses. In the future, there will be a setting to define round corners.
		Dropper This tool does not actually produce any objects, but simply allows picking up a color from the Canvas or active Layer.

Copyright © 1999-2005 Ingo Weinhold und Stephan Aßmus GbR "YellowBites"