Also strange: when the user switches to pixel mode (ctrl-1), the guides do not snap to pixels, and it is still possible to position a guide to a decimal number. Ideally the user would expect when he/she switches to pixel mode that the guides snap to pixels. We are now forced to manually adjust each guide with decimals in the guide manager. Extremely laborious.
And talking about guides, a couple of things would make working with guides in Photoline a thousand times easier and more convenient (really!). Dealing with guides in Photoline is a chore - but it is so essential for any designer...
- layers should become part of a layer, so that we can create multiple layer sets, and show and hide different parts of the guides, grids, etc. we create. Imagine having two or three different grids for different purposes, all displayed at the same time: it does not work. A designer needs more control over which guides are shown, and which are hidden.
- ideally the label colour of the layer should control the colour of the guides placed on that layer.
- a way to select multiple guides and move them all at once.
- dragging a guide into the document does not display a coordinate while dragging where the mouse cursor is, which makes it trial and error to place it precisely. We now have to look in the far bottom right corner to see the coordinates.
- guides should behave like any other object: we should be able to select them, and use the alignment tools, mirror tools, etc.
- there should be a way to convert shapes to guides, and vice versa. Circles often are used for non-rectangular grids, for example.
- guides should also be rotatable, so we can create a 45 degree slanted grid for example.
-layers can only be moved with the mouse. Users should be able to select one or more guides, and move those with the cursor keys.
- in the layer guide manager we cannot multiple select guides in the list, so we are forced to change the page setting for each individual guide entry one at a time. Very laborious and cumbersome. (And this should really be solved with a page template system in Photoline!)
- clicking a guide in the view does not highlight the selected guide in the guide manager. It is almost impossible to select a guide visually - we are forced to check the ruler first, and then scroll down in the (potentially) long list of guide entries in the guide manager, hoping to find it.
- a guide preset should be able to automatically adjust to a different page width and height, both horizontally and vertically.
- a way to generate grids with guides automatically, like the guideguide extension (minimum requirement), or (even better) Grid Calculate basic/Pro:
http://guideguide.me/
http://designersbookshop.com/grid-calcu ... ition.html
http://designersbookshop.com/grid-calcu ... ition.html
Here is the code for a similar extension written in Python for InkScape:
https://github.com/sambody/inkscape-guide-tools
By the way, I feel a number of these issues are also caused by the fact that Photoline lacks page template system.
Guides are so incredibly important for any designer (print or digital)! Without a good, or even reasonable, guide system designing in Photoline becomes much harder and more cumbersome than it needs to be. The current implementation is VERY rough around the edges, and, speaking for myself as a professional designer, I keep hitting the proverbial "brick wall" when dealing with guides. It takes way too much time to deal with them in Photoline - something that takes a minute in other design software (more complicated guide based grids) can take up to an hour or more in Photoline.
For example, it took me two hours to create three grids: a 12, 18, and 24 column grid. Two hours!!! And then those will ONLY work for the exact page size they were created for. For a different page size I have to do it all over again!
Currently I use the workaround where I create multiple presets in the guide manager in PL, but because those presets do not automatically adjust to the current page size at all. It is a stop-gap solution that does not work very well, and takes too much time.
If Photoline would have had a scripting interface I would have written a script for this myself a year ago. But I cannot. All the functionality I listed above is 90% part of other layout applications (either as part of the application, or through plugins/extensions). As it stands now it is extraordinarily tough to deal with guides in Photoline for a designer- almost torturous.
I implore you Photoline Brothers: please consider improving the guide system. And while you do so, also consider to implement a page template system.
Pretty please?