This post is full of geek stuff. I have several readers helping me get the kinks out of this new program and I need to pass along this info. For all of you that are trying the program I appreciate all the help today. Had about 200 emails today with great info. Thanks. For those of you that could care less and just want new patterns I'll get back to pattern designing tomorrow. Thanks for you patience.
This update is still BETA. Still have several things to fix but there are a few things I worked on today that I need to test. If this one does not work for you the link for yesterdays setup file is still good and you can reinstall it.
1. Added a print dialog to set options when you click the print button.
There are still print scaling problems with some printers. The resolution on the printer needs to be set to 600 dpi for correct scaling. This usually means setting the print quality to normal.
2. Added a better length scale and changed the length readout to inches instead of points.
Makes it easier to understand.
3. Added a reset button to put all the sliders back to the starting point.
4. Changed the Kerning slider to the Letter spacing slider. Same thing just used a less geeky title for better clarity.
5. Changed the minimum size the font will go to a smaller number. Have not made up my mind where this should end up. Still looking at it.
6. The program now centers it's self on the screen at startup. On lower resolution monitors it was opening part way off the screen.
A few bugs that I know about are as follows.
1. The small circle does not appear on the saved pattern. I changed the "save Pattern" button to "Export Pattern" to better reflect it's purpose. It's really only there to save the image so you can import it into other programs. I'll be adding an actual save feature later.
2. I have had two reports of the program printing only black squares on the paper instead of the pattern. Sounds like a driver problem but I'm lost on that one so far. Anyone else see this?
3. Looks like the pattern are printing a little smaller than the readout says they are suppose to be. It's off about 1/8".
4. The big issue is the printer resolution problem. The selected printer has to be set to 600 dpi or the pattern will print grossly out of scale. As much as 100% off. It looks like most printers are working but a few are not. When you click the print button and the dialog opens up select the printer properties button on the dialog. Most printers have a quality setting that you can change to "Draft", "Normal" or"Best". It seems that most printers "Normal" quality printer setting is 600 dpi. The "Draft" setting is 300 dpi and "Best" is 1200 dpi. Right now if your printer is set to anything other than 600 dpi a warning message will pop up and tell you the printing is canceled. I hope this is temporary and I can figure out how to compensate for different resolutions of printer settings.
Most features requested are as follows.
1. Multiple patterns per page. (Maybe but tougher than it sounds.)
2. Ability to add graphics to the pattern. (Tough one for my meager programming skills but I'll try.)
3. Ability to save and reload the pattern. (Should be an easy update.)
4. Multiline text on the key chain. (You guys are tough on this old man. I'll try.)
Download it and give me the good and bad news.
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