Version 2.4.7 Released

Monday, April 20. 2009

Here is a new, uninteresting, bug fix release of Creative Docs .NET. Download the 2.4.7 release.

I've played with Creative Docs .NET 2.4.7 on Windows 7 and everything went smoothly, which should not be a real surprise, given the fact that Windows 7 is more or less a service release of Vista, sold as something new by the marketing department (that's not really fair, I know, as there are plenty of small improvements in the product, but yet, I don't feel that it deserved being called "7"; I'd have voted for "6.5", to stay in line with VMware Workstation)

Posted by Pierre Arnaud at 22:49 | Comments (29) | Trackbacks (0)

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Great program!
Is there any option to align an object in the middle of the page? I searched it but i didn't find it. Perhaps a new feature for the next version? Anyway keep on this project!

#1 NSA on 2009-05-06 10:43 (Reply)

Installed nicely but crashed on launch every time.

Based on comments from other reviews and some testing, there seems to be a 150 font threshold. Anything over that crowbars the application.

Can you confirm this limitation?

#2 Anonymous on 2009-07-12 18:34 (Reply)

No, this is not a limitation, but probably caused by a damaged font file in your font repository. If you could provide me with a full archive of your fonts directory, I could try to repro it and find a fix for it. E-mail me directly at pierre dot arnaud at opac dot ch. Thanks.

#2.1 Pierre Arnaud (Link) on 2009-07-26 10:41 (Reply)

Hi,
I cannot find the option to set an exact size to an object I create.
e.g. I need to make a squre 10 cmX10 cm
Is there a way to do it?
Thank you,
Tamir

#3 Tamir on 2009-09-10 18:31 (Reply)

There is no means to set the size exactly, however you can turn on the magnetic grid, use guidelines or construction helpers.

#3.1 Pierre Arnaud on 2009-09-10 21:52 (Reply)

Hi there,

I am having trouble when exporting images (jpg, gif, bmp and png formats). The problem is when I export any image, they come out with a thin white border on the 4 sides of it. This happens when I use dark colors on it. It can be easily seeing when you add the picture to a html file with dark background. I have looked over my project in order to check it I left a border by mistake, but then I tested with a blank document by just adding a square with no border, no color border and black surface. I exported it and the image came out with the white border. Can you check if that is a bug or if there is any option that I could turn it off.

Thanks,
Rod

#4 Rod on 2009-10-02 02:51 (Reply)

You are right, this is a known issue with Creative Docs .NET. The objects are not exactly aligned with the output image, which results in lighter border pixels, due to anti-aliasing.

Currently, there is no workaround for this problem. You'll have to open the image in a bitmap editor and crop the image by one pixel on each border to remove the defect.

#4.1 Pierre Arnaud (Link) on 2009-10-02 11:06 (Reply)

Hi Pierre,

Thanks for answering my question. I noticed that when I open the image (jpg or gif formats) in a bitmap editor and crop the image in order to defect the problem, the picture's quality gets bad. In order to solve this problem I have to save these pictures in PNG format, then it works fine.

Another question, is it possible to save a GIF format picture with transparent background? I have tried so many times without success.

Best Regards,
Rod

#5 Rod on 2009-10-02 13:31 (Reply)

You are right. PNG is the format of choice.

GIF allows only a very special type of transparency which is based on a bitmask; transparent pixels have to have a special color identified as transparent in the GIF header, if I remember properly. Creative Docs .NET does not support this kind of all-or-nothing transparency and only properly generates transparent images with the PNG format.

#5.1 Pierre Arnaud on 2009-10-02 13:43 (Reply)

Very Good!

2.4.8 spanish?

#6 Enrique Marin on 2009-11-08 00:24 (Reply)

A few contributors started working on a Spanish translation, but never came back to me with anything. So if there are some motivated users out there, I'd be glat to provide some help in setting up the required tools and coordinate translation...

#6.1 Pierre Arnaud (Link) on 2009-11-09 05:35 (Reply)

The program looks really nice ... if there was some documentation to help me get started, I would use it.

The site had a link for documentation, but no documentation.

Are you going to do any documentation? From a users point of view anything is better than nothing, and a quick start step by step to do the most common things is best if you have limited time.

From a product creators point of view, I would have thought with the great features it seems to have, you would have encouraged people to use it by making documentation sometime around version 1. Obviously ymmv

Cheers

#7 Newbie on 2009-12-11 11:04 (Reply)

You are right, both a tutorial and documentation would be really useful for the beginners (and also the advanced users, since there is much functionality you don't necessarily stumble upon by accident).

We have done this in French. See (*http://www.epsitec.ch/load?x=documentation/doc/exemples.pdf*) and (*http://www.epsitec.ch/load?x=documentation/doc/manuel.pdf*) for a starting point...

Anyone interested in helping translate the documents?

#7.1 Pierre Arnaud (Link) on 2009-12-14 14:46 (Reply)

Have just installed this and tried it briefly. Very interesting, though for me I noticed a couple of limitations that would prevent me from using it.

The first is that you only have reduced opacity for a white or black overlay and that you can't set opacity at a distinct level of for a colour.

The second is that there seems no way to export the image you create to any other format. It would be nice to export to a bitmap format, to Illustrator, or maybe SVG.

However, for general ease of use I must say this this effort is very good.

#8 Laura Anne Seabrook on 2009-12-26 12:52 (Reply)

You can change the transparency of any color by changing the Alpha value (below the color palette, change 255 to any other smaller value and the color will become partially transparent).

You can export to bitmaps (or PDF) by using the Export button (looks like a paper sheet with a small blue array). However, yes, Creative Docs .NET cannot (yet?) export to Illustrator or SVG. I am considering this, but my current implication with the project does not give me enough time for it.

#8.1 Pierre Arnaud on 2009-12-27 15:26 (Reply)

Ah, excellent!

Not everything is obvious with Creative Docs on first glance (it took me a while to discover how to apply styles to objects) but the exploration is well worth the effort.

#8.1.1 Laura Anne Seabrook on 2009-12-27 21:42 (Reply)

Hello,
If I had to write a review, it would sound like this: A great, powerful and reliable program! Its use is a pleasure and the results are of the highest quality. My congratulations to developers for creating this professional program!
Best wishes and Happy New Year to all!
Catalin Condrea

#9 Catalin Condrea on 2009-12-26 18:14 (Reply)

Thanks a lot. We are two (Daniel Roux and myself) with only currently little spare time to spend on it...

#9.1 Pierre Arnaud on 2009-12-27 15:29 (Reply)

Coupla notes on exporting to .ICO files (which, by the way, is a great feature):

I can reproducibly get a "Attempted to read or write protected memory" error on export unless I select the "Fit to selection" option. (Checking the "export only selected objects" box also causes the error.)

If you cannot duplicate the problem, contact me via e-mail. I'll be happy to send you the file.

I had the idea of making an animated tray icon set by creating different layers representing what changes during animation, then hiding all but one, doing an .ICO export, hiding that layer and un-hiding the next, doing another .ICO export, etc. I was rather unpleasantly surprised to discover that the export dumps out all layers, even those that are hidden.

#10 Erik R. Knowles on 2010-01-28 18:37 (Reply)

Hi Erik, yes, please send me the file and the steps required to reproduce the crash to bugs at opac dot ch. I'll be glad to look into the issue.

I was not aware of the layering bug either. Thanks for submitting it.

#10.1 Pierre Arnaud (Link) on 2010-02-01 05:03 (Reply)

Hello, continuous failures on exported, message error GDI +.

#11 Enrique Angel on 2010-05-03 12:26 (Reply)

Hello, I've tried the 2.6.0 in a new pc with Win7.
The program start with the splash screen that never disappears.
I'm an old user, the last version that I've used is the 2.4.0 with Vista and it worked well.
It is a know issue?

#12 Saverio on 2010-05-04 12:51 (Reply)

Hi, this issue is not known to me. Do you have any fancy fonts, maybe? You can also e-mail me privately (bugs at opac.ch) about this issue.

#12.1 Pierre Arnaud on 2010-05-04 13:36 (Reply)

Hello Pierre,
It is a new pc with Win 7, I've installed some software like Open Office, but I don't think that I've some strange font.
In the mean time I've unistalled and reinstalled the 2.6.0: same problem.
Then I've unistalled again and installed the 2.4.7: it works!
If you think it is useful I can send you by mail the list of the intalled fonts.

#12.1.1 Saverio on 2010-05-04 14:03 (Reply)

I also cannot start the app, crashes when I want to startup.
Too bad, looks like a decent app.

#13 Michael on 2010-05-06 10:16 (Reply)

Please contact me privately (bugs at opac.ch) so that we can discuss this; I'd like to fix these problems, which I cannot reproduce here. A screenshot at the time of the crash would be helpful (including a copy of the splash screen; is it displaying "Analyzing" and a font name ?)

#14 Pierre Arnaud on 2010-05-07 17:03 (Reply)

For those wanting SVG support, I figured out that you can export to PDF, and then import the PDF into Inkscape...at which point you have an SVG. As I understand it, vector support in PDFs is pretty close to SVG, so Creative Docs isn't that far off.

Still, if it would export straight to SVG it would be my drawing tool of choice.

#15 Brother Erryn (Link) on 2010-06-02 03:00 (Reply)

Sir,you software is great!
I am a Chinese user, and now I have a question.
after I create a text by using "text line" or "text frame", there will be a dashed line under the text that I created.
How do i get rid of that dashed line?

#16 kelai (Link) on 2010-10-16 14:51 (Reply)

The text line and text box objects have graphic properties, just like lines and rectangles. Simply select them with the arrow tool and change their border property so that they have either a zero-width line, or a transparent color.

The simplest way to achieve this is a click on the "X" button beside the line width property.

#16.1 Pierre Arnaud on 2010-10-18 05:42 (Reply)

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Version 2.4.7 Released

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