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ArtPaint to PNG Converter |
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| But what if the "easier way" isn't quick or easy enough? =P |
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By Cyan - Posted on October 19, 2004 - 21:24:00 (#14445)
Current version when comment was posted: 1.0 |
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All this talk of updating ArtPaint is fine -- I would very much like to see native alpha support in ArtPaint and all other paint packages one day; it's a much cleaner solution than external converters.
However.. even if it does get incorporated into the code base, it will be some time before it filters down to the next stable release of ArtPaint. And like most other users, I'm not willing to download and compile unstable development releases; I download stable release binaries only.
I created this application last year -- I have been writing alpha PNGs in ArtPaint since then. Anyone else wanting to write alpha PNGs in ArtPaint up until now has had only one real option -- hack the source.
BeOS is not Linux. There is absolutely no way that the average user should be expected to compile applications they download, much less hack the source to make the apps do what they want. Therefore, in reality, most users would just put creating transparent PNGs down as another thing that's impractical to do under BeOS.
My intention when releasing this app was that perhaps other people out there wanted to write alpha PNGs from ArtPaint, and they should be able to do that right now with a minimum of fuss. There is a big difference between downloading and installing a Tracker add-on which provides clear English instructions, and having to make hacks to the code and compile it yourself. For the majority of normal users, this application is, as far as I know, the only easy way to obtain transparent PNGs from ArtPaint at the moment.
This app has been online for 5 days, but even with all this talk of fixing ArtPaint, there still isn't a new stable binary release. The lack of a new release of ArtPaint in such a short time is perfectly understandable, but to suggest that fixing ArtPaint is somehow easier and better than writing converters seems a little unfair. Real solutions are needed today, not tomorrow.
Just to clarify things, I'm not suggesting that alpha PNG support doesn't get added to ArtPaint. I'm only saying that given a choice between a converter, or being unable to write transparent PNGs, myself and hopefully many others would take the former option. That's the current situation.
I don't maintain ArtPaint, and I'm very unfamiliar with the BeOS API and C++ in general (my favourite language is assembler), so I'm not in the position to make those adjustments to ArtPaint myself. And prior to releasing this app, I hadn't heard of any mention of this adjustment at all.
Of course, the last thing on earth I want to see BeOS become is something like Linux, where there are hacks and workarounds all over the place. I have tried to make this app as "non-Linuxy" as I can though -- that's why it's a Tracker add-on that pops up dialogue boxes (despite not being familiar with BeAPI), rather than a cryptic commandline app.
However, at the same time, a lot of BeOS users have reached a critical stage: the OS and the applications available for it are in a similar state to how they were 3 or 4 years ago, and most users are under increasing pressure to leave the platform due to the mounting list of things that cannot be done with it today. And once someone leaves the platform, they're gone for good -- a member of the BeOS community and possibly a potential developer is lost.
Even having used BeOS for 5 years and being of the opinion that it's the only OS with a usable GUI, I've been in this situation before. So far, I've managed to stay with BeOS by writing workarounds like this app, or suffering the pain of booting into Windows to achieve something. But I'm sure not every potential BeOS user is that forgiving.
Don't get me wrong here -- I very much appreciate the efforts of developers who are working hard to make applications better and include all of these features, and I realize that solutions to many of the limitations of BeOS or its software are being worked on right now. But given the amount of pressure on developers already, when there's a choice between a developer coming up with a quick hack to fix a problem, or doing nothing at all (and users having to wait for a "proper" solution), I think the former is the desirable choice.
Anyway, on a more positive note, while creating transparent PNGs I did notice an oddity in the stable binary release version of ArtPaint that the project leader might want to be aware of. I haven't tested the latest source as mentioned above, so I don't know if it's rectified already, but just in case...
I'm not 100% sure on what causes it or whether in fact it's something I'm doing wrong, rather than a bug. But when the gaussian blur is used, it appears that whenever a pixel with an alpha value of 0 is encountered, the colour is assumed to be black and the real colour is ignored.
This app's documentation describes a workaround to this problem, and explains how it causes a problem better than I can here. But quickly, test by drawing something in red on a white transparent background, and applying a gaussian blur -- the drawing will get a black "glow". Changing the background of the canvas so that alpha=1 (very slightly opaque, still mostly transparent) rather than alpha=0 seems to fix this, so it does seem like something that happens specifically when alpha is 0.
Any idea what's causing this?
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| re: mail me the code |
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By ahwayakchih - Posted on October 18, 2004 - 11:13:37 (#14434)
Current version when comment was posted: 1.0 |
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Hmm... I was sure i already gave alpha fix to You (leader) or someone working on ArtPaint, long time ago
(Along with GPL'ed new icons for tools).
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| mail me the code |
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By memson - Posted on October 18, 2004 - 10:48:10 (#14433)
Current version when comment was posted: 1.0 |
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As the registered (yet extremely busy) Art Paint project leader (should that be caretaker?) I'd gratefully receive the fix.. Mail me if you want it to end up in the codebase at some point soon-ish ;-)
Matt
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| An easier way.... |
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By tb100 - Posted on October 16, 2004 - 05:37:30 (#14404)
Current version when comment was posted: 1.0 |
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The PNG translator (or at least the one in the Haiku translation kit) supports transparency fine - the problem is when ArtPaint converts the file to a BBitmap before exporting it, is uses a bitmap without transparency, then saves that.
Changing a couple of lines in the ArtPaint source fixes the issue, meaning pngs saved from ArtPaint have proper transparency information.
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