I am an old iGraphics person and having used the two I can say the older software has some very nice features that Corel has no implemented since Corel 12.  For example, you used to be able to use the up/down arrows in the property manager to change the order of layers instead of having to manually drag them to where they need to be. And in the color swatch you used to be able to see the hexidecimal value for that color for when you are developing web applications. Those are two very huge problems I have with this program. Sure PP12-X4 have the eye dropped tool to help you find certain colors but not being able to see the hex color codes is enough for me to go back to using Photoshop and just drop all use of Corel's products. Everything is web related and being a photo editing program I really am at a loss when you cant find hex codes when you could be trying to color match to another image or create a web template. I just thought these two key factors need addressed ASAP by the Corel programmers as its a huge inconvenience for someone doing web work. Does Adobe have a patent that prevents Corel from having hex codes in the color picker menu??

 I fully agree with you! This issues have been addressed with Corel many times, but for some reason no solution has been provided as of now. As you, I used to use iGraphix and still miss some of the features. iGraphix is now Corel designer if I understand correctly, but I have not had a chance to see how Designer works now.

 I actually work with a company that uses Designer and PhotoPaint 12. One other nice feature I forgot to mention was in Designer9 you could align multiple selected objects to a path. In 12+ you can no longer do this either. All you can do is align text/font to a path. Thats a feature that belongs more in PhotoPaint/Draw than in Designer. In a cad format how often do you align words to a path? Thats what callouts are for! And in Designer the ability to view hex codes would be nice as well, though I realize this isnt overly crticial in a CAD program but I still use DS12 for more than just cad design. Oh well, guess I'll just keep flipping between Adobe programs since Corel cant keep up.

 You can align objects along a path with the "Blend tool" in Draw, the blend tool is one of the most forgotten but most useful tools in the shed. You do have to learn how to use it properly!

I would be more than happy to say I need to learn how to use Corel Draw because we dont use it at all and dont own it. But this thread has nothing to do with Draw. Im referring SOLEY to Designer and PhotoPaint because those are the products I own and use for design.

Lets just say someone is using Designer12 to create a backyard layout design and they have drawn in a long pathway and you need to align 50 different stones/objects to the edge of both sides of that pathway, like a border. You cannot do this in Designer but you USED TO be able to do this, so in that sense it leaves me scratching my head as to why they would take that feature out. According to you, the only way to do this would be to export the DES file as a PDF/JPEG and then try using Draw to add the objects to be aligned and then try to import the file back into DS12. But you've lost all your vector characteristics and line art layers so this is horrible design practice and is not how its meant to be used. The DS12 program allows you to align in several different ways, just not to a pathway anymore. And if the engine running Draw can do this there is absolutely not reason why Designer cant have the same functionality because the programming is very similar, especially since Designer9 worked. It would save the designer HOURS of time on a single design if this worked so I dont understand why they have removed this functionality.

On the subject of Corel DESIGNER, did you see the announcement about the Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4 pre-release technology preview? Members of CorelDRAW.com can get a sneak preview of where the next DESIGNER version is going at http://DESIGNER.com/preview.

Gérard

Gerard Metrailler:

did you see the announcement about the Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4 pre-release technology preview?

Why yes I did.  Let me make this suggestion,  we need to consider a Corel application concept of color management.  One that makes it as easy as possible to use compatible formats from one Corel application to another.

You can view hex codes in the Info docker in PhotoPaint, which I use often - so I'd say the patent idea would not be the case.

I would also love to see hex codes in CorelDraw and improved in PhotoPaint. I'm always getting a call from web designers I do graphics for, asking for the hex codes of backgrounds, etc. I end up copying/pasting from Draw into PhotoPaint to get the code. Additionally, I'm often given a hex code to work with and have to go figure it out.

It would be so nice to just be able to switch back and forth from hex to RGB color models...

Accroya:

It would be so nice to just be able to switch back and forth from hex to RGB color models...

Do you see Hex and RGB as two different modes?

T.

I see them as having two different sets of displayed values. RGB values are easily accessible in CorelDraw while hex values are not. Because many web designers set color values using hex, it would be nice to be able to switch into a color mode which displays color values in hex in order to design graphics using these values.

I can't tell you how many times I've had a programmer call me up asking for hex values for the background of a graphic I created in CorelDraw.

And while "Hex" does appear in the PhotoPaint help file, it does not appear at all in the CorelDraw help file.

It's all a bit surprising to me since hex is a big part of web-related graphics.

Hi Accroya,

here is the solution. It doesn't look like much from the pic.. but works awesome. Double-clicking swatch shows usual color picker.

To enter a hex value for an item, just type it in.

to see current hex value for item, just select the item.

Easy and fast. I'll make a movie soon...

Accroya:

I see them as having two different sets of displayed values. RGB values are easily accessible in CorelDraw while hex values are not. Because many web designers set color values using hex, it would be nice to be able to switch into a color mode which displays color values in hex in order to design graphics using these values.

I can't tell you how many times I've had a programmer call me up asking for hex values for the background of a graphic I created in CorelDraw.

And while "Hex" does appear in the PhotoPaint help file, it does not appear at all in the CorelDraw help file.

It's all a bit surprising to me since hex is a big part of web-related graphics.

Hi Accroya, here is a short movie showing how to use full range of hex values in CorelDRAW.

Accroya:

I see them as having two different sets of displayed values. RGB values are easily accessible in CorelDraw while hex values are not. Because many web designers set color values using hex, it would be nice to be able to switch into a color mode which displays color values in hex in order to design graphics using these values.

 I like what you guys are bringing up as far as patches for DRAW but it still doesn't serve well for those who just own the Corel TECH Suite 12 and dont have Corel Draw. So I still dont like the fact that the suite doesnt have any option for using a hex code.