Thinking more about this, I realized that the best solution would be to use what other folks have been doing for literal decades in apps like Inkscape, CAD, etc.: Have ALL elements be unique objects in specified, hierarchal layers with individual settings for things like transparency, X & Y scale, whether or not that object should be included in printing, etc. That extreme flexibility would allow users to do things like load in a dozen SVG/PNG/etc. images to trace and pull ideas from as well as for custom logos/text boxes/etc. to be printed on the finished piece.
That’s more or less what I plan on doing… as opposed to just a single image per draft block. I have more insight to the Qt graphics system, and how Seamly2D telates to it. Keep in mind Qt does not support layers per se. Without getting in the weeds too much… you can only set a Z level for qgraphicsitem to layer items that are at the same level or below - or more succinctly - siblings or children. Setting a Z for an item has no effect on Parent items. In other words you can place an item behind (or above) a sibling or child, but not the parent.
Hey Grace… just had one of those Hmmm momments. I’m still working on adding a backgroubd image… and at the moment I’m looking at a PDF of the Blue Book for a jacket I have to draft… and the light bulb went off. I know your looking at using an image as a reference for drafting, and not tracing like I and others have envisioned. It dawned on me that it could be kinda of annoying to keep switching back and forth between Seamly2D and the pdf viewer - what if I was to add a separate dock window that an image could be loaded in, with just basic zoom and scroll? You could load images in the dock, and then move or size the dock over the drafting work area. A hotkey could show / hide the dock.
As an aside, I’m also looking at tabbing the sidebar area for the various docks to make it easier to manage.
That would be wonderful. Would it be possible for the image dock window to go behind the pattern draft, so that one can check things - like angles - and figure out how to translate the very old pattern book instructions into resizable Seamly patterns?
In other words, while it would be cool to have even that, you still find it useful to have the picture behind the drafting board even though you aren’t tracing off of it, yes?
No. Dock windows by nature are either meant to dock at one of the positions left, right, top, bottom, or to float (if enabled) on top of the main view window.
Either way I am working on adding images to the draft mode scene (board)… which will appear behind the draft block objects. Which could be used to trace off of, or to just exist as reference.
I was just thinking that if there was reference dock it could contain images, text, or doc files… basically the instructions to draft a pattern that are contained in many of the books. Seems it would be more convenient to embed the reference material with the pattern, rather than having to open multiple apps and constantly switching between them.
Yes, I think that will be useful, especially in the case of some of the older men’s tailoring books where the images are on very different pages to the instructions
Well, I did something last night that I have no idea why I’ve bever done before… I hooked up my 32" TV to my laptop and used it as a second monitor in extended mode. This is just way cool… In Seamly2D I threw all the right side docks on the other screen, and it freed up a lot of work space. Which definitely convinced me that having a reference dock window would be useful.
Does it have an HDMI port? If so, with Windows 10 a couple simple settings will allow you to use the HDMI as a second monitor… by selecting “extended mode” it expands the desktop across both monitors.
Yeah… that’s my dilemma too… I usually spend time on the couch working at the laptop while watching the TV.
Yes, it does have an HDMI port. And I think there is a way to ‘split’ the screen. I’ll have a look into it when they’re done with loadshedding. At the moment, we barely have electricity.
It’s real simple then. Assuming you connect the TV/Monitor into the HDMI port…Just go to settings->system->display. You should see a link for Advanced display settings. From there you should see a “Choose display” dropdown- which should show the laptop display as #1, and the tv as #2 where you can change the settings for that display. Which may be desirable to match the scale / resolution between the displays. Back on the display page there is also a Multiple displays setting… choosing “Extend the displays” will extend your desktop across both displays. Now you can drag floating docks onto the 2nd display screen - which frees up space for your boards. Or you can move a whole app into the second display. The mouse will easily move between the 2 displays making it easy to drag and drop between two apps.
Yes, I’m sure it’s going to be coming in the not too distant future. Unfortunately, a few things have had to wait after a huge crash that destroyed all these amazing new things. But @Douglas is catching up and putting in changes that will make this all the more possible.
It’s been on the back burner… besides having to reconstruct the feature, I got tied up at work for months with several large projects. It’s probably time to get back to that feature.
