Color Pixel Editing in Resorcerer
Each of Resorcerer's Color Pixel Editors for Color Icon, Finder Family Icon,
Cursor, and Pattern ('cicn', 'ICN#', 'icl8', 'icl4', 'ics#', 'ics8', 'ics4',
'icm#', 'icm8', 'icm4', 'CURS', 'crsr', and 'ppat') resources uses a similar
interface with similar sophisticated features available in all of them.
They include:
- Arbitrary FatBit Size. You can grow the window to suit your tastes or
screen size.
- Snapshots. As you work, just tap the SpaceBar to add another snapshot of
your work to the visible snapshot list. Double-click on any previously-taken
snapshot to revert to an earlier idea. You can optionally save all snapshots
in their own resource as a library to work with, or simply to save your editing
session completely while you take a break from hacking pixels.
- Anti-aliasing. When editing color resources with a pixel depth of 8, you
can created smooth anti-aliased circles, ovals, lines, or even text.
With anti-aliased text, you can fit the entire English alphabet in lower case,
with room to spare, in a 32 x 32 pixel icon.
- Arbitrary Discontinous Selections. Click and drag the lasso around pixels
you want to select. Then hold the Shift key and add to or subtract from the
current selection. You can select background pixels, and invert any selection
as well.
- Paint the Selection. You can double-click the lasso to select all pixels
that are "connected" in the same way the Bucket Tool would work with a color.
Selected all pixels of the same color is also easy.
- Diagonal Connectivity. When painting with the Bucket Tool, or painting
the selection, you can choose standard pixel connectivity (horizontal or vertical
only), or set the editor to treat diagonally touching pixels as connected as well.
- Screen Copying. Using Resorcerer's standard Screen Copy command, you can
copy any image from your screen, such as a background paint program or other
imaging software, into your pixel resource editor. You can also constrain the
copy to end up in only those pixels you have already selected, for instance, only
in all background pixels. Anti-aliasing is also available.
- Dedicated Finder Icon Color Palette. The special 34 colors to use in
Finder Family icons are always available in 8 bit images. These colors are
recommended if you expect to be appylying any PlotIconSuite transformations.
- Special Dither Palette. You can easily choose any tone between two
colors as the foreground "color".
- Hot Painting. After painting with a color, or after making a selection,
you can apply any pattern, color, or dither to what you just painted or selected.
Simply hold the Shift key down and drag the mouse through any of the color or
pattern palettes.
- Selection Stays the Same across Image Changes. You can change
from a color image to the black and white image of a Finder Family, or within a
'cicn' and not lose the selection as long as the dimensions of the two images remain
the same. This lets you use the selection to mark areas that need to conform between
the two. You can draw individual pixels without losing the selection if you
need to use it for marking.
- Preferences for Keyboard Shortcuts.If you've got a favorite paint program
with its own keyboard shortcuts, you can conform Resorcerer's pixel editors to
use the same keyboard shortcuts, to lower your user-interface dissonance.
- DeRez to the Clipboard. Simply ensure there's no selected pixels or snapshots,
and choose Copy to place the DeRez'ed source code for the resource or resources you're
editing.