Help us define the next RealWorld Cursor Editor
With RealWorld Photos getting near completion, the development focus will move to RealWorld Cursor Editor in a month or two. But…what shall be added (or removed) from that application?
You tell me!
OK then, I’ll start and tell you what I think is possible and feasible. If you have different ideas, be sure to leave a comment.
Developer’s perspective
The mock-up screenshot above demonstrates a couple of things that could be added to the next version.
- Image masks - arbitrary (non-rectangular) selections + the appropriate tools - rectangular/elliptic/flood-fill selection tools.
- Color swatch - window with favorite or standard colors.
- Layer support in image editor - allow images to consist of multiple layers. Cursors are then created from these “normal” pictures. The pictures are typically much larger than the actual cursors and are downscaled during conversion.
- Layers in cursor editor - the same, but in the cursor editor.
- Unification of animated and static cursor editors - delete the static cursor editor and open static cursors as animated ones; automatically or manually choose file format when saving.
- Support creation of themes for the CursorFX (formerly CursorXP) tool.
- Some enhancement to the currently available 3D tools (scroll down)?
- Integration of the tagged media library.
- Library of cursor parts for people to combine into a complete cursor (similar to what Axialis distributes with their software). Help of a zealous graphic designer or two would be required (to make the parts).
- The usual stuff - new drawing tools or image filters.
- Allow running image filters compatible with Adobe Photoshop.
IMPORTANT: the above list is by no means plan of features for the next version. It is merely a list of possibilities. And you can help deciding which ones to choose.
User’s perspective
Your chance to influence the next version of RWCE is here. Post your comment right now, every opinion counts…
If you have troubles formulating your opinion, these questions might help you get on the right track:
- What are your favorite functions in the application?
- What are the most important missing functions?
- What functions are hard to use and should be simplified?
- Is there anything you want removed?
- Do you use the application in conjunction with other graphic tools?
October 15th, 2008 at 11:49 PM
Don’t change the colour toning, it’s really useful!
October 16th, 2008 at 11:52 PM
ALL OF THE ABOVE! Plus the ability to change the animation speed of all the frames at once.
October 17th, 2008 at 12:03 AM
It is nice to see enthusiasm :-). BTW, you can change animation speed in current version: select all frames (Ctrl+A while the list of frames has keyboard focus; or drag-select all frames) and then use the Frame Duration panel to either overwrite all times or click the up/down arrows to increase/decrease duration of each selected frame. -> I should add “a better help” to the list…
October 17th, 2008 at 4:53 AM
I would be cool if the cursor changed when you click the mouse
what i mean is that for example you have a red cursor and whenever you click the mouse it changes green.
October 20th, 2008 at 2:53 AM
I approve of all those updates will be great!
October 20th, 2008 at 2:54 AM
# HellFireX Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 4:53 am
I would be cool if the cursor changed when you click the mouse
what i mean is that for example you have a red cursor and whenever you click the mouse it changes green.
Impossible… No cursor can do that… It’s only an animation provided by Camtasia Studios for videos.
October 20th, 2008 at 4:17 AM
I agrre with nick, the color selector is more intuitive, and its easier to find the exact color you’re looking for, but for a small improvement, it would be nice to add thumbnails to the ”open recent” section, just like in icon editor, keep up the excellent work!
October 20th, 2008 at 5:49 AM
I think these ideas are great.
I dont know about the color swatch, personally, the old colorsystem works very well.
I think the layers idea is great, and image filters would be good too.
Personally, i’m fine without Unification of static and animated cursor editors, but this could potentially be very helpful for some editors.
All in all i’m really glad that theres so much work being done continuously on this (already great) piece of freeware. Thanks VLasta
(ps. Hellfires suggestion is interesting, but i think you’d need a program runninin background to give that functionality..)
October 20th, 2008 at 6:18 AM
Also, I was just making a cursor right now, and I was in need of the soften tool in Icon editor, cause i draw out my own gradients for cursors, and the Smooth tool doesnt do the job i need.
So giving the cursor editor some retouch tools (not the ones that wouldnt’ apply to images of cursor size) would help me at least.
October 20th, 2008 at 12:09 PM
Thanks for the responses so far.
* Thumbnails for recent files are a sure thing.
* The color swatch is not meant to replace the old color selectors, but complement them. If you look closely at the screenshot, you’ll see the “Secondary” tab to the left of the “Swatches” (”Primary” tab is below the bubble).
Regarding the cursor changing on mouse click: It is indeed impossible unless the part of Windows that is responsible for cursors is replaced. CursorFX does this. I will think about it, whether it would be worth it to develop another cursor replacement tool. Such tools not only slightly slow down the system, because the mouse must be handled on upper level (it cannot be easily accelerated by your graphics adapter), but also influence every running process because all mouse events must be watched. A bit nasty.
October 24th, 2008 at 9:10 AM
It would be very helpful if you could improve the preview screen for the animated cursors. An example of this would be to make a play button for the different frames. When making the animated cursors, the preview screen only shows one frame as it is. It would be much more helpful if you made it so that it went through all the frames so as to preview the animation. Another improvement would be to make it so you can have different animations for different actions with the cursors. I.E suppose you have a dragon cursor. The normal animation would be for it to breath normally. However when you click something, it would breath fire. Or click and drag something it would claw at the item that you are dragging. Lastly, and this is a big IF. I personally think it would be awsome if you could make a cursor that was able to tell time. Just like the clock on the computer, but only something more noticable than the four numbers at the bottom of the computer screen that’s easy to forget about. Thanks for everything.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:59 PM
I love the color wheel and all of the drawing tools! They are so easy to work with. I just think that making the projected shadow tool more easy to use would be a great idea. I also think that being able to toggle antialiasing on and off would be great so that people can use transparency on only the areas they need.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:12 PM
OK, I’ll keep all that in mind.
BTW. Antialiasing can be turned on and off for some tools - look for the “Smoothing” / “No smoothing” buttons in the Drawing Tool panel.
November 4th, 2008 at 4:18 AM
The rectangle is fullfiled in color already; make a Fill Color option that toggles it
November 4th, 2008 at 1:43 PM
I am not sure if I understand you correctly, but if what you want is to draw rectangle outlines instead of filled rectangles, click the “Outline” toolbar button in the “Fill Style” panel. Works in the current version.
November 4th, 2008 at 6:57 PM
The ability to be able to select multiple frames in an animated cursor and apply the drop shadow to the selected frames would be nice.
November 4th, 2008 at 6:59 PM
Oh yes, and layers would be EXCELLENT!
November 4th, 2008 at 9:28 PM
Thanks for the recent comments. Standard Drop Shadow (not the projected shadow) can be applied on multiple frames in current version. Select multiple (or all) frames by for example dragging a rectangle around them with mouse and then click on the Drop Shadow button in the toolbar above the list of the frames - commands in this toolbar apply to all selected frames. I’ll try to make this feature more accessible in the next version.
November 9th, 2008 at 5:42 PM
get rid of the right hand click thing or make it an option
November 9th, 2008 at 5:48 PM
Are you talking about the mouse gestures accessible through the right mouse button?
November 10th, 2008 at 12:35 PM
All of the above! Is it still gonna be free?? =)
November 10th, 2008 at 1:04 PM
That has not been decided yet, but there definitely will be a way to use it for those, who do not like buying software.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:50 AM
Thank you for taking my idea into account.
Everything is fine.
You need to make a thorogh tutorial though.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:06 PM
the parts library is a nice idea, i would like to use it
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:49 PM
thats cool go with that also add that u can change features E.G add glitter
November 24th, 2008 at 4:30 PM
A feature I like that was in another cursor editor I had on my old computer is an “invert pixel” color swatch. So unless there is one currently that I’m missing, I think that would be great.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:49 PM
Ahhh, this feature. I was wondering if anyone knew about it. It is a bit controversial as there are certain problems associated with it. First, smooth cursors with shadows (the 32-bit ones) cannot use it. This is a Windows limitation. Other than that, these “inverted” pixels can have different colors and they also interfere with some image filters.
So, if you really want to make a cursor with inverted pixels in the current version:
1) Create a cursor with other than 32 bits color depth.
2) Change current color to completely transparent white (upper right corner in the left color area).
3) Draw with pencil or other tool, preferably in “replace” mode. You won’t see anything in the editor, but if you move your cursor above the “Test area” panel, the drawn shape will be there happily inverting.
I know, this is a bit awkward, but the support for non 32-bit color depths it is slowly fading.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:03 AM
Ahhh, well now I will try that. Now I can make some cursors I’ve been wanting to make. Thanks!
December 4th, 2008 at 11:12 AM
Make the “select all” button work for every image. Like when you want to change all the images to the same color.
December 6th, 2008 at 4:18 AM
Add a color depth text (showing which is red, lime,blue and hue) so they can make pink, purple, turquoise, and even smoothing
December 6th, 2008 at 4:20 AM
oh also make new patterns like the square 2×2 that CAN be made
December 6th, 2008 at 11:26 AM
I am not sure I understand you. Are you suggesting that it should be possible to fill shapes with custom patterns?
I do not understand the comment about text at all could you describe it using other words?
December 6th, 2008 at 5:56 PM
Yes, I do suggest that you should fill in custom patterns.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Instead of the middle, go for the top-left corner.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:28 PM
where to download?
December 11th, 2008 at 1:23 AM
Beta version is not yet available. The current version can be downloaded on the homepage.
December 16th, 2008 at 1:18 AM
could you make it so it could open non-animated gif (and animated if possible) as at the moment it comes up with an error
January 9th, 2009 at 2:25 AM
Could you make preset cursor hotspot locations like (default)1,1 centre (32,32) 16,16 and lefty (1,32)
January 9th, 2009 at 2:28 AM
scratch that what i meant was
(DEFAULT) 1,1
Middle 16,16
and Lefty 1,32
also that layering system would be useful, like for example in my Selector cursor it rotated and was a real pain but the layering system would have cut my production time of that cursor by 3/4.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:33 AM
also when is the presumed launch date of a Beta and if possible the completed version?
January 9th, 2009 at 1:55 PM
I’ll think about it. It seems relatively simple to change in the current version, but I’ll try to add the setting to the window for creating new cursors.
Beta will be available probably in February or March. For the final version, it is hard to say. Most likely 1-2 months after the beta.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:09 PM
Like most people, I am a fan of fun cursors and enjoy making my own. I Also agree with HellFireX. You should add a feature to when you click, it changes something on the cursor. Like on Runescape, Depending on where you click, it makes an X appear at the Curosr Hotspot.Also, The color Feature we have already is enough. We get thousands of colors and shades. You ought to add a part that makes transparent inverts. Colors are inverted through a transparent Shape. It would make cursors fun. Also, Make the cursor area a little bigger? Then we Will see the upcoming…. REAL WORLD CURSOR EDITOR 2!
January 18th, 2009 at 7:54 AM
Is there a way to be able to see the inverted pixels in 32×32 editing mode and will it be in the beta?
January 18th, 2009 at 8:00 AM
can you make the backround picture (Th checkerboard) have bigger pixels? now it has 4 squares cover one pixel.
ex
|x|x|_|_|_|_|
|x|x|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_| = One pixel
i would like it to be
|x|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_|
|_|_|_|_|_|_| = One pixel
January 18th, 2009 at 8:01 AM
make this a choice
January 21st, 2009 at 1:45 PM
I am not sure about the inverted pixels, that feature was available in version 2006.1, but it was dropped when the raster editor was redesigned. Considering it cannot be used with the smooth (32-bit) cursors and it could cause additional problems if layers are enabled, I cannot say if it is going to be there or not.
Regarding the smaller pixel grid: Why would you want such a thing? It has 4 squares per pixels (when zoomed in) to make it obvious which pixels are semitransparent. If there were just one square per pixel, the difference between a gray pixel and a semitransparent black pixel will not be visible. Couldn’t the “Small grid” option help you? Is there some reason I am unaware of?
January 31st, 2009 at 7:21 PM
I want to be able to copy&paste parts of the cursor with the select tool
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:41 PM
Add inverted cursor effect! And make it only able to be used on pixels with full transparency? I would love to be able to use this future!
I will never make a cursor with transparency kinda. :3
February 12th, 2009 at 12:39 AM
Thanks for all responses. Next version of RealWorld Cursor Editor is currently being worked on, the feature set is more or less closed, hence further comments to this article are disabled. You may still express your opinion on how to handle multiple open documents in future versions here: http://blog.rw-designer.com/2009/01/documents-vs-windows/