Toolbox 0.8.0: Node-based editor for making digital art

[news 28]

Toolbox 0.8.0: Node-based editor for making digital art - Published on 08/26/08

 

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Opcoders announces the fifth public alpha of Toolbox, a visual programming language for constructing digital art. Toolbox is useful for generating textures, composing logos, photo manipulation, typography and web graphics. Among many new features in this release, Toolbox is now a single window program, and one the biggest changes.

 

Copenhagen, Denmark - Opcoders announces the fifth public alpha of Toolbox, a visual programming language for constructing digital art. Useful for generating textures, composing logos, photo manipulation, typography and web graphics.

 

New Feature - New User Interface:

The transition is now completed! Where Toolbox in the past has been a multi window program, its now a single window program. The benefits of this are enormous. Better use of screen estate. No wasted time on resizing/moving windows. Usable in resolutions as low as 1024x768. Fewer UI elements on the screen. The multiple windows didn't cover the entire screen, so other applications was be visible behind Toolbox, causing visual noise. This visual noise is now eliminated, because the single window entirely covers the background. Its no longer possible to click-through and activate a background application by accident.

 

New Feature - Busy Animation:

The resize pad of a building block shows an animation when its processing data. This gives a clear picture of whats going on, where is the time spend, time remaining before output can be seen and which way the data is flowing. In the past the progress was only shown in the window title.

 

New Feature - Comment Fields:

Getting started with Toolbox is now easier than ever. There are two tutorials that makes use of the new comment fields, so its possible to read rather than guessing. Reading comments are okay, but editing comment fields are very experimental.

 

New Feature - New Look:

In the past the multi window interface leaved little room for making things pretty. This has been addressed with the new interface. Building blocks cast shadows. Appearance have been carefully chosen for comment fields and busy animation. The control bar resembles the one found in Apple Instruments. The new look is attractive.

 

Other Changes:

* Worley noise brick has been added.

* Resize brick has been added.

* Shadow2 brick has been added.

* Export panel has been added.

* Appearance preferences has been added.

* New shortcut. F2 for switching primary/secondary areas.

* New shortcut. Spacebar for scrolling.

* New shortcut. Double click for inserting bricks.

* Added 'Aspect' parameter to the 'Text' brick.

* Added 'Prewitt-Sobel' parameter to the 'Normal' brick.

* Added 'Color2' parameter to the 'Rect' brick.

* Added 'Multiply' to 'Alpha Operations' for the 'Mix' brick.

* More example projects has been added.

* Renamed 'Pad' brick to 'Trim'.

* Renamed 'Overlay' brick to 'Rect'.

 

It has taken half a year to rewrite the UI from scratch and it has been worth the wait. This is the biggest change in Toolbox' history. We are very interested in user feedback regarding this new interface.

 

Requirements:

* Mac OS X 10.5 or later

* 1.5GHz processor (2.4GHz recommended)

* 1GB of system RAM

* 64MB of video RAM

* Three-button mouse

 

Availability and Pricing:

Toolbox is free to try and can be downloaded without any registration from the Toolbox homepage (4.5 MB). A single user license can be purchased for 20 Euro while this program is alpha. Final price will be 50 Euro. Software updates are free.

 

Toolbox: http://toolboxapp.com/

Direct Download Link: http://toolbox.opcoders.com/releases/Toolbox_0.8.0.dmg

Screenshot: http://toolboxapp.com/screenshot.jpg

Screenshot/App Icon: http://toolboxapp.com/icon.tiff

 

 

Opcoders is a one-man company, founded in 2006 by Simon Strandgaard. Copyright 2008 Opcoders. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

 

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Simon Strandgaard

Founder

(+45) 27592923

 

contact ( -at -) toolboxapp.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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