Serif DrawPlus X3 Patch Announcement (10.0.2)

[Patrick Connor]

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Dear All.
Serif (Europe) Ltd. has decided to release of a patch for DrawPlus X3 (build number 10.0.2.021). The main purpose of the patch is to resolve issues discovered after the mastering of DrawPlus X3, for which we apologise.

We would also recommend that ALL users of DrawPlus X3 download and install this patch. To work out if you need this patch choose "About DrawPlus X3" in the help menu and if the version number is 10.0.1.019 or less then you need this patch. Helpfully the software checks for updates the first time it runs, so for those yet to install a CD, the latest patch will be found on first use. Serif recommend that patching should be done within the program, by using the "Check for update from web" option in the Help Menu. This will always get any available patch for your version of Serif software (CD or download) and install it too. The downloads page www.serif.com/downloads.asp has the patch also, which is 7.64 MB. The patch for the download DrawPlus X3 is the same as for the CD version.

A list of the changes/fixes in this patch are listed below. Some are phrased in the negative from our database, but are nevertheless fixed.

1. Fix for Print Preview causing the application to hang occasionally.
2. Updated the Crop Tool's context toolbar to have some useful context options.
3. Fixed problems with Image Adjustments on 32 bit Bitmaps.
4. 'Shadows and Highlights' adjustment works correctly on non-32 bit bitmaps now.
5. Opening a Bitmap as a document now appropriately sizes the bitmap - it used to be marginally incorrect!
6. Updated 'Image Properties' dialog to report the actual native and placed image resolutions, also made it slightly larger and default to show the tree contents rather than collapse them.
7. Ensure the Pressure Pane is updated correctly on creation of new curves.
8. Improved Pressure curve input smoothing to reduce the number of points on the curve but retain the same response.
9. Changed AutoSave so that it will attempt to save after a unit of work when the timer expires rather than ignoring the save action if the user was making a change. This removes the possibility of going for long periods without performing an AutoSave!
10. Fix for Shadow Tool not drawing the correct area when selected on a rotated object such as a Quick Ellipse.
11. Fix for Radial Blur corruption.
12. Improved visual quality of small Filter Effects and Shadows (particularly around their edges) and improved functionality of blur radius on small Shadows.
13. Fix for 32bit 'Photo' Edge styles drawing corrupt to transparent destinations.
14. Fixes to the Palette for creation/editing and correct updating as colours become used in the document.
15. Correct support for old documents with transparent Mesh Fills to convert them to the new per-node alpha Mesh Fills (transparency was previously lost when the document was converted).
16. Keyboard 'Nudge' using arrow keys now moves the selected nodes of a curve when in the curve node tool (and pencil/paintbrush/pen/line tools) rather than moving the whole object.
17. Users can now place an image at a forced 96dpi (screen DPI) by choosing to place a picture then single-clicking while holding down 'Alt'.
18. AutoTracer automatically initialises to a sensible suggestion for the 'Resize' parameter when the user attempts to trace very large images. The user will probably notice better quality results and improved speed by default!
19. Export Dialog should initialise to sensible export values when faced with a scenario that would generate a massive image! For example, exporting an icon at 600dpi then choosing to export an A3 page would initialise at 600dpi in the dialog and the user's machine would be crippled for a long time until it returned from generating the export bitmap even though they probably didn't want this!
20. Rationalised the displayed line style width when multiple lines are selected that have different styles or widths. Made this consistent on both the context toolbar and Line Pane. Also ensured the controls are active and editable when the sizes disagree as you couldn't change it before!
21. Added extra options to the right-click Context Menu such as 'Convert to Curves' and the 'Crop/Clip' options.
22. Ensured Undo/Redo actions on text objects update their bboxes correctly.
23. Correctly generate text alpha during SWF preview/export.
24. Fix for Groups of images disappearing when Envelope Tool is applied.
25. Rationalised context toolbar icons for Alignment to visually match those in the Align Pane
26. Updated CAD DWG/DXF Import/Export to current versions in order to improve compatibility and remove crashing on Vista.
27. Fix for behaviour of current Layer selection when deleting Design Layer objects and also ensure the Select Tool is reselected.
28. Improved performance of simple gradient fills (linear fills, conical fills, square fills and elliptical fills) - improves performance in excess of 2x.
29. Removed undefined behaviour from complex gradient fills.
30. Loading pre-X3 documents when running on a PC that formats time differently to UK would cause Bitmaps in the document to fail to load! This has been rectified!
31. Brush Pane's 'Document' category should update correctly now and document brushes should always be properly managed.
32. Improved speed of Group/Ungroup operations and also improved stability.
33. Added a few keyboard shortcuts for common functions: F2 (Paintbrush Tool), F3 (Pen Tool), F4 (Freeform Paint Tool) and F5 (Fill Tool).
34. Improved Windows 7 Compatibility
35. Fixed problems with opacity on 24/32bit Photo Brushes and Vector brushes
36. PDF Output improved to include support for layered PDFs (Acrobat 6+) and PDF gradients (Acrobat 5+) for higher quality output

This patch also includes all the issues fixed in the previous DrawPlus X3 patch. This software patch is the only patch you need to apply, no matter what version of software you are currently running. There is no need to uninstall any previous patch before installing this patch.


Please report any problems updating DrawPlus X3 in this similar thread in the DrawPlus forum.