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aArtline is a simple drawing program designed to be both easy to learn and easy to use. It has several features that reduce the difficulty of learning a new program and make aArtline easier to use as your skill increases.
| Automatic defaults | In most graphics programs, you need to go through a different process to set defaults or to set the properties of a selections. In aArtline, anytime you set a property, that becomes the default. That gives you the ease of use defaults provide without the need to go through a separate step to set defaults. You never have to click or type to set defaults, or remember how to set them up, yet the ones you want are usually there when you need them. |
| Color Management | In most graphics programs, you have to manage colors. You may end up dealing with a lot of colors you aren't using in your current design. aArtline keeps track of all the colors you are using in your current design, and gives you a flyout showing all of them when you select a new color. |
| File Viewing | If you want to view all the aArtline (AAA) files you a directory, just open any file in that directory, then hit the page down to open the next file in the directory, or page up to see the previous file. Files opened in this way are ready to edit, just as if you had opened them with the "File/Open" command. If you have made changes, you will be prompted to save them when you hit the page up or down. |
| Hot menus | Most graphics program users either click through a series of menus with a mouse, or remember a bunch of hot keys. You can hold down the Alt key to access top level menus, but that is awkward enough that most users don't do it. In aArtline, you can simply type the letter without the Alt key and the menu appears. For example, to load a file, you just type "fo" and then type or select the file name. To draw a heart, you just type "dh". After you have gotten used hot menus, you will annoyed with graphics programs that don't have them. |
| Object tool | The object tool dialog is hand-written so you get a lot of capabilities that are almost impossible to include in the canned dialogs that most programs use. You can change colors, line widths and other properties with unprecedented ease. The Object tool works for groups of objects or for a single object. |
| Symmetry | aArtline symmetrical objects can be modified interactively. After you have moved any point, aArtline restores symmetry to the object. |
| Simplified Bezier drawing | The unique aArtline Bezier control allows simple and intuitive drawing and editing of Bezier curves. |
| Format text in shapes other than rectangles. | Want to make a cartoon with a text balloon? Would you like to fit text in a heart, an octagon, or some object you have created.. You can do it easily with aArtline. |
| View selected objects | You can use this function the way you might use layers in most graphics programs. But you don't have to plan which objects will be on which layers before you do the drawing. You can easily view any object or combination of objects without the interference of the rest of the drawing, and you can do it at any time. You can see how your drawing is constructed by turning on the view selected objects function, holding down the shift key, and hitting the up arrow. Your drawing will be constructed for you one object at a time. Or you can just hit the up arrow without the shift key and see all the objects in your drawing one at a time. |
| Zoom and scroll | Zoom and scroll features are similar to the popular Thred embroidery digitizing program with a few enhancements such as the scroll tool. For current users of Thred, aArtline also exports Thred files, so you can create an object in aArtline, then export it to a Thred form and fill it with the many varieties of Thred fills. |
aArtline is specifically designed with bitmaps in mind, so all measurements are in pixels. It's perfect for creating graphics for web pages and for input to automatic embroidery digitizing programs. aArtline can create and import BMP, JPG, TIF, GIF, and PNG bitmaps.