• BUGFIX: (Mac Only) Automatic updates did not function in 1.4.0127 (sorry guys – you’ll have to download the installer from the site this time). This was fixed and tested in an intermediate unreleased version 1.4.0130.
• BUGFIX: Auto-generated WebWorks ZIP file name could possibly be invalid when attempting to package a WebWorks app. This would cause packaging to fail. All ZIP file names should be fully valid now, every time.
• BUGFIX: Register Signing Keys item in the Publish menu was not linked to its action, so it did nothing when selected. Now, registering signing keys via this menu item should function properly.
• CHANGE:  The process for installing debug tokens was changed to allow file selection if the Debug Token Save Location in the Settings/Preferences window did not contain a valid file location.
• NEW: Added messages to the console for:
•  loading XML from any of the available options (drag & drop, shortcut key, menu item)
• creating/refreshing the package file list
• updating the main app panel
• installing standalone BAR files
• uninstalling standalone BAR files

Windows users may use the update feature to download and install the update automatically. Mac users should use the download button below for this time. There is no need to uninstall the previous version before installing this one. The old version will simply be replaced on install.

This beta installation will expire and no longer run at midnight on December 31, 2011.

Updates have been enabled for all current installations. To install the current version, use “Check for updates” from the Help menu. Settings are not compatible between the two versions, so they will have to be redone via the new Settings window. Update is not required if you would like to stay with version 1.3, despite it’s display bug.

Download links, release notes, known issues, etc after the jump.

New Features

• Compatibility with Mac OS X (Snow Leopard & Lion)
• Platform specific interface features & language
• Easily switchable, dedicated simulator and tablet launch targets
• No longer relies on batch files or standard Windows Command Prompt commands (except ping)
• Floating, transparent Settings/Preferences window for quick changes
• Compatibility with the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK [the works!]
• Everything FruitBat will do for the AIR SDK, it will do for WebWorks
• Access to the FruitBat console in case you want to see the command line fly past as FruitBat works
• Link to order signing keys from RIM
• Automated registration for both your code signing key and debug token
• Create debug tokens
• Install debug tokens
• Package and sign final releases of your app with one click (Okay, it’s two, but at least you don’t have to touch the command line tools!)

Bug Fixes

• “undefined” app title, version and BAR file name issues have been resolved

Known Issues & Incomplete Features

There are a few lingering issues in this release, but it’s been far too long since the last release (especially with the display bug) to hold onto the release any longer. If you run into issues, feel free to leave a comment here or get in touch via the contact form (forums are coming).

These issues will all be addressed and do not need to be reported:

• “Copy FruitBat Settings/Preferences” menu item not enabled or implemented yet.
• Activate/Deactivate menu items do not perform any action yet.
• No alerts, notifications or messages are available outside of the Console window, so to see what’s going on, open it.
• Installing a debug token does not ping the tablet first, like the other actions, so it is slow to fail when the tablet cannot be reached via its IP address (debug tokens not required in the simulator).
• “Register Signing Keys” from the Publish menu does not perform any action. It was meant to be in this release, but it will be in the first update to the beta. Fixed in 1.4.0132.
• When choosing files and folders for the various settings, checks are performed on the selected files to make sure they are valid and what they’re supposed to be. If the check fails, no error is currently shown, but the file/folder browse dialog will open again immediately. Error dialogs are forthcoming and will ask for confirmation before opening the dialog again.
• I’ve tried to add messages to the console so you can see that something is happening (outside of the standard SDK output), but some actions may be missing their additional messages.
• Mac version has not been tested for registering signing keys, debug tokens or packaging a final release (which includes signing). If these do not work, please let me know. These commands are identical to the Windows version, which all work properly from my testing.
• WebWorks basic functions work, but you must have the WebWorks SDK set up properly, according to RIM’s instructions (especially regarding debug token and certificate [sigtool.p12]) before using any of the WebWorks features.
• For WebWorks, be sure to assign a build ID in your config.xml file by adding a fourth set of digits (between 0 and 999) in the version number [1.0.0.XXX]. FruitBat will use “0″ if no build ID is found. Opinions and comments welcome on whether FruitBat should add its own configuration file to your project folder to store an auto-incrementing build ID and any other project-specific settings that may be required in the future. This, of course, would be excluded automatically from any BAR files created via the app.

Not really an issue, but do not attempt to sign a BAR file created by clicking the “Package & Install” button on the main screen. For AIR applications, the debug flag is set, and for WebWorks, the browser inspector is enabled. Use the Publish menu to create final packages.

Please, let me know your thoughts and interest in the continued development of FruitBat in the comments section. Reporting bugs is also greatly appreciated.

Update

12:09: Just found a bug with ZIP file name generation that may stop WebWorks apps from packaging properly. Will issue an update later today to address it. Fixed in 1.0.0132.

The fix has already been completed for the next update.

MXSMaker Main Window

MXSMaker is a minimal application with only one button that does one thing – make MXS files for Painter, and it is as easy to use as it looks:

1. Click the Select Image button
2. Choose an image from the dialog
3. Save the converted file

In addition to the button, there are three other ways to create Mixer Pad files with MXSMaker, and all are just as easy and fast.

• Drag any JPG, PNG or GIF file over the application window and drop the file
• Copy and paste any compatible file from your OS’ filesystem using standard OS shortcuts
• Copy and paste any image data from any application (ex. a selection from Painter’s canvas, Photoshop, SnagIt or your web browser)

Automatic updates are included in the application and are checked every time the application starts if an active internet connection is available. This behavior cannot be turned off; however, downloading and installing an update is your choice.

Special thanks to Kaburaya for the first Mixer Pad online converter and David Gell for sharing it.

Using an MXS File

To load a converted MXS file into Painter, first make sure the Mixer panel is open. If it isn’t the panel can be accessed through the menu Window > Color Panels > Mixer or by using Ctrl/Cmd+2 from the default keyboard shortcuts.

Painter 12 Mixer Panel

Next, be sure to save the current Mixer Pad file if you’d like to use it again later. Painter will not ask you to save before opening the new MXS file, and the old Mixer Pad will be lost forever. The save command is in the Mixer panel’s menu at the top-right of the panel.

After saving, click the menu button once more and choose Open Mixer Pad. After choosing your file, it will be loaded and ready for color mixing and picking.

Known Issue

Copy and paste only works with Ctrl+V in Mac OS instead of Cmd+V because the default Paste shortcut from the application menu is taking over the command. An update will be issued to address this at a later date.

Update issued as version 1.0.101 that corrects all known issues.

1. Open the Settings panel by clicking the wrench icon in the title bar.
2. Leave your settings the way they are, especially User Mode which should be set to YES for most users. If you use a location that isn’t one of the default locations for Painter (ex. a folder on D: drive), skip steps 3 and 4.
3. For consistency choose Painter 11 from the Painter Version drop down.
4. Click the button that says Set to Default Location, then check the checkbox beside it for using a custom path.
5. If your path uses Application Data or AppData in Windows or Application Support on Mac OS, change 11 (or your version number) to 12 — this should be most users. If your path uses Program Files on Windows or Applications in Mac OS, change “Corel Painter 11″ to “Painter12″ with no spaces. Windows 64-bit users should also remove ” (x86)” — the space in front of it too–  from the Program Files folder name.

That’s it! This will install brushes into the Default workspace in the Painter Brushes library. Changing “Default” to another workspace name will use that workspace instead. Changing “Painter Brushes” to another library name will use that library instead. It’s all pretty straightforward.

If you do choose to use a different workspace or library, my recommendation is to use the Browse button that opens beside the path’s text box, just to make sure spelling and spacing are exact. The folder selection dialog that opens will be set to your current location and you should be able to see the folders for your other workspaces. Expand a workspace along with its Brushes folder and choose a library (any folder inside of the Brushes folder) and click OK. Now Brush Manager will install into the chosen workspace and library.

The BlackBerry PlayBook is finally here! This update to FruitBat adds the ability to install in-development apps to the PlayBook hardware for testing while using a debug token. It also has the ability to install and uninstall signed BAR files to and from the device.

Current users can update by choosing Help > Check for Updates from the application menu.

FlashDevelop Template Update

Along with FruitBat, the FlashDevelop template has been updated for the latest version of the Tablet OS SDK. Several fields have been added to the blackberry-tablet XML template. A new icon template and two splash screen templates (one for landscape orientation and the other for portrait) have been added as well. All of these items match the current BlackBerry application design guidelines.

Release Notes

• -devMode added to Package & Install command
• Install button removed from the multi-button
• On-screen icon display resized to 86×86 pixels
• Successful actions will close the command prompt window automatically
• Install command (Ctrl+I) from the application menu tested with signed BAR files
• Graphic templates added to FlashDevelop template
• blackberry-tablet.xml template updated for current SDK

Troubleshooting

The newest version of the Tablet OS SDK doesn’t show error messages in the same way it did in 0.9.4, and the errors I have seen may not match what’s really going on (or tell what needs to be fixed). If something happens, the FruitBat script will only give an generic error message and may or may not show the error message from the SDK. If you run into an error, the following list may help you locate the problem:

• Are you using the latest version of the SDK?
• Check the “Simulator IP Address” from the settings panel
• Make sure the password for the simulator/device is correct
• Make sure the device is in development mode
• If installing a debug version of an app, check to see if a debug token has been installed and is still valid (these installs only last 30 days)
• In the blackberry-tablet XML file, make sure you’ve used your exact vendor name from App World and have filled in the Author ID field with the correct value

New Painter 12 logo and splash screen. © Corel Corporation.

The Interface Overhaul

The biggest, instantly noticeable change is the brand new user interface. It takes on a more modern look with unique, stylized icons and leaving behind the mismatched default system windows. Palette windows now have dark title bars which match across both the Mac OS and Windows platforms. The darker color helps palettes fade into the dark gray background outside of the canvas (for those that use a windowed viewing mode).

Panels, a slight terminology change for individual palette containers, have lost the long title bar in favor of tabs which can be docked side by side inside of a palette window or one on top of the other to create groupings. This space-saving feature also solves a frustrating usability problem of individual panels being too easy to accidentally expand, collapse and move around the workspace while interacting with them. Now instead of a single-click, a double-click is required to collapse or expand a panel. Small changes like this are sprinkled throughout the interface to make the Painter experience more enjoyable.

Other areas such as the toolbox and the various media library selectors also received updates. By default, the new toolbox is a single column with larger icons that should be easier to select quickly with a Wacom pen. The new arrangement takes up as little space as possible, leaving a larger working area for the main canvas.

While talking about Wacom pen friendliness, all of the main controls, like sliders, have been slightly enlarged as well. For sliders in particular, both the draggable thumb and track are larger, making more accurate value selections easier with a pen. Again, small details go a long way.

One last area of interest in the new interface are the docking bars both at the top of the Painter window as well as the bottom, which returns from older versions of Painter. These new docks are sticky – the brush selector will stay put!

Brush Selector

The Brush Selector received a massive overhaul along with the rest of the interface. Now, both categories and individual variants are seen at the same time instead of having to open two separate dropdowns. This will be a huge timesaver. Also included above the lists is a row of the 10 most recently used brushes (these are also in the property bar of the main interface in the Default workspace). The Recent Brushes selector works exactly like the Tracker palette from Painter 11 and is the Tracker palette’s replacement.

The Brush Selector allows both categories and individual brush variants to be viewed in an icon view without names or as a list view with names.

Along with the redesign, the Brush Selector also helps keep brush libraries and categories organized. The display order of categories and brush variants can be changed to the user’s preference through drag and drop right in the Brush Selector panel. In Painter 11, this was available in a separate dialog window, which was a little clunky and often forgotten. Now the action is front and center and where it matters most.

Stroke Attributes and New Digital Airbrushes

For years, one of the biggest questions asked by new Painter users coming from Photoshop has been, “How do I make the brushes in Painter act like Photoshop brushes?” Before, there were tricks here and there that one could use, but the results were never really the same. The times have changed!

In Painter 12, brush controls have been greatly expanded with the introduction of a brand new circular brush dab and stroke attributes. The Computed Circular dab has settings for both hardness and opacity, and opacity means what it says – strokes can now be partially transparent and brushing over the same area more than once in the same stroke will not build to a totally opaque color.

Quickly brushed gradient using new stroke attributes.

Along with stroke opacity, new Merge Mode controls have been added through a simple dropdown menu in the General brush controls panel. These allow complex color interaction and color mixing on the canvas through all 22 of Painter’s composite methods/blending modes. In past versions of Painter, the only way to achieve these effects was by using separate layers for each blending mode; not anymore. Use Multiply mode to create color washes that combine colors much like watercolor or use Overlay mode with a light color to create glows quickly and easily without having to track down the Glow brush.

Multiply Merge Mode with Yellow.

Overlay Merge Mode with Yellow.

Now for the icing on the cake: Just imagine canvas texture interaction, the already powerful color blending features of Painter and the accurate stroke opacity of Photoshop combined into a single brush. That’s right, stroke attributes work with most of Painter’s huge library of brushes with all of their complex features including grain, resaturation, bleed, bristle sprays, artist’s oils, clone color, pen pressure, rotation, speed and on and on and on. It’s a digital painter’s dream come true.

Real Watercolor

Painter is all about replicating natural media. For the past few releases new “Real” brush categories and types have been added, including Pencils and Hard Media in Painter 11. Painter 12 continues forward with new Real Watercolor brushes.

The new Real Watercolor brushes are, in a word, AMAZING!!! [yes, that was necessary – that's how good they are] To let them speak for themselves:

Real Watercolor sample.

Wet, darkened edges, texture from paper, flowing pigments and simulated soak-in all from a single brush stroke. This is the most realistic digital watercolor available today in any digital painting software. Water flows, evaporates and soaks into the canvas as if it were real paper, and of course, it’s taking color along for the ride. As water pools, so does the color which leaves rich, pigment-saturated fringes around the edges.

The diffusion and evaporation process can be paused over the duration of several strokes by using the pause icon in the brush property bar at the top of the Default workspace. When unpaused, all strokes will diffuse, evaporate and mix together as if they had all been laid on top of a wet piece of paper at the same time.

Next, the color model for Real Watercolor is a huge improvement from the normal Watercolor brushes. With the traditional Painter Watercolor brushes, color builds very quickly leaving a muddy, or completely black, mess on the canvas with saturated color. Real Watercolor, on the other hand, builds smoothly and more realistically. Final colors after diffusion are pure and turn out as expected.

The traditional Watercolor brushes are still available as well. Both Real Watercolor and Watercolor can interact with one another, so favorite effect brushes from the Watercolor category, like Eraser Salt can still be used just as it would normally.

Real Watercolor sample with Eraser Salt applied.

[I could continue gushing over these brushes for another 20 pages; I love them! Hands-down, this is my favorite new feature and I can't wait to see how everyone will use them and the gorgeous works of art that will be created with them.

Bonus: If you are interested in Painter's watercolor abilities, be sure to watch Joan A. Hamilton's Digital Painting Site. Joan is a Painter Watercolor expert with the old-style watercolor brushes. With these new and improved brushes in hand, I can't even imagine what she'll come up with, but I know it will be top notch and amazing – she does tutorials too!]

Real Wet Oil

Building from the technology in Real Watercolor, Real Wet Oil has many of the same qualities of Real Watercolor except Real Wet Oil is opaque and it doesn’t require a special Watercolor Layer. Real Wet Oil diffuses and blends much like, well, real wet oil paint running and mixing across a canvas, and it does it all by itself! With settings adjustments, the wetness of the applied paint can range from creamy oil to almost watercolor.

Along with brushes that apply color, Real Wet Oil also contains a few new blender brushes that act as turpentine (or water) on anything that’s available on the canvas. These both move color around the canvas and blend at the same time. The final result of the Turp brushes can look blurry, so take care to use them sparingly or be prepared to paint detail in on top of the blended color.

Beginnings of a koi painted with the help of Real Wet Oil in Painter 12.

Beyond oil painting, the Real Wet Oil brush settings are a huge leap forward. Never before has Painter specifically allowed both wet and dry media to interact with one another on the canvas, at least not with this much freedom. Real Wet Oil is not limited to only oil painting. For instance, the Turp brushes will spread pencils and chalk as if they were watercolor. Start a “to be wet” painting with a favorite brush, add some Turp here and there for blending and on to another brush. It’s digital mixed media at its finest.

Mirrored & Kaleidoscopic Painting

Kaleidoscopic painting has been available to Painter users through a special plugin layer for a long time, but the painting was confined to the specific plugin layer, which may or may not cover the entire canvas. With this release, the Kaleidoscope plugin layer is obsolete. The brand new Mirror Painting Tool and Kaleidoscope Painting Tool are available in the toolbox with all of the other tools. No special layer is needed, even for kaleidoscopic watercolor painting. Just choose the tool and paint on the canvas like with anything else!

Real Watercolor lily painted with the help of the Kaleidoscope Tool.

Kaleidoscopic painting with Real Watercolor in Painter 12 is quite intelligent. Even though the Lily in the example painting above was painted to be completely symmetric from 6 angles, notice the variety in the coloration of the petals. They are similar, but not exactly the same. This lends to a more realistic look in the end. Experiment and see if any other brushes give randomized looks.

Custom Palette Customizations

That’s a mouthful! Custom palettes are sets of tools and commands collected together in one place. One common use is pulling together a favorite set of specific brushes and settings for a particular painting style. In the past, when multiple brushes from the same category were added to a custom palette, their icons all looked exactly alike so it was difficult to tell different brushes apart quickly.

New custom palettes in Painter 12 solve the confusion by allowing icons and buttons to be customized completely. Now separate brushes can have separate icons that the user can distinguish quickly.

Under the Hood & Other Goodies

64-bit for Windows

Painter has had a lot of work done on the surface, but it has also received some attention under the hood. For the first time ever, Painter is a 64-bit application (at least on Windows – maybe next time Mac folks). Being 64-bit, it can access more RAM than today’s desktop computers can hold. This is one of the first steps in preparing Painter for the future.

Multicore Processing for Brushes

Brushes now support multicore processing which splits the painting task into pieces that are passed along to different parts of multicore processors. The more available cores, the faster brushes should work, even large ones. Even without multicore, though, the brush engine has been improved greatly in the area of speed. Large brushes do not lag as much or as easily as in past versions.

Temporal Color Palette

Choose colors quickly and easily right over your canvas with the new Temporal Color Palette. Call the palette with a shortcut key and it will appear under your brush. Choose your color and get right back to painting. The palette itself is partially transparent which allows comparison between the canvas and the color to be selected.

Brush Calibration Palette

Brush Tracking is an existing feature in the Painter preferences file. It controls mapping of pen pressure and other measurements from a graphics tablet. Setting Brush Tracking customizes the feel of all of the brushes in Painter. They are instantly tuned to the user’s painting style.

With Painter 12, Brush Tracking goes even further with the Brush Calibration palette. Every individual brush in Painter’s library can now have its own Brush Tracking preference. This leaves ultimate stroke control with the digital painter and ensures brushes feel just right.

Clone Source Palette

The cloning workflow has received several enhancements along with this update. Previously, only one clone source could be used at once and switching between several was not very convenient. Now, with multiple sources stored in the Clone Source palette, the switch is a single click.

With the Clone Source palette, it is now possible to keep several reference images open at once for clone painting. One common use for multiple clone sources is switching between several different color variations of a photo from other applications or saved from Painter’s own Underpainting palette. Tracing paper controls from the document window frame have also been moved into the Clone Source palette.

High Quality Display

In past versions of Painter, zoomed out views, and sometimes even the 100% view of a painting showed visible pixelation. The new high quality display smooths out all of those rough edges for both zoomed out and zoomed in views. Painter’s canvas has never looked better.

… and More

Hard to believe, but there are still more new features and enhancements. This is a HUGE update for Painter fans, bringing in enhancements from user requests over the years, stability and a few surprises from the Painter team. For an exhaustive list and video demonstrations of some of the features, head over to Painter’s page on the Corel website.

Give it a try…

To try out the new features, a free 30-day trial is available, as usual. The trial contains the entire Painter application and may be activated with a serial number just as the boxed or digital delivery edition in the Corel store. For new users, Painter 12 is currently $429 and for existing users, of Painter X and 11, upgrade pricing is $229.

For Painter’s 20th Anniversary a Limited Edition Paint Can is available in the Corel store for $449. These begin shipping on May 25, 2011.

What’s your favorite new feature?

What’s your favorite new feature of Painter 12? Have any questions? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

Just One More Thing…

Yay!

colorbranch is a color picker, color matcher and color conversion application created for artists, designers and developers. The first release allows colors to be chosen from photos and other images with more choices coming.

All colors are represented in many different common formats for ultimate flexibility. Easily see HEX color codes for CSS, then convert to HSL with one button for some CSS3 color animation magic!

Swatches can be exported as XML, Adobe® Swatch Exhange (.ase) for use with Adobe Creative Suite and Corel® Painter™ Color Set (.colors) files for truly portable color palettes. In addition to designers and artists, code-ready strings are also readily available for CSS2.1, CSS3, Adobe® Flash® and other programming languages.

colorbranch is available now and is priced at $1.99.

Get it at BlackBerry App Worldmore info…

Screenshots

The loading splash screen – bright and colorful.

The main interface has the tools panel on the left, swatch panel on the right with a large work area under.

Everything begins with a color point in colorbranch Touch. Here a locked point is moved away from its original color, yet it retains the original color.

Another color point, but showing its swatch preview this time. The tools panel and swatch palette have both been hidden to give maximum working space.

Don’t care for a color? No problem; just get rid of it.

Export your final color selections for use in your favorite applications or coding environment.

Feedback?

So what do you think? Being my first tablet app, I’d love to know your thoughts about the interface and how it appears to be used. Does it look easy to use? Does it look useful? Are you planning on getting a PlayBook? Let’s hear it in the comments.

WordPress 3.1 came out a couple of days ago, and I’m enjoying it so far. A lot of the new features will come in handy in a few weeks when I have time to sit down and tweak this theme.

One feature added in this release is the Admin Bar. When logged in, it is shown fixed to the top of your browser window. It has links to all of the important sections of the admin panel along with unapproved comment counts and update alerts. It also has a search bar to the far right. Something is off in the CSS for the search bar in a default install; the search button, which should be beside the search field, has dropped below. Form elements don’t always play nice.

After looking at it for two days, it bothered me enough to write some corrective CSS.

The results are shown above. If your search field has the same problem, add the following to your theme’s functions.php file or add it to a plugin, whichever you prefer — [Double click the code and then copy] — It will magically transform the broken search form into the “After” screenshot above.

<?php function sc_fix_admin_bar_search() { ?>


<?php } 

add_filter('wp_head', 'sc_fix_admin_bar_search');
?>

All it does is add a compacted block of CSS to the header of your pages that overrides wp-includes/admin-bar.css. It is working perfectly in gecko (Firefox) and webkit-based browsers (Safari, Chrome, Adobe AIR, etc). It is also working in Internet Explorer 8 (and probably 9). IE6, IE7 and Opera have padding issues. These will not be fixed because I don’t use those browsers regularly (“at all” would be more accurate except for testing).

Update 02/2011: This version is also compatible Tablet OS SDK version 0.9.3 which was released by RIM on 02/08/2011.

If the command line errors out, check to make sure the clock in the simulator has the correct time, matched to your computer’s clock.

FlashDevelop Template

Along with this update, the FlashDevelop template received a minor update. The BlackBerry tablet configuration file (blackberry-tablet.xml) now includes a <splashscreen>node that can be used to define your own loading screen for your application, a <permissions> node to tie into the new permissions API (must be uncommented) and an <autoOrients> node to turn enable or disable orientation changes within your app (default is false in the template).

What’s New

• Simulator Password field added to settings panel
• Settings file version updated to 1.2
• Commands in the generated batch files include the password flag
• Minor code enhancements

Bug Fix

• Hidden directories are not indexed in the file list for batch file commands.