export to PDF bug? Dimming not processed

Hello,

I've noticed that the PDF export seems to forget to apply the dimming on included Master Screens. The problem happens for Screen export AND Storyboard export, but only for PDF - when exporting to NG, the dimming is properly applied.

I'm running 1.8.0. as a plug-in in ColdFusion Builder.

Nicolas
17 Jun 2010

Hi Nicolas,

It looks like an oversight on my part and PNG export should not have drawn masters as dimmed. PDF export works as it was meant to. I added master dimming as something only useful in design mode and it's disabled everywhere else (full screen mode, export).

I plan to correct PNG export to fix the inconsistency. Can you tell my why you need to export the dimmed property? Maybe we can find a different solution. You can also always dim things yourself by overlaying a semitransparent rectangle with no border.

Peter Severin
17 Jun 2010

Peter, I was just using this quick method of dimming a background picture, but indeed a semitransparent rectangle with no border works just as well. If you don't plan on applying it to the export features, I would recommend removing the dimming option from the Properties box, so that the export is indeed consistent with the design view.

Nicolas
17 Jun 2010

Nicolas, do you suggest to remove dimming feature completely? It is useful with complex master screens. Dimming such a screen makes it easier to distinguish between master widgets and edited screen widgets.

Peter Severin
17 Jun 2010

Peter, to be clear: I think it's a great feature and would rather have it than not, but the fact that it wouldn't be reflected in the exports seems very confusing to me, as everything else consistently provides a WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet result - it seems strange to me that the dimmed widget would appear at 20% or 100% depending on the context. Again, it's no biggie: adding a white rectangle with an alpha is an acceptable workaround IMHO.

Did I mention that I LOVE using WireframeSketcher? ;~)

Nicolas
18 Jun 2010

Nicolas, thank you for your kind words!

You are right, this property is the only one that has a different effect depending on context. The reason behind it is that dimming masters at design time is actually useful (think a common background for multiple screens). But I can see how it's confusing for those that use masters differently.

Ideally I would not have this property and I would always render masters as dimmed at design time. This would break WYSIWYG paradigm but I think it's justified. There are other things like rulers and guides that you only see at design time.

However masters can also be used as reusable components. Dimming them in this case is not desired and hence the property to turn dimming off.

I am planning to work more on custom components in the future and it's possible that I'll revise the way masters are handled. I'll try to rethink the dimming feature then and improve it if possible. I am open to any suggestion!

Peter Severin
18 Jun 2010

Peter, I'll be looking forward to these future improvements then (as always!).

I'd like to suggest something else regarding the very useful PDF export: I often end up with a .pdf file that seems excessively heavy (today: 35mb for 20 fairly long screens), due to the PNG images that appear in background.

Would it be possible to propose a quality option (maybe in the preferences) so the PDF could be used for easy sharing for the web (a higher compression ratio would be acceptable then) as well as for pixel-perfect printing? Just wondering.

Nicolas
18 Jun 2010

Nicolas,

Can you send me one of those PNG images? I'll try to experiment a bit to see what results I can get.

Peter Severin
18 Jun 2010

Nicolas, can you confirm that you use the latest version with vector PDF export? I would think that vector export already gains some size compared to previous versions. Is this just a problem with the compression used to embed your PNG images?

Peter Severin
18 Jun 2010

Peter, I'm running 1.8.0 and yes, the output seems to be vector-based (fonts and shapes are perfect even when fully zoomed in).

My background pictures are actually .JPG files, not .PNG as I wrote earlier. These files are fairly large (1200px / 2100px, up to 800kb per image), but when I add all the file weights of the embedded JPGs, I reach ~14mb, whereas the exported PDF is closer to 33mb.

Nicolas
18 Jun 2010

Nicolas, it's good thing to know that original images are JPEG. This makes it possible to compress such images automatically without any additional settings. I will also try and see whether I can embed such images in their original format, without decompressing and recompressing them again. I'll try to include this fix into the next version.

Peter Severin
18 Jun 2010

Hi Nicolas,

I've just uploaded a development version that contains a fix for Jpeg images in PDF. The exported PDF now embeds the original image whenever possible.

I also fixed the rendering of masters in PNGs so that both PNG and PDF exports produce the same result.

I would be happy if you could give this version a try and give me your feedback! You can install it by using this update site:

http://wireframesketcher.com/staging

Best regards,

Peter Severin
28 Jun 2010

Peter,

After installing the new version from the staging update site, the results seem a lot better.

My background pictures are .JPG files. These files are fairly large (1200px / 2100px, up to 800kb per image). When I add all the file weights of the embedded JPGs, I reach ~14mb, and the exported PDF is now around 17mb - perfect!

Surprisingly enough, the quality of the exported images seems to be noticeably better: when I zoom to 600% in Acrobat Reader, there is less noise distorting the JPG images.

A great update - as always, thanks for the amazing response turnaround!

Nicolas
28 Jun 2010

Nicolas, thanks a lot for your feedback! I'll create an official release with these fixes in a few days.

Peter Severin
28 Jun 2010
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