[CREATE] Questions and reflections about gradients

[Olivier BERTEN]

Hi!

Still going on with SwatchBooker, I'm now analysing gradients file
formats <http://www.selapa.net/swatches/gradients/fileformats.php> and
as I was thinking at my own format for these, there were some things
triggering me... And I'd really like to have some other's opinions about
them...

* I don't see the point in Foreground/Background colors
<http://www.mail-archive.com/create@lists.freedesktop.org/msg01272.html>
;-) I see even less the point in having gradients swatches defined with
Foreground/Background colors... This is a "feature" you can find in
Photoshop and Gimp gradients. For sure I don't see how it would be
useful in an exchange format...

* In my idea, a gradient is defined by stops and the way to go from one
to the other. All other things like shape, angle, center, etc. are how
you use the gradient, not the gradient itself. Which means I would leave
out these features when importing from OpenOffice.org or Flash.

* I think the "segment" concept of Gimp isn't really interesting since
the position of a segment start has to be the same as the end of the
previous one, and in 99% of the cases, the color is the same too. For
the 1% left, you can create another stop at the same position.

* I'm not sure yet how to deal with transparency. My first option would
be to say: we're talking about color gradient and transparency isn't a
color attribute, it's an object or painter attribute, so we leave it out
completely. There's the Adobe's option to have a transparency gradient
next to the color gradient but then again, why not really differentiate
things and really separate them... But at least it would cover that
feature because I really think including transparency into the color
definition is wrong.

* Is there any free software dealing with noise gradients?

Even though I thought a lot about these things, I really appreciate
contradiction so start shooting ;-)

Olivier