EazyDraw Raw App For Help Brushes (Scratch Pad) EazyDraw Raw App For Help
EazyDraw Brushes Scratch
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EazyDraw for macOS palette controls Brush Scratch Pad

The "scratch pad" for brushes is used to prepare the Brush Stroke Path. This is the lower half of the Inspect Tab of the Brushes palette. The Brush Stroke Path is the Bezier path that is applied to a master path. The design process will involve creation of a Bezier path that is then applied to a Bezier path, this potentially confusing recursion is simplified when a holding container is available for the Brush Stroke Path.

The actual Brush Stroke Path is designed with a normal EazyDraw drawing. This approach provides the full Bezier editing power of EazyDraw for this primary design task. Drawing is not done on the Brushes palette or in the Brushes Scratch Pad View - drawing is done on a normal drawing window, then the result path is moved to the scratch pad for future use and application to a different master Bezier path or graphic.

These elements are found on the Inspect tab of the Brushes palette which is accessed from the Tools main menu, about one third down from the top.

The focus of the scratch pad area is the Scratch Pad View. This view shows one of your available Brush Stroke Paths. It is shown circled in the graphic to the left, the dash-lined area showing a double headed stretched arrow. The scratch pad holding container will normally contain several individual Brush Stroke Paths. One of these will be selected and seen in the Scratch Pad View.

The Plus and Minus buttons (just below Scratch Pad View, on the right) are used to add or remove a Brush Stroke Path. Minus removes the Brush Stroke Path that is shown in the view. Click the button and it is removed from your table of scratch paths. Undo is not available here. The Plus button will add a path, or paths, that are present and selected on the main EazyDraw drawing. So there needs to be something drawn and selected on a drawing before the Plus button will enable.

Drag and Drop is supported in both directions for the Scratch Pad View. A path may be added to the scratch pad table of paths by dragging a path (or paths) from a drawing (or User Library) to the Scratch Pad View.

The Edit button sends a copy of the current (showing) Brush Stroke Path to the current EazyDraw drawing, making it available for editing on the full featured EazyDraw drawing window. This is the same as dragging the path from the Scratch Pad View to the drawing.

The popup menu just below the Scratch Pad View shows, with names, the current contents of the scratch pad container. Each item on the menu is one Brush Stroke Path. The menu may be used to select a specific Brush Stroke Path. The stepper control on the right side of the Scratch Pad View allows one to step through each Brush Stroke Path in sequence.

The scratch pad name menu provides a rename selection, paths added to the container are assigned descriptive initial name. If the graphic has a name, (see Easy Look panel) then this user defined name is used.

The two arrow buttons just above the Scratch Pad View are used to move the current Brush Stroke Path to and from an actual Brush. More on this on the Brush Design help page.

As noted above a Brush Stroke Path may actually be one or multiple individual paths. If multiple paths are presented to the scratch pad, they become individual paths of a multi path Brush Stroke Path. The opacity of each path is used independently when the final brush is applied to the master path or curve. The design of transparency and overlap is done on the master EazyDraw drawing, before the set of paths are installed in the scratch pad container.

The color and style aspects of the originating Bezier path are carried with the Brush Stroke Path. As you will see when we get to the design and use of Brushes the color and style of the brush stroke may be fixed or adjustable (with the Color and Style palette and other tools) at the time of use. This means some thought concerning color and style should be done before moving a path to the scratch pad area.

The color and style fill and outline parameters from the originating path are used when the path is shown in the Scratch Pad View. The appropriate setting for fill or outline only will depend on the path's usage and design. For example a sine wave that will be used as a "Cycle" brush should be set to outline only before sending to the scratch pad. Or an "Artistic" brush path similar to an oval should have Fill only when placed in the scratch pad container.

There is an implied Cartesian coordinate system associated with the Brush scratch pad. The x-axis (or across dimension) of the view is translated to be along the master path. The y-axis (or vertical dimenion) is translated to be orthogonal (or perpendicular) to the master path. The Brush Stroke Path respects the orientation as drawn on the EazyDraw drawing. The same shape rotated 90 degress will typically result in a much different appearance when used as a Brush Stroke Path.

One might note that there is a limited set of capabilities for the scratch pad container. That is the intended design. This container should be used in a transient fashion, one should not have hundreds of valuable designs permanently stored here. The Scratch Pad View supports drag and drop to user libraries. A User Library , or an EazyDraw drawing file should be used for persistent organization of brush stroke designs.

Paths in the scratch pad container are saved when EazyDraw quits and restarts. The paths are saved in a property list text file in the Application Support folder assigned to EazyDraw by macOS. This information will not normally move from system to system or to future installations of EazyDraw. Use a EazyDraw drawing file or User Library for portable persistent storage of Brush Stroke Paths.