19980404-15
xart WHY
Rick Hohensee    humbubba@cqi.com

Why did I do xart........

xart, like XPaint, is resume-ware. I did xart to demonstrate some C skills. 

The mouse-smoothing that the quill tool implements needed to be. 

xart is also an excercise in documentation, particularly self-documentation. 

I would have liked to have done more in the direction of emphasizing the
	advantage of sourcecode for creative work, with more features like the
	Abuser filter. Throwing bananas at the mouse-smoothing algorithm in 
	quill is fun too.

Why use xart........
xart is powerful for it's size.  It works well with X. It supports the
editres protocol, for example. I hope xart is the easiest paint program of
any substance to learn to use.  Mouse motion smoothing is an important
feature for freehand work. xart is easy to install; if you have X ( and
libXpm, I think)  you have all you need for xart.  xart has pixel
functions. They are wild. 

Why I didn't do this with the GIMP.........
The current GIMP is too big to USE on my 486, much less develop for. 
I wanted to learn stock stuff, not libxyzqt stuff. 
XPaint is public domain with authorship credit, which I prefer to a
    	copyleft in this situation. 
The current GIMP breaks the old GIMP. phear.
I liked the looks of the XPaint sourcecode. At first.
XPaint seemed more in need of attention, and more easily improved.
	rgb was relatively easy to add, although the single palette with 
	dual pots is still giving me headaches.


Here's the source to xart. Have at it. Please. I'm gonna get away from C
for a while.

