Feature request: Save hatch fill choices in .svg file

[ShelMi]

Sometimes I have a pattern which I want to use on different ball sizes or surfaces. Each combination may require rather differing settings for hatch fill. It would be convenient to have a way of having some standardized, 'tried & true' values available in the svg file.

So, I've made changes to eggbot hatch to allow for hatch fill settings to be preserved in layers, similarly to the method of issue #74. This is in the attached zip, and is named '1 - eggbot hatch' for ease of trying it out without disturbing existing version.

A user might reasonably add several of these settings layers to the default template, so they will be readily available when filling - rather than head-scratching and re-calculating particular pen width on particular destination surfaces.

1 - eggbot_hatch.zip

[oskay]

Interesting-- it's a little harder for me to see that this kind of per-document settings set is absolutely needed within the hatch extension; I haven't really had a need to regularly adjust more than one or two parameters.

[ShelMi]

I see what you mean - I rarely use more than two or three, but occasionally more .

The two that I always use are hatch spacing and inset from edges - to minimize plot time I have to take into account both the size of the "egg" and the tip-width of the pens I'm using. The inset is a judgment call, but certainly is a function of size and tip.

The way I would use this feature would be to have a multitude of '%Hatch Settings%' layers, each with a descriptive suffix, e.g. 'peewee egg, copic 0.2', or '80mm ball, sharpie fine', or '45 mm ball, paint pen'. Then I would duplicate the layer which describes my current plotting situation, and remove the suffix from the duplicate. Each time I had a new situation, I would add the suffixed hatch settings layer to the default.svg template for future reference.

I sometimes use crosshatch, depending on whether I feel a need for maximum ink laydown.

I occasionally use hatch angle if there is a dominant angle I would like to match.

If I ever do much engraving, I anticipate that a bunch of experimenting would be involved, and I would like to be able to memorialize my settings. In particular, hatch spacing and angle and crosshatch might all be very pertinent.