Posted 18 Jun 2013 by JC
Oh, my, where to begin?
With the obvious, I suppose: Stitch-Maps.com is now live! No longer restricted to a handful of beta testers, anyone can now browse the site’s collection of stitch patterns and (after registering for free) add to the collection. Whoo hoo! This day has been a long time in coming. :-)
Some tips for all you new stitch mappers out there:
And now, for a public service announcement: Though Stitch-Maps.com has only just taken its first toddling steps out in the real world, it’s sure to outgrow its britches soon. Plans are afoot to move the site to a new host that ought to offer better performance. In the meantime... please be patient with the site! Thanks!
More new flashes as events warrant!
Posted 29 Mar 2013 by JC
When contributing a stitch pattern to the collection, you can now mark it with one of three levels of visibility: public, private, or hidden.
Public and private you’re probably already familiar with. A public pattern is one that anyone can view, duplicate, or – with a premium subscription – export. A private pattern is one that you can view only if you contributed it to the collection; as far as the rest of the world is concerned, it simply doesn’t exist.
Hidden patterns are a little different. Once you mark a pattern as hidden, no-one else will be able to find it by browsing through the collection. But they will be able to view it, if you provide them with a direct link – for example, http://stitch-maps.com/patterns/display/subtle.
Why might this be useful? Suppose you’re publishing a garment pattern as a PDF, and suppose that the pattern includes one or more stitch maps. Your customers might appreciate it if you hot-link those stitch maps to the corresponding pages on this website. Then they’d be able to keep track of their current rows – assuming, of course, they have at least a basic subscription.
As with a number of other features, this one’s available to everybody during the beta period. It’s as if all of you, my dear beta testers, have premium subscriptions. By the time this site goes public, though, you’ll need a premium subscription to mark a pattern as hidden.
Questions? Comments? Just let me know!
Posted 22 Mar 2013 by JC
Knitting from a stitch map just got easier: You can now highlight your current row. To get started, view the detail page for any stitch pattern, then check the “Current row” checkbox. Here’s what it looks like for Half-drop Horseshoe:
You’ll notice that two rows in the stitch map are highlighted. That’s because two vertical repeats of the pattern are on display. Both of the highlighted rows are row 1 of the Half-drop Horseshoe.
No surprise here: clicking the up-arrow button moves the highlighting up one row; clicking the down-arrow button moves it down one row.
Have fun with this new feature! During the beta period, it’s free for everyone, but soon it’ll be available only with a basic-level subscription.
Posted 7 Mar 2013 by JC
On Stitch-Maps.com, stitch maps are displayed as PNG images. That’s all fine and dandy for viewing the stitch maps online. But bitmapped image formats like PNG aren’t ideal for publication purposes: They don’t scale well, and they look fuzzy when printed.
Vector graphics to the rescue: They print clearly at any scale, making them ideal for inclusion in print publications – such as knitting patterns.
And now Stitch-Maps.com lets you create vector graphics. Take a peek at the “Actions” pane on each stitch pattern’s detail page. “Export” options let you create PDF, EPS, and SVG images.
Of these formats, PDF is my favorite. You can view PDF files created via Stitch-Maps.com in any PDF viewer, including Adobe Reader and many modern web browsers. You can edit them in Adobe Illustrator. And you can place them within Adobe InDesign documents.
So, my favorite beta testers, have at it! Give the “Export” options a try. (Just like private collections, these options are available to everyone during the beta period, but slated for premium subscribers only at some point in the future.) See what happens when you load these images into your favorite tools. And please let me know if you run into any glitches!
Coming soon: tips for editing stitch maps within Illustrator.
Posted 6 Mar 2013 by JC
Say you’re creating stitch maps for a new design you’d like to publish. You’d like to keep those stitch maps to yourself, wouldn’t you?
Well, now you can: When creating or editing a stitch pattern, you can mark it as “private.” Voilà! No-one else will see it.
Here’s a bonus: When browsing through the collection, you can now click on a “My private collection” checkbox to see all the patterns you’ve marked as private. Or you can click on a “My contributions” checkbox to see all the patterns you’ve added to the Stitch-Maps.com collection, both public and private.
Have fun with this new feature! During the beta-testing period, everybody gets to play with it. In the future, though, maintaining private patterns will require a premium-level subscription.
Edited 29 March 2013: Marking a pattern as private is also useful when the copyright to the pattern states that you may make copies “for personal use only.” For that reason, only a basic subscription – not a premium subscription – will be required to mark patterns as private. Premium subscribers, however, will be able to mark patterns as hidden.
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