Refracted.

Xentronix has released a new public beta of Refraction and for those who haven't been following its progress, we provide you with a refresher. Xentronix has been working on Refraction, an Image Editing suite much like Photoshop or Corel Photopaint for quite some time now. Xentronix, trying to fill the void for quality commercial software on the BeOS, is doing everything they can to ensure a functional and worthy product that will put the functionality back into our favorite OS. As a graphic designer I'll try to enlighten you with my experiences on how far it's come and then you can go try it out for yourself.

The newest version of Refraction has come a long way. Important bug fixes and features galore fill Refraction as the Xentronix team tweaks the UI and behavior of the app to take advantage of BeOS's freindly environment.

Launching the application shows off the friendly and informative splash screen as the application loads and then you are presented with a dialog box where you can type in your projects' size or use the drop down menu and choose from standard image sizes, color depths and background colors. Once you have chosen the image size and other options, you're ready to go.

Refraction has the familiar look and feel of most image editors but with some advanced flexibility. The preferences include a key binding system that allows the user to set many of the application actions to quick key strokes, which make handling the application more efficient for each users' taste. The color picker can choose modes and looks to suit how you feel most comfortable working and right clicking many of the tools in the tool bar shows optional modes for the selected tool along with bubble help.

While still quite young Refraction is shaping up to be very functional and is definitely something to keep your eye on. Xentronix has an online gallery full of user submitted mages which feature their talents using the application. Some of the images in the gallery are quite impressive even though the application is still in heavy development.

Working on a project is very easy, with right clicks bringing up menus and dialog boxes to perform tasks, and drag and drop is very functional as well. Importing images to your current project is as easy as dragging it to the layers floater and dragging an image to the Refraction tool bar will give you the option to open the image as a new document.

The application is filled with a good selection of filters and tools to work with. Most of the fundamentals for the Release Candidate 1 are in place and preparations are underway to finalize the tools that will be included in the final release of Refraction Version 1. Some basic shape manipulation is still not present but we understand that not all features are fully implemented at this time. Keep that in mind before you say "Aww man I can't do *insert task here*".

Pro's, Con's, and Participation

While Refraction has come along way it is still in development and this means bugs and glitches... This is why it's important to grab the public beta and give it a whirl. Xentronix needs your feedback to better develop an application you will be able to use and enjoy. The dedicated Beta testers are a large part of the process but the hope would be for many more people to download Refraction and to take part in trying the public beta so as to give the Xentronix team much needed feedback.

Xentronix is one of the few companies dedicated to bringing quality software to the BeOS so please support them as best you can. With your support Refraction can grow and keep one more aspect of our beloved OS alive. Image editing is just one of many areas where we need software so let's all come together to make this everything it can be.

Other screen shots

- Jess Tipton