CorelDraw 2022 Critical Color Problem

I never had the spot colors being black unless there was a job from a previous version opened or a spit palette pulled in created in a previous version.

I resolved the eyedropper issue by uninstalling VideoStudio 2023. After the latest Windows updates I'm going to test again. 

I had that issue back in Corel X7 I believe. 

The bite is Corel is not fixing the eyedropper.

The rabbit hole goes deeper because the palettes that display by default are not what has been set in the global color settings.

Draw used to have a simple ut spread out method to do all the things that you're supposedly to be able to do in the properties bar, then that migrated to the properties docker. 

None of these evolutions of features had ever been carried out with an entirely functional outcome.

Things happen differently in Corel than in a small code focused developer.

Both start with a feature plan for a version.

The focused developer reiterated the design as it is being developed and seizes the opportunities to add that extra bits that was unrealized in the design document. :What the hell, it only added a day to development and the result is 200% better.

Corel, having become this creature of habit, deliver the design to developers and not iterate beyond the design when writing code. That's the only way you can explain the crunch between a perfect new feature and what we get.

How does that work in practice and what sort of outcome does it generate?

That how you get the "new improved" curves. VOMIT!

Programmer "This is auto button is completely fricken useless, we need to remove it!"

Management "Don't do anything not in the design document. It will impact the marketing we have already written up with screen grabs."

Yani "You useless (*&&(^&(*^$*^ you still haven't fix the damn curves, that are as useless as *** on a bull!" (Typically in the vernacular)

Corel "We can't touch that code again, anyone that has touched that code has broken it."

So why exactly is this process so utterly crappy. It's because not enough was done right when the code was first written and now people have left that knew it inside out and we have to review that code again like explorers on Mars.And restart a whole A/C and Beta process around it.

If this process was working, I wouldn't be complaining about curves for 20 bloody years that it's a PITA.

Coreldraw was always poorly coded but you kind of have it right. What I believe has evolved is a set up code modules that revolve around a central base code that's so convoluted that making some changes that seem obvious as needed and seem simple due to the the nature of the interaction of the code are too expensive to change. Past examples would be the cost of proper color management, making that one critically needed change was almost the entire budget for one release cycle. Certainly worth it as it changed the position of the entire suite for professional file creation in a very positive way.

A current example would be the features that are application controlled verses those that are document controlled. An example is the ability to set as default the outline to a specific position. When you set this it's done by setting then saving settings as default.  However it is also controlled  by application aspects, I.E. by color model, meaning that once you set RGB outline settings you can only get the process to retain the settings via a template. If you close your document with the settings even if you save it when you start your next new document not only are some of the defaults gone the program becomes very difficult to use in terms of outline repeatability.

This feature is needed because creating web objects with outlines set to the inside makes the process easy as everything you draw is the size as reported in the property bar.

However RGB inkjet print jobs then also must have a default of outlines set to the inside so in cases where you need to trap you must manually set that one outline to straddle the boundary box and make sure not to accidentally hit the save as default. If you do hit the save as default the file will permanently become unmanageable. 

There are literally dozens and dozens of things like this, the keep desktop objects on layer is one. Once that's activated, a file created and saved if that file is opened on a machine where it's off by default the simple act of opening the file and selecting a page can throw all the desktop objects to hell, with no warning. 

It's a feature that needs to be document controlled but is application controlled and for multi-page multi-size pages on by default only.

The there's the show grid at 800% zoom, it's on by default in the application and must be turned off every time I open and edit an image, the setting never saves with the image and the ability to edit the controlling file was removed. 

No one can rewrite the whole program or even recompile it with a more recent compiler without the risk of introducing errors.

Given that GPU, multi-threading and 64bits have been introduced since 1.0. The "old code" wouldn't be that old in the core of the program.

Draw is built on the efforts of many people over 30 years. Those people have died, retired, moved to Google etc. Even if Corel was the best place in the world to work, there are going to be issues with knowledge transfer to new staff.

There are issues that are difficult to resolve and issues that are easy to resolve. The easy to resolve issue is transparency and using that to drive development in a direction that leads to outcomes that matter to the industry.

The whole "secret features" drama is a total waste of time. There is a point where "secrecy" works against reality.