> From: Mike Brown [mailto:mike@dieboldes.com]
> Sent: Monday,
January 10, 2000 4:58 PM
>
> -Party titles would be shaded up to 50%. (This is
questionable -
> that may be
> too dark).
> -Race titles would
remain the same as they are now, which is the regular
> shading (not sure
of the percentage)
> -The non-partisan office column would be white on
black.
> -The title of the column and the office headings.
> -The
race titles would still be shaded as we do now.
> -Also a 4 pt vertical
line down the left side of the non-partisan column.
This is now complete and will be in GEMS 1.16.1.3 for testing.
The shading and reverse text are just special cases of the new color artwork feature. I will do a separate post on color to the support list shortly.
The 4pt vertical line is the fun part. There is a new checkbox in the race and header draw options, "Thick L/R" which stands for thick left/right line. The old Shawnee "Thick Line" checkbox has been renamed to "Thick Top".
The thick L/R line is drawn on the opposite side of the race box as the ovals. Space for the thick line is taken from the candidate area. This is similar to the top line, where the space is taken from the race text.
Minnesota wants to have a thick line between the center column and last column. To do this, they need to choose the thick L/R option for races and headers in the center column.
On the sample ballot I have, the thick line extends down below the races. In GEMS, everything drawn on the artwork is either part of some race or some header. Races and headers can be dragged around the ballot independent of their auto-layout columns. To achieve the effect of a line extending below the races, Minnesota can create a blank header with only thick L/R checked, and then place that header below the races in the middle column. This is a lot of work, but no more so than a typesetter would have to do.
People are reminded that the AccuVote is not real happy about thick (or thin) lines up against the ovals. The "Shift X" ballot option introduced in 1.15 is a good way to move the oval off the line without wasting a lot of artwork space.
As a final note, the specified line thickness (4/72") is thinner than the sample ballot from MN, which is more like 3/32". The Shawnee top line is 1/8" for the record. I sense a "line thickness settings RCR" coming on, but not in this release...
Ken