Toolbox can do MANY things. It allows me to construct cool graphics with building blocks and just like playing with Legos everything can be built this way. I personally use Toolbox for creating textures, icons and some photo tasks. You may find it useful for experimentation and eventually figure out a task that its good at solving for you.
It's not Photoshop. The interface is different and requires another mindset to use. If you are a master of Photoshop layers then you should have no trouble understanding the superior concept of building blocks. Toolbox is not intended to be a Photoshop replacement. You can use it as a supplement or for leisure.
There are also tasks that Toolbox cannot perform. It's not possible to draw with a brush, you cannot render high resolution images and photo retouching is impossible. Toolbox has another purpose which I talk more about on the rest of this page.
Toolbox_0.8.0.dmg (5 MB). Was released 26 August 2008. Let me know how it can be improved.
20 EUR is the introductory price. Final price will be 50 EUR. The periodic software updates are free.
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Mac OS X 10.5
1 GB system ram
64 MB video ram
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Toolbox works best on computers purchased after 2006. Older computers may be able to run it acceptable by adding more ram.
The concept of constructing graphics with blocks was pioneered by a program called '.werkkzeug'. I am a computer programmer and in my youth I was much into stuff that is cool for young geeks. WZ was born out of this 'demoscene' culture and is used for creating 'demos'. I don't want Toolbox to become a 100% clone, but I do seek inspiration in it and have a long way to go to reach the same amount of features. Toolbox has moved into other areas, so its no longer entirely focused on becoming a demotool. It's not a replacement for Photoshop, Quartz Composer nor WZ. Toolbox is a poor .werkkzeug-clone that may turn into a demotool.
Since im far from reaching the demotool goal, you obviously cannot use it for creating demos. However you can use it for tasks that involves bitmap or vector graphics. Examples of this could be:
Most of the images in my gallery has been made entirely with Toolbox. I know the limitations and what is possible. For you it may be endlessly frustrating because some elementary building block just isn't there. In this case please ask me for more features and I will look into it, so it can be fixed.
Unfortunately I do not have a clear picture of who and why people are using Toolbox. If you "get" Toolbox and can make real use of it, please send me an email and share the details with me.
What is the difference between Toolbox and Photoshop? I get this question all the time. I have never really used any drawing programs nor Photoshop, because the way they work never have appealed to me. I like drawing on paper, but doing so on a computer doesn't work for me. Programming is what computers are good at, and Photoshop isn't a programming tool. Toolbox is many steps closer to being a visual programming language. Here are some other node-based editors that are worth checking out:
These are Toolbox' nearest relatives. Steep learning curve, but cool.
I hang out on the irc channel #toolbox available on irc.freenode.net and my nick is: neoneye.
You can post anonymously, there is no need for registration.
Talk about anything as long as its slightly related to Toolbox. By posting to the forums other people can reply and ask related questions. This is my preferred method of getting in contacting with my users.
You want to do this when its about money or lost licenses.
I try to make at least one reply to every email I get and I check my mailbox frequently. I have no office-hours since i'm a single developer, so I often reply in the weekend and I might be unavailable within normal office hours.
A machine requires power and goods so that it can do its job. Similar with a block in Toolbox. It takes inputs from the top, does its job and produces output at the bottom.
You will see in the program that I have used very short names, so that the text fits within a narrow block. 3 to 5 letters are preferred. In some cases I pick a name far away from the commonly used terminology, because the original name is way too long or too geeky.
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These are just some of them. Its all common stuff found in other graphics programs, so the blocks themselves may not provide you with more control than you already have in another program. Note that many blocks are bad and slow.
This is where I have spend 90% of my time on coding editor. I prefer making new building blocks and working with the backend, however without a good editor nobody can use it. I care about how things look and that makes things take longer. Please appreciate the editor :-)
I welcome ideas for new building blocks.
Write some text about what its supposed to do, show me screenshots. That will make it 10 times easier for me to realize how it can be coded.
Working on this part of Toolbox is what I enjoy most.
Something is missing. This thing sucks. Would be cool if feature X was here. Too much broken english. Request a feature.
I obviously don't know what you think of Toolbox, please tell me and I see what I can do.
With features comes bugs. For every problem that gets fixed, 10 new smaller problems are introduced. Until the problems gets so small that they are trivial to fix. I try as much as possible to fix the bugs when I become aware of them. Unfortunately I have no way to test the program exhaustingly before a release, so serious bugs may be hidden. If it crashes on your computer then please report it immediately and I take a look what is wrong. Please specify as many details about your hardware as possible as well as the version of mac osx.
Working on this part of Toolbox is boring and something I don't like.
Its an alpha release. Im working on getting the basics right before locking on to some features that are going into the final version. Because im just a single person and the size of this project, I will have to do things in multiple iterations. The first final version is likely to be focused only on 2d graphics. Its far out in the future. I try as much as possible to be compatible with older releases, so that you don't loose your data, however I do change things that breaks things from time to time. Also save your projects frequently and make backups. So watch out!
Besides that im proud to have a solid program that works well in many setups.
Limitations and issues:
I would like to fix everything, but im the only coder and I have to prioritize. If you pay for my program there is a chance that I one day is able to hire another programmer, so more things can get fixed.
Im afraid of revealing too much. What I can say is that I want to create demos with it. If all these features are being made public I don't know. Anything that are within this domain may be interesting to code. Things that im likely to code.
Things that I don't think is interesting, that im unlikely to code.
There are always exceptions. In the past I have coded some really boring stuff, such as Undo/Redo, Type checking, Multiple documents, Single window, Homepage. So there is a chance that I start working on something I just need a good argument why I should do it. Write to me if there is anything I can do. Im open to ideas.
I am intrigued by demos. Back on my Amiga 500 and later on my 486DX2 I coded simple effects and really wanted to create a bigger demo with my friends. Watching Second Reality was groundbreaking and that was what got me started with programming. My interest declined and stopped around the time when FR-08 was released. I was shocked, it was beyond me how that thing was put together. After that point I haven't code anything demo related :-( And now .werkkzeug has just been released and things starts to makes sense. Its strikingly simple that even I can code something similar. I want to code effects again.
Now this was long time ago. I actually made a simple WZ clone! My friend Dennis Hansen has nearly the same story and he also worked on his own tool. We didn't knew that we both worked on the same kind of program despite being close friends. We merged our efforts and I continued the project and turned it into a mac program. I am coding effects as in the good old days, but no demos yet. Dennis is doing stuff on windows (no concrete plans for doing a port).
The name Toolbox was chosen to honor WZ, which means tool in english. Also my company name has an 'op' prefix to honor the operator stacking concept. To quote FR-08, 'The produkkt will change your life'. It has certainly changed my life and im grateful. Thank you Dierk "Chaos" Ohlerich and Farbrausch for sharing your tool back then and for all the awesome prods.
There is no Toolbox for Windows. Will there ever be one? I hope so, but it will be far out in the future. My todo list is long and it will take at least 2 years to code. Don't expect anything before year 2011!
Quartz Composer wasn't there when I begun working on this project. If it had I probably never had started on it. Now im happy that I have something different from QC, so my efforts haven't been entirely wasted.
Maybe I shouldn't have named it Toolbox. Its not a unique name and nearly impossible to search for on google. I may have to change it, if just I could find a better name. How about værkktøj? no!
Am I happy about Toolbox. No not really for some reason. When I show it to my family and friends, they just say that its nice. My hypothesis is that because there is no physical product, its impossible to see the amount of work that has been put into it. If just I could get my friends to say something more concrete than just, oh it looks nice. I guess this is a problem for all software developers?
Toolbox is by far the biggest piece of software I have ever worked on. It has cost me a lot of money and it takes all my time. To show your appreciation, please provide feedback and help spread the word.
If you already have an account at reddit or delicious, then this is the easiest way to help. Recommend it, bookmark it.
I cannot write a neutral review of my own program. For this I need you. How does it compare to photoshop. Pros and cons. What can it be used for and what not. Is it intuitive, slow, amateurish. Does it have a future. Feel free to use text and screenshots from this page.
Little evidence exist that anyone besides me can use the program. Please share a few screenshots of your work so that others can see that Toolbox has real users.
My native language is danish. I have tried recording videos where I use my own voice, but that was a disaster. Then I used a soundtrack, but that was illegal. Then the macs built-in voice, but that is bad too. I miss videos with native english.
This is unfortunately the end of this page. If you have made it this far and wants to read more then there is only the forums that I can point you to. Maybe try out the programs of my competitors. Seek info about farbrausch/.werkkzeug. Become a programmer. Become an artist.
26 August 2008. I have just uploaded a new Toolbox homepage. The old one can be accessed here.
