Better version of draw9patch

I've been using draw9patch on android a bit lately and am getting frustrated about how bad of a program it is. I generally takes me 5 mintues per image to add the patches which seems excessive. Worse is that when I have multiple states for an image I have to do the exact same patches on 3 images or they look wrong, I would rather be able to just copy patches between images. I've tried using gimp t开发者_如何转开发o do the same thing but find it more difficult.

Has anyone found a better program to create 9 pngs or created their own?

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What exactly are you doing? It shouldn't take more than 4 or 5 clicks to add patches. You're just adding single black pixels or lines of pixels on the outer frame.

Personally, I use Photoshop to do mine, but if you don't already have it, it's an expensive investment. GIMP or Paint.NET can easily do the same (technically, even MS Paint, but I wouldn't wish that program on anyone), and they're free.

EDIT: Somehow overlooked that you've already tried GIMP. Any new software is going to have some learning curve, especially if it contains more functionality. draw9patch is pretty much the bare minimum of functionality, so it's simple to use, but trust me when I say it would be worth your while to just improve your skills in GIMP or Paint.NET instead.

EDIT: Okay, just wanted to say I judged too quickly here. I've really only used the draw9patch tool for minor modifications, and testing my NinePatches I made in Photoshop. The process of drawing a line in d9p is an absolute pain in the ass. I see in your comment you said you've tried Photoshop. What you can actually do to make it easier is add guides (View > New Guide) at the pixel locations you want, then just use the pencil tool at a 1px brush size, click and hold at the start of the line, hold shift and then drag to the end of the line. Photoshop has an annoying bug, however (at least in my installation of CS2) of selecting the wrong pixel when zoomed in very close, so you may have to end up erasing a few stray pixels that end up past the guides. I would do your black border as a separate layer as well, to make things easier.

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GIMP does not have a Line Tool, however if you pick the Pencil tool, then you can press Shift to make lines (well done GIMP, everyone should have been able to guess to press Shift, right?).

{complete tutorial}

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This is an older post, but there is a tool out now called Better 9 Patch Tool that makes drawing these a breeze. The whole thing is written in Java so it runs on pretty much everything and is Shareware, so you can try it before you buy it. And if you're unhappy with doing this in Photoshop or the draw9patch tool (as I was) this is a pretty good alternative.

Link is here: http://www.roundrect.kr/desktop/better-9-patch/