Perhaps that is the best solution. As someone who wants to design for the design store, I’m exploring different avenues to offer the most flexibility to someone who buys my designs.
Imagine I post a design that I tested with just Plywood and I know it works with that material (like the chess set I posted here: Laser Cut Board Games).
Someone buys the designs, emails me, and asks “Will this work with Acrylic?”. What do I say?
- no, I only tested it with Plywood. You can cut it in Acrylic, but it probably won’t work as well, since the acrylic is wider than the plywood.
- yes, but you’ll have to use Inkscape to adjust the width of the holes here, here and here so they are slightly wider. Here’s a tutorial on using Inkscape.
- probably, but I’ll have to purchase the acrylic, have it shipped to me, adjust my design, and send you a new file.
None of those answers strike me as “user-friendly”. And I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask designers to test it with every single feasible material (unless they are on the GF payroll).
I can probably guess which materials are going to be popular, design for those, and offer different files for each of those materials. And that’s most likely what I’ll do at the start.
I’m just trying to figure out if there are tools out there that could make my life easier, and offer a better experience for users.