Problems with printing graphics with patterns

[Greg McIlhiney]

I'm just a few days into evaluating rev to port an existing HC 
scheduling application to OS X, and possibly Windows. At this point 
I'm simply trying to learn the product and investigate strategies for 
implementing the functionality in rev. But I've run into an immediate 
problem which I don't understand and was hoping that the wise souls 
on the list might point me to a solution/alternative.

Like most calendar/scheduling programs, the background is a grid of 
rectangular cells.  In HC I used the paint tools to create the 
background graphic that was shared by a group of schedules.

The size of the rectangles must be dynamic as the user is dictating 
how many days of the week there are (cols) and how many hours in the 
day (rows). Each individual schedule is based upon one of the defined 
templates. Card objects (fields) are then dragged/re-sized/edited and 
snapped to the grid.

Now the background cells are typically not white. The user events are 
white and float on top of the colored/patterned background. The user 
needs to be able to indicate graphically that some time slots are 
open/closed/reserved/etc. Here's an example of what it might look 
like:

    http://krypton.fhda.edu/~hollins/rm_schedules/rmSch_E24.html

So my thought process in rev was to make a background type group of 
dynamically created graphic rectangles shaded with a 
backgroundColor(s). No problem here, seems pretty straight-forward.

The problem arises when I attempt to fill the rect with a pattern. I 
realize that a graphic set for a background pattern negates any 
background color set and only displays the pattern. That's too bad 
but a work-around seems to be to put a rect with a pattern on top of 
a solid rect and set the ink to srcOr.

Perfect. I've got a colored rect, possibly with a pattern, and this 
looks great. BUT, it doesn't print properly, or at least it does not 
on my system. So if I do this:

1) Create a new main stack.
2) Create a graphic rectangle.
3) In the Inspector choose Colors & Patterns.
4) Choose a backgroundPattern. Typically this would be a pattern that is
    similar to traditional paint program patterns, like the Metacard compatible
    pattern 3rd from the left in the top row.

Any pattern that I select displays perfectly on the screen.

But when I print the card, the rect is very dark gray. There's a 
pattern in it but it does not resemble the selected pattern.

Now I've tried almost every thing I can think of to work/test around 
this. I've made and imported my own pattern, I've copied the original 
metacard pattern into the main stack, played with printing 
properties, etc.

Seems like a pretty simple procedure... the steps above should 
produce decent printed output, right? My system is:

a Mac G4, 10.3.4
Lexmark Laser printer
eval version of rev 2.2.1

Here is another oddity, which seems extremely bizarre to me... If I 
take a screen capture of the native rev graphic rectangle and then 
paste that bitmap next to the graphic with a pattern, THEN it prints 
properly. Remove the bitmap and the printing reverts back to the 
weird dark gray thing.

* Soooo, is it that I'm a complete rev newbie and am overlooking 
something incredibly obvious?

* Is it something unique on my two Mac systems?

* A bug or limitation which I have not read about?

Now I can probably build a pretty nice app with shades of color/gray, 
but at this point it is driving me nuts that I haven't been able to 
solve the problem or know why the problem presents itself... I'm 
digging :)

TIA, and any insight is appreciated!

-- greg