New user two questions

Can someone tell me how to erase parts of a drawing? If I turn my Wacom pen over that doesn't work. I've searched the various icons and cannot find an eraser.

Second question: Can I close an image and not get it to fill in with a color. (black is the default color)

Thanks,

Tom

Hi Tom, welcome to the forum.
Question 1: There's no eraser function in Xara Xtreme, but you can delete nodes.
Question 2: Yes. At the bottom left of the workspace there is a mesh filled square.
Right mouse clicking removes the outline, left mouse clicking removes the fill.
Edit: No eraser, but there's always the "Undo" function (Ctrl + Z)
Saludos,
Bob.

Hi Tom,

Welcome to Talkgraphics.

To add to what Bob has said, your shapes can always be selected and either deleted or modified. An eraser is a raster image tool for removing pixels. Although vector objects are represented on screen to look like raster pixels they are actually mathmatical forms in memory rather than a matrix of bits.

Soquili: Other vector apps have eraser tools, which do an automatic boolean substraction of the shape you create with them, so in effect, they behave like eraser tools in pixel-oriented programs. I guess that's what the OP was asking for.

I know other vector tools have an eraser...doesn't make it logical or productive.

It's not "logical" if you think very technically, true. But trust me, it can be damn productive ;)

Let's not turn this into another 'Eraser tool' discussion thread huh ;)
It has been discussed before, even quite recently in the Dear Xara.. forum.

Welcome to the forum Tom :)
There is an 'erase' function to the freehand and brush tool (N) tool in Xtreme.
When drawing a freehand line you can hold 'shift' and the cursor changes to flip the pencil icon (with a minus sign) and allows you to go back over a line to erase it.

Hi Tom,

There is no eraser tool as such in Xtreme. What you need to do instead is change the shape or change the transparency of what you've drawn.

Use the shape editor tool, the freehand tool or one of the Combine Shapes menu options to change a shape.

Use the transparency tool to change the transparency.

And don't forget the most basic erase of all - select a shape and delete it!

Phil

Medium-term user one question:
Thinking a little more about the eraser facility and Phil's reply above, I was surprised to realise after using the program for 2 years+ that I did not know that when applying a linear transparency to a rectangle with an outline, or indeed to a line, only the shape receives the transparency. I was expecting the rectangle and its outline to take the transparency. The line has to be converted to a shape before the transparency takes effect. I had not noticed this behaviour before, and wondered what the reasoning behind it is. Or am I missing anything obvious? It seems an elaborate process to have to clone the rectangle and convert it to apply the transparency and then align both rectangles centrally.
Saludos,
Bob.

Try different Transparency types Bob. You get some surprising results.

First attachment uses Mix Transparency. The second uses Stained Glass Transparency.

Notice in the Stained Glass example the outline is also showing transparency.