I 'm studying the online manual......

[dalel]

Which is great, by the way. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] I've spent 8-10 hours, and have studied about 6 "chapters".

I was doing fills, and was trying to figure out how to change the two fill colors, before I got to that part in the tutorial, and I figured out something that isn't in Xara Help, the Shortcut Word docs, or the tutorial.

To toggle through the Start, Middle(Ramp), & End colors, just hit Tab, then you can click a color on the Color Line. No need to select a fill handle or drag & drop on the fill line. This seems much quicker, to keep one finger on the Tab button, and one on the mouse to click colors.

Thought I'd tell everyone of my inadvertent discovery. I am a great believer in shortcuts using the keyboard.

I love this manual, and am learning so much! I hope I remember half of what I am learning. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

Dale

Why, I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir, because I’m not myself, you know...
- Lewis Carroll

[This message was edited by Dale Landry on April 13, 2002 at 18:12.]

[dalel]

Which is great, by the way. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] I've spent 8-10 hours, and have studied about 6 "chapters".

I was doing fills, and was trying to figure out how to change the two fill colors, before I got to that part in the tutorial, and I figured out something that isn't in Xara Help, the Shortcut Word docs, or the tutorial.

To toggle through the Start, Middle(Ramp), & End colors, just hit Tab, then you can click a color on the Color Line. No need to select a fill handle or drag & drop on the fill line. This seems much quicker, to keep one finger on the Tab button, and one on the mouse to click colors.

Thought I'd tell everyone of my inadvertent discovery. I am a great believer in shortcuts using the keyboard.

I love this manual, and am learning so much! I hope I remember half of what I am learning. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

Dale

Why, I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir, because I’m not myself, you know...
- Lewis Carroll

[This message was edited by Dale Landry on April 13, 2002 at 18:12.]

[raffon]

Tab will cycle through however many colors in your fill properties. Just tried it with 4. Pretty cool tip! Watch the nodes, shift tab goes backwards.

Ich bin ein New Yorker

[Ross Macintosh]

Now you have to change your name to 'Tab Landry'.

Thanks Tab for the practical tip.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[Su Lawrence]

... Dale for the tab tip.

BTW you can also use the tab key to alternate between contours/bevels and the original shape, which is very useful if you have a large inner bevel or contour where it is tricky to select the original shape (you can use the alt key to select it also). It was Dmagician who I found this out from in his metallic text thread, when I was scrolling through past threads a while ago, thanks Dmagician. It is an excellent effect check it out if you haven't already.

Another couple of key shortcuts I use, is to hold down ctrl and hit tab to toggle between two files open simultaneously in Xara (which also works with other programs). Or alt and tab to toggle between two different programs open at the same time.

Gotta love that tab key.

Regards

Su

[dalel]

From the Tab-Meister: If you watch the InfoBar whilst Tabbing through Fill Colors, it will show "Start Color - (color info)", "Ramp Color - (color info)", and "End Color - (color info)". More colors show more Ramps. Great function! The Tab function also works with the Transparency tool, making it toggle between Start and End transparency percentages. For 3 and 4 point transparency, there is a Start, End, End2, etc. And lastly, you can Tab through all of the node/anchor points while using the Shape Editor Tool. The first Tab selects the first point that was created, and toggles through them in the order they were created(or so it seems).

Gotta love that Tab key!

I finished studying the first 6 tutorials in the Online Xara Manual, which cover the Menus and Tools. That's WebXealots #16-20.

I couldn't sleep, so I've been up at 3:30 AM
printing the first 6 "chapters", and making an Index for them, for my Xara X reference. Also I made my own brief Shortcut reference, for the shortcuts I will probably use most often.

Does anyone besides me think that the shortcuts for the tools are too disorganized to make them very useful or easy to remember? Xara needs to take a hint from the way Adobe does their shortcut keys(letter keys), or better, make the shortcuts user-defined.

It took 58 double-sided pages to print these sections. I wasn't energetic enough to go in and add some HTML, so that the pages got boldly numbered in order, so I'll need to add some
stick-on page numbers, then add those to my index.

One aspect of this reference that I like is that printed HTML pages usually leave quite a lot of space to add notes, tips & tricks, and such.

Only 13 more chapters to go. Whew! Looks like the whole manual will be around 180 double-sided pages, if most of the chapters are around the same sizes.

It will be great to have a printed reference! I am used to using online references, but I much prefer printed references.

Dale

Why, I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir, because I’m not myself, you know...
- Lewis Carroll

[This message was edited by Dale Landry on April 14, 2002 at 05:45.]

[raffon]

Not really a tab but a Ctrl function. When nudging, Ctrl + arrow nudges 5 units at a time. This is just like like moving to the next word in word processing applications. Really speeds thing up.


If you wait for the Tutorial CD, you'll be able to print out the manuals, all the tutorials and Web Xealots from the PDF files. Almost ready for shipping. I'm going to push myself to get it done and ready for by the 22nd of this month.

Ich bin ein New Yorker

[Clements]

under the freeware section. There is a document there which contains most of the key combo functions, all nicely formatted in a table format. It was created because I too found it a hassle to search through the Help file.

A good practice is to tap the TAB KEY whenever you change a tool or object selection and see what happens. Also, some of the TAB KEY combos are not Xara specific but related to the Windows OS .... so the more familiar you are with Windows the better off you will be [personally, this is an area of weakness for me : ) ].

***Note, if you do find significant oversites in the download document, PLEASE carefully document them and email to me and I will see about trying to revise the master files.*** Jclements@BrwnCald.com

[dalel]

I won't be purchasing the CD, so I need to make do with the online manual and tutorials. I don't do Paypal anymore; had my CC info intercepted and someone charged $299 worth of chatting on a chatting love site. (I hope he/she gets the mate from hell!) [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_mad.gif[/img] I don't use my CC online anymore, nor will I give permission for my checking account to be accessed by any company.
I would order the CD by regular mail, if that is possible, and pay by check or money order.

Grant, would you list exactly what will be on the CD? (A Table of Contents, if you have time.)

I finished printing Web Xealots 16-35. 193 double-sided pages. Glad that's done.

I already downloaded the Shortcuts docs. I will only be using the general and menu shortcuts for now, such as Ctrl+Tab to toggle between open docs, Ctrl+Z & Y for Undo/Redo, Group, Ungroup, Paste Attributes, Move to Front, Toggle Grid, etc. After I am up and running with those shortcuts, I can add more. I created two additional toolbars, top right and bottom right, so that I won't have to use those disorganized toolbar shortcuts.

I prefer a line grid rather than the standard dot grid used by so many illustration programs. Has anyone come up with a way to use a line grid in Xara? I tried a line grid pattern as a background, but it is obvious that that will have limitations, and putting a transparent-background grid in front of every other object/layer isn't very practical, either. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

In case it hasn't been said enough, thanks to the people on this forum for being so supportive and helpful. And thanks to our hard-working Xara Gurus for caring enough to put together the Manual and Tutorials.

<bowing in humble supplication>We're not worthy!</bowing in humble supplication>

(That's a little HTML joke, for those of you who have never written web pages.)

Dale

Why, I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir, because I’m not myself, you know...
- Lewis Carroll

[raffon]

The CDs will have everything that is on the Xaraxone, all tutorials from 1996 through 2001, all 35 issues of the Web Xealot Vol 3. All PDFs will be linked throughout the CD so if there is a reference from a Xealot issue to a tutorial it will be linked. That last is why its taking a bit longer than I thought it would. It should look just like the Website.

There will be a HTML start page to bring up the index and load the Acrobat Reader plugin (the latest Reader will also be on the CD).

Back to link heaven...

Ich bin ein New Yorker