holding down ctrl while resizing is not doing what I expect

**metaeducation** · 02 June 2006, 10:39 PM

I have a graphics task for which I'm evaluating Xara. Got a very basic problem.

I expect to hold down Ctrl and as I drag see the height/width ratio be preserved. Instead pressing ctrl acts as if it's snapping to some kind of extremely coarse grid (even though no grid is on) and moreover these grid points do not retain the proportionality of my object.

Anyone know what might be going on?

**Mickie** · 02 June 2006, 11:32 PM

If your "lock aspect ratio" button is on, you don't have to hold down ctrl to have the ratio preserved. Dragging with the control key constrains the direction or angle of the drag. This is very useful when you want to move something horizontally, but want it to remain in the same vertical position.

Mickie

**Egg Bramhill** · 02 June 2006, 11:33 PM

Hi metaeducation.

This is the incorrect use of Ctrl in XaraXtreme. Use the Selector tool. When you click on a shape (or Shapes) you get 8 black squares around the shape. Drag on one of the corner 'Blobs' to resize the image.

If the image doesn't resize proportionaly, you don't have the "Lock Aspect Ratio" on. This is a small padlock button in the top tool bar (close to the percentage text boxes.)

TIP: If you hold down the Shift key whilst draging, the resize will take place about the centre.

Mickie just beat me to it!

**gwpriester** · 02 June 2006, 11:51 PM

I'm not sure where you get the notion that the Ctrl key would constrain proportional scaling. If you use the Adobe standard for this it's the Shift key. And the other major player, CorelDRAW operates the same way as Xara.

Gary

**Egg Bramhill** · 02 June 2006, 11:53 PM

Ditto with Macromedia Flash

**metaeducation** · 03 June 2006, 12:33 AM

Originally Posted by gwpriester

I'm not sure where you get the notion that the Ctrl key would constrain proportional scaling. If you use the Adobe standard for this it's the Shift key. And the other major player, CorelDRAW operates the same way as Xara.

Gary

I figured that it was an important enough function that it would be assigned to some key, and I guess I read into the status bar text that says "Ctrl to constrain size" something that was not correct.

Another status message says:

"Drag to resize the selected objects, Shift-drag to keep center, Ctrl-drag to resize to exact multiples of the original size."

Though now that I look at it, I see exact multiples means exact multiples of width and height, though those are purely integer multiples of width and height being applied independently. (Based on one's expectations, one might guess that "multiply the width and height both by 1.3" is making an exact multiple of the original size...whereas multiplying the width by 2 and the height by 3 is not an "exact multiple")

**metaeducation** · 03 June 2006, 12:45 AM

Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

If the image doesn't resize proportionaly, you don't have the "Lock Aspect Ratio" on. This is a small padlock button in the top tool bar (close to the percentage text boxes.)

A ha. That's it. It's an odd location for a global setting, esp considering it's among quantities which change as you change the selection...seems like it would be a per-object setting. I also thought it only applied to if you typed numbers in those boxes.

It might be nice if the status bar text was sensitive to this and said (Lock Aspect Ratio is OFF). Also if it is a global mode, then repeating the setting in a check box in a menu might be nice. Really, I wasn't looking there, and even when the help file mentioned under the scaling topic it I thought "that's not what I'm looking for, it's a per object setting" (!)

Thanks!

**Egg Bramhill** · 03 June 2006, 01:02 AM

Yeah perhaps,

But it is fairly common. (see the Flash incarnation, it's almost identical) An open padlock in Xtreme would be nice.

As for the Status Bar text; the problem would be where do you draw the line? i.e. you could also have "Scale Line Width is off", "Line width is off" etc until it would become a useless list.

It wasn't until you asked the question that I realised holding down Ctrl doubled the aspects. Very interesting if somewhat obscure.

**gwpriester** · 03 June 2006, 02:02 AM

We're not trying to beat up on you. Honest

Every application has its own way of doing things. You just need to go with the flow and not fight it. If you constantly expect every program to work the same way (and it would be nice if they did) you will expend a lot of negative energy and be often frustrated.

There is a certain logic and flow to every application and while we don't always agree with how Xara does things, it makes life so much eaiser to just say, it does things this way and so be it.

Xara and Illustrator and CorelDRAW use a bounding box (those small black squares, to intuitively resize an object. The middle squares resize the object non-proportionally, and the corner squares (if Lock Aspect Ratio is enabled (in the down position)) will scale the selectioin proportionally.

There is a way to tell if you are scaling proportionally or non-proportionally as you can see in the attached image. The cursor is a double sided arrow when proportional scaling is enabled (Locked aspect ration) and the four sided arrow when this feature is disabled.

Gary

Ya know?

Gary