Making fill transparent but not it outline

[jclements]

In another posting (http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=28845), Ned Addie mentions "...flat is the only transparency type which fades lines. "

I always assumed that all transparency shapes caused the outline of a closed object to inherit the fill's transparency.

Thanks for the tip.

The circle on the left has a flat transparency and the one the right has a linear transparency.

[Xhris]

Currently, Xara lacks the ability to independently control the (flat) transparency of the line and (non-flat) transparency of the fill separately. There are convoluted work arounds, and you can also set the object as a group to use new rules, but I'd like to see this be addressed in future versions.

CorelDrawX3 doesn't really have a good solution: you can select to make the stroke or fill or both transparent, but different settings can't share different transparency values.

Expression has the best solution, independent control over stroke and fill transparency (albeit only flat). Expression also has a lovely 'live' line thickness slider control providing immediate interactive feedback of the line thickness set.

[David O'Neil]

Currently, Xara lacks the ability to independently control the (flat) transparency of the line and (non-flat) transparency of the fill separately. There are convoluted work arounds...

When those 'convoluted workarounds' involve only 1) drawing what you want, 2) knowing that if you want to control a line around a shape independently of that shape, you have to draw the (out)line and shape as separate objects, and 3) knowing that you have to group a shaped line to apply whatever transparency you want, I disagree that they are 'convoluted.'

If you want to see convoluted, look at the code it would take to do what you want to do--that would be an ugly addition to achieve something you can already easily accomplish with the existing program.

It could probably be documented better, but this is really a case of 'knowing thine tools.' Maybe this would be a good tutorial worthy of your efforts, mighty Xhris.

[Xhris]

Just to be clear, by convoluted I was referring to the steps required to say, apply a 50% transparent line stroke on a shape that has a linear fill. To do this, you have to set the shape to have flat transparency, set the value so that the line stroke transparency changes, and then change the transparency type back to say linear to customise the fill transparency. It's just a shame there isn't an independent control for the line stroke transparency. But who knows what the next version will bring.

By grouping an object and applying transparency, the fill and line stroke are treated as one solid object and thus you can apply linear transparencies to line strokes that way. It would be nice thinking about it, to be able to apply other complex transparency types to lines independently of the fill too, as standard.

[David O'Neil]

You never listen, do you? Your 'convoluted' example is not a case of drawing what you really want. If you 'want' two things (transparent outline & inner object with different characteristics) then draw two things! The changes you are asking for are going to make the code base much more convoluted for something you can already easily achieve.

[amoore]

Personally, I don't think of Charles as film noir, but I suppose he could have a dark side.

[jclements]

...

[Ned Addie]

Ned Addie mentions "...flat is the only transparency type which fades lines. "

The new option to 'make groups be transparent as a whole' also fades lines, and offers some interesting new possibilities.
I'd like to see a button be added to the transparency infobar where it could more conveniently be toggled on and off.

My approach to drawing with layered flat transparencies -- while maintaining crisp opaque outlines -- is to use linear transparency with both handles on the arrow-indicator-thing set to the same percentage. I use a template with a range of presets which I can quickly (via a mouse gesture) copy and paste as attributes.

I also find it useful to include presets for various constrained ranges, such as 55%-99.5% (which can also include contour profiles) -- which allows quicker and finer control of the gradient. This also keeps the arrow-indicator-thing about the same size as the shape, instead of sometimes stretching off the page... If a shape is given a 99.5%-99.5% linear transparency (rather than 100%-100%) it looks just like an empty outline, but it can be selected anywhere on its surface -- not just the outline -- which is especially helpful for alt-click selecting it if it's under another shape.

Ned Addie