Bug in grouped shapes and transparencies?

[David O'Neil]

The other indication was that I was unable to change multiple ellipses at once. Of course, the skewing was also immediately obvious. Coming from 3.0 these were shocks to me.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, I've only ever received the tracking number. If it can't be used to track, that's pretty sad, so I hope you have luck.

[Soquili]

Sorry David, I was having a senior moment. The bugzilla I have access to is for Microsoft, not Xara.

[David O'Neil]

No problem. Have a great night.

[PhilM]

Hi David,

Regarding your original question:

I hope another update is soon in the works. In addition to the bugs still open that I've reported, I just found another one having to do with grouping objects. Ungrouping them doesn't do what you expect.

Create a circle. Give it a shadow. Group it and then give the group a linear transparency. Ungroup it, chosing 'Remove Effects.' The circle is mistakenly given a linear transparency. Making it worse is that getting rid of the transparency is difficult, if not impossible without stepping back to before removing the grouping.

I've even had objects simply disappear when trying to get them back into editable shape. And very few of the objects I've had this problem with were as simple as this example.

You must have the undocumented registry entry "Groups\AskUngroupEffects" enabled. That's why you get asked the question about removing effects when you ungroup but nobody else does.

I strongly suggest you reset that entry to 0 because, as you have found, that feature is not working reliably (always a danger with using undocumented registry entries...).

Phil

[David O'Neil]

What would cause that registry value to become set any time I enable 'Make groups be transparent as a whole' and then perform the 'shadow -> group -> transparency' sequence I outlined? If I change "Groups\AskUngroupEffects" to 0 in Regedit, close regedit, open Xtreme, check the MGBTAAW' option, and close Xtreme, upon reopening Regedit the value is still 0. If I perform the sequence after opening Xtreme, the registry value sets itself to 1. I haven't done anything else. And, as I said, I don't believe I mucked with the registry after reinstalling Xtreme due to my OS upgrade. I haven't even used sledger's registry tool.

Thanks,
David

[PhilM]

Ah, it looks like that value gets set if you are holding down Shift when you ungroup.

Holding down Shift while ungrouping is another way to get the program to ask you what to do with special effects applied to the group but then as a side-effect that sets the AskUngroupEffects registry entry.

I think this is either being a bit too clever or not very clever at all (depending on your point of view)! Sorry if this has caused problems for you, David. We will fix it.

Phil

[steve.ledger]

Thanks for the heads up on the SHIFT modifier Phil

[David O'Neil]

Thanks, Phil. I had changed the keyboard shortcut for ungrouping to 'Shift+G'. When you fix it, please remember to make it so that one of the 'Make groups be transparent as a whole' options completely removes the transparency when performing the sequence of events I outlined earlier. I was completely perplexed when others said that that worked differently for them.

Again, thanks.
David

[Fred C]

Good catch, David! I can dupe your original results via the Shift key.

Thanks for the info, Phil.

[David O'Neil]

...Sorry if this has caused problems for you, David. We will fix it.

Phil: Am I going to have to upgrade if I want the fix? (As well as the fix to some of the other stuff I've pointed out.)