Lost Handles ??

[Charles Moir]

John is right -one of the most common mistakes made by new users and sometimes experienced users alike, is incorrectly squashed, and screwed-up aspect ratio, of graphics, photos and text. It's one of the main things that shouts 'amateur' to a professional designer when they see this.

There are very few cases where you get acceptable results from squashing anything. It looks bad for text, photos, and most graphics look poor - in fact the example you illustrate of a squashed rounded rectangle is one of the most common errors. In the past it has been way too easy to make these mistakes.

That plus the fact that HTML does not support text aspect ratio changes.

So all in we decided we should remove the the easy ways of messing up your drawings, page, photos and HTML.

You still can however change the aspect ratio, just un-check the padlock icon on the Selector Tool Infobar and you you can stretch with the corner handles. So it's still possible, just not so easy, to stretch things.

[BQ]

Charles and John,
Thank you both for the explanation. Now that you've explained it to me, it makes perfectly good sense.
BQ

[cursor]

Some items, from a very logical standpoint, I should be able to expand longitudinallly or vertically, at will, without constraints (independent of aspect ratio).

Case in point ...

I've defined a created a horiz navbar on a page that is 900 pix wide. The actual navbar extends, perhaps, 600 pix from the left margin (with perhaps 2 pix between each button). It would be extemely convenient to be able to 1) clone the button (sans text), 2) move it to the extreme right of the navbar, and 3) horizontally drag+snap the the width of the graphic (gradient colored, or whatever) to the right-most edge of the defined webpage (snapping into position). As its currently setup, I can't do that ... unless I misunderstand (which would not be the first time).

[covoxer]

horizontally drag+snap the the width of the graphic (gradient colored, or whatever) to the right-most edge of the defined webpage

To snap anything you drag to the page border enable "Snap to Objects" (the red magnet button near the view quality handle).

[cursor]

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.

Yes, snapping to anything is simple with Web Designer (or Extreme). The problem that I'm trying to describe is that I cannot dynamically lengthen a non-text item without affecting it's height. Not having all the stretch handles precludes that. Sure, I can unlock the aspect ratio, then explicitly enter width values within the info bar (then I have to re-position, because any stretching happens about the object's center) ... but that seems out of touch with the Xara's simple, dynamic user interface.

Leaving the horiz/vert stretch handles off of text components might make some sense (so that text doesn't get distorted, and so that standard web fonts display properly), but making all other graphic elements suffer the restriction seems unnecessary.

[covoxer]

(then I have to re-position, because any stretching happens about the object's center)

Not true. You can move the center of transformation anywhere you want. Click on object once more to see the rotation handles, and move the rotation center mark. To put it exactly on the object edge or corner, use snap to object option.

... but that seems out of touch with the Xara's simple, dynamic user interface.

With Xtreme's interface you mean? Well, WD is not Xtreme. It is very similar, but it is also different in many aspects. It was optimised of a bit different use and users than Xtreme.

Leaving the horiz/vert stretch handles off of text components might make some sense (so that text doesn't get distorted, and so that standard web fonts display properly), but making all other graphic elements suffer the restriction seems unnecessary.

Now think about it, what objects are most common on the typical pages? Text, photographs and design elements (borders, buttons etc). Non porortiaonal resizing is bad for both text and photographs. On the other hand it's absence is not limiting to design elements since you can resize them freely anyway. But if you need per pixel precision, it's very likely that you'll end up working with numbers anyway.
There are also some helpers - snap to objects, snap to rulers.

[cursor]

Makes sense. Thanks for the feedback, John.

[Grampy Peter]

I have a new problem. I just lost my resize handles. When I click an object I only get a little square dot in one corner. I can drag the object but that's all.

So, I decided to draw a new rectangle, then chose the select key, and now I have handles!? Now when I click the other objects I get handles.

It's as if the creation of the new rectangle "unlocked" the handle feature for the entire file.

Is there a bug in my bonnet or in Xara Xtreme 5?

Grampy Peter

[steve.ledger]

Press the 'Selection bounds handles' icon (far left) on the info bar Peter