Modified XaraX Icons

**RAMWolff44** · 13 January 2004, 06:15 PM

Hi all,

Just spending the day today, my BDay, playing with XaraX and after all the discussion about modifying this icon and that I decided to try my hand at creating some myself. Not to hard for the most part. I had mentioned that for those with sight issues it would be nice for Charles and Co. to give the users options for large or small icons and text under or on the sides or even just text instead of icons. My idea would be to give the bars an interactive right click sub menu that the user could access any time and modify it to their liking.

I recreated most of them, all but the hand and the button bar icons, which I don't use at all for anything. I also left out the rectangle and circle tool icons because I would also like to see Charles and Co. simplify this area by having all the Quick Shapes under one icon, which I think the new one I came up with works pretty darned well!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif I mentioned this is a previous post a while back when it bacame apparent that there was going to be a new version of XaraX that I really admire Serif's DrawPlus Quick Shape palette, there are hundreds of shapes but they are all within about 30 shapes that are on a drop down palette. You drag and drop a shape and you are presented with 1 to 3 nodes and by draging the nodes you will see the creation of new shapes (related to the parent shape). I know that Xara Ltd. can do it better but I think this one area of DrawPlus is by far my favorite Quick Shape "provider" out of the many vector programs that I own. Just a thought! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Here is the .xar file. Tear it apart, play with it, whatever. I'm done for now!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Richard http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com//Publi..._Prowl_sig.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com/RAMWolffsWorld

**RAMWolff44** · 13 January 2004, 06:15 PM

Hi all,

Just spending the day today, my BDay, playing with XaraX and after all the discussion about modifying this icon and that I decided to try my hand at creating some myself. Not to hard for the most part. I had mentioned that for those with sight issues it would be nice for Charles and Co. to give the users options for large or small icons and text under or on the sides or even just text instead of icons. My idea would be to give the bars an interactive right click sub menu that the user could access any time and modify it to their liking.

I recreated most of them, all but the hand and the button bar icons, which I don't use at all for anything. I also left out the rectangle and circle tool icons because I would also like to see Charles and Co. simplify this area by having all the Quick Shapes under one icon, which I think the new one I came up with works pretty darned well!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif I mentioned this is a previous post a while back when it bacame apparent that there was going to be a new version of XaraX that I really admire Serif's DrawPlus Quick Shape palette, there are hundreds of shapes but they are all within about 30 shapes that are on a drop down palette. You drag and drop a shape and you are presented with 1 to 3 nodes and by draging the nodes you will see the creation of new shapes (related to the parent shape). I know that Xara Ltd. can do it better but I think this one area of DrawPlus is by far my favorite Quick Shape "provider" out of the many vector programs that I own. Just a thought! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Here is the .xar file. Tear it apart, play with it, whatever. I'm done for now!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Richard http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com//Publi..._Prowl_sig.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com/RAMWolffsWorld

**RAMWolff44** · 13 January 2004, 10:32 PM

That is SO strange, my system seems to have been taken over by this stupid program. John, if you will notice the file clearly end in .xar, so when you download it just right click and rename it to Xara Icons Modified.xar, simple as that.

Grrrrr, this has got me PO'ed!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/mad.gif That program is history!!

Richard http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com//Publi..._Prowl_sig.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com/RAMWolffsWorld

**Charles Moir** · 14 January 2004, 06:23 AM

Happy birthday Richard.

I really like some of those, and in fact some are very like the ideas we're already using. e.g. our new shape editor icon is almost identical to your suggested design. Everyone should agree that is a better way to suggest bezier editing than our rather boring plain curve. Love the QuickShape icon, blend, zoom, and others.

Can't help you combining the circle and rectangle into a single QuickShape icon for the next release (although I can see the merit, and in fact under the hood the three icons actually use the same tool code). We do have plans for a revamp of these things later however.

The largest challenge for icon designers is the small size constraints. Our large icons are 23 x24 pixels (which is about size you show for the small designs). All our icons have to be in a much smaller 15x16 pixels as well. Trying to show any sort of detail in an icon that small is hugely difficult.

I can't show where we're at on the icon re-design, since they are still being worked on. But we have decided, partly because of the early feedback here, to use an S shape to suggest shadow (actually an S with a soft S under it). Some later feedback seems against this - and there're good points, I'll agree. However no one has come up with an alternative design that, to us, obviously, intuitively suggests a soft shadow that can be rendered in a 23 pixel or a 15 pixel square. The rectangle we use, and as you've kept, too strongly suggest a rectangle tool, and we know from customer feedback we've got this wrong. i.e. we feel it's broken so we want to fix it. Even I've found myself hunting for the shadow tool when I'm not concentrating.

At least an SS icon seems more directly suggestive of Soft Shadow, it is consistent with icons we use in other software such as Xara3D. But it has its downsides as well. Not an easy task.

We're sticking with our glass icon for transparency, but trying to make that look actually transparent is proving very difficult. Make it too transparent and it's invisible. Make it too opaque and it looks like a metal goblet and doesn't suggest 'transparent' in the way a clear wine glass does. Still, we're working on it.

**RAMWolff44** · 14 January 2004, 07:54 AM

Hi Charles,

Thanks so much for the Birthday wishes and thanks for such positive feedback on my little venture. I'm glad you like some of the designs and I hope you will consider using the ideas if you so desire! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

I am still curious about whether there will be an option to have text/no text and small/large icons in a future release?? At 43 years of age, since my 40th year my eyes have increasingly gotten worse and it WOULD be helpful to have more control over the interface in this way to ease eyestrain. Please consider this!!

Many thanks! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Richard http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com//Publi..._Prowl_sig.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com/RAMWolffsWorld

**RAMWolff44** · 14 January 2004, 11:17 AM

Here's a screenshot, in case anyone's interested in seeing what they look like.

Also, Charles, here's a fun idea and mind you, it's just an idea. How about, instead of creating the icons so they are fixed in a .dll or withing the main Xara.exe that you create a seperate folder with the icons in there and make the interface partially 'skinable'. Give perameters for the size of the icons and allow for users to create their own icons for XaraX and we can post them here in a forum set up for that purpose to share with others. That way those that want this option are happy and it's another way to show off skills in Xara!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Also, BRAVO for accepting Egg's "S" idea for the Shadow Tool!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Richard http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com//Publi..._Prowl_sig.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com/RAMWolffsWorld

[This message was edited by RAMWolff on January 14, 2004 at 12:26.]

**joroho** · 14 January 2004, 02:11 PM

Richard, Those are some nice icons, but the presence of a shadow on almost each one of them could confuse people into not knowing which one was the "shadow" button.

.joroho.

http://www.joroho.com/initials.gif

**RAMWolff44** · 14 January 2004, 04:04 PM

Hey John,

Thanks so much for the Birthday wishes. Just wish I could completely get rid of this bug. It's STILL there a little bit. So I planned on resting this week (vacation every year on my Birthday week) but besides my doctors appointment tomorrow and trip to the health food store it's all about staying put and warm and resting as much as I can!! Oh well, I've had worse!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Love those big monitors too!! My ViewSonic, 20" viewable Graphic Series G810 has got me VERY spoiled!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Thanks Joroho, I have made some more improvements and here is a screen shot of that. It's the one thing I HATE about this forum, old or new, you can't modify your posts after an hour, unlike at Pixelparity. So I have to take up more page realistate to show you and offer the file again. Oh well! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

If you will notice I added back in the Square and Circle shape icons, Charles said maybe in a future version they would combine them all into one area, considering it all works off of the same code but for now........ Also updated the Shadow icon to reflect what Charles has accepted (Egg's idea) and I reduced all the other shadows or just removed them altogether. Hope that looks better to you! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Here she is.............

Richard http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com//Publi..._Prowl_sig.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com/RAMWolffsWorld

[This message was edited by RAMWolff on January 14, 2004 at 17:17.]