small animated gif

[samrc]

Xara's Design Premium is primarily a graphic program with other things added.
I found a limitation in the program that hinders the use of it on small animated graphics.
I make animated graphics in many sizes. But this discussion is about the smallest.
Examples:
animated bullets or smilies (like those seen on this forum)
lines
ads (like the 90x25 required for some financial sites like 321gold.com)

The program will not allow a page size to be set small enough to handle these graphics directly and will not export just the drawing area either. The program is ignoring my choice in the Gif Options box to save only the Drawing. XDP6 is exporting the whole page (too large) instead of the drawing only. Since I can successfully use this option with larger sizes, it must be related to the size limitation.

If the animated images are placed in a Xara created webpage, the graphic can be resized using code.
However, if the intended destination of the graphic is another website, another builder, then the graphic itself must be the correct size not rely on coding to display a reduced image. Example: 90x25 graphic required by 321gold.com Currently, I must use another image program to reduce the size of a graphic made in XDP, and this does cause slight loss of quality, but also takes extra time.

If the limitation is a printing size limit, then can there be a warning that a smaller page size has been set, out of print range and still allow setting of this page size?

I attached simple files for reference and screen shots too.

Discussion started on a different thread. Was seeking guidance in what I was doing wrong, or a workaround to produce a 90x25 animated gif. Did not know it was a hard limit of XDP when I first posted on that thread. Now that I understand that, I am asking for this to be reconsidered for version 7. Thank you.

[samrc]

Update:

The choice to export only the drawing rather than full page for animation is still available in XDP6. See post above to document the options box.
The animation export options box clearly offers the choice to export only "drawing" or "page".

But there is a glitch in XDP6. Maybe it will be fixed for version 7.

John (Neodeist) discovered that that choice will only work when accessed in one way:

If I use the toolbar icon it won't export drawing area only, however if I use File/Export animation ... it does work as it should

When I first posted this thread, I was using the toolbar icon and always getting a full "page" export no matter the option checked.
However, when I tried the File/Export Animation from the main menu suggested by John, I did indeed get a "drawing" export from XDP6.

Even though both the toolbar icon and the File Menu option arrive at the same animation export options box, they clearly have different results.
So if the toolbar icon can please be fixed to render the same results as the File/Export Animation option that would be great.

I prefer to set my page size to the final graphic so I limit jaggies due to non-whole numbers for graphic sizes (90.2x25 instead of 90x25).
Don't understand the minimum size but can accept it as long as the export of the graphic alone is possible.
I would still like to request a review/revision of the minimum page size for version 7 if possible.

[PhilM]

Hi Samantha,

Both issues fixed in WD7 and WDP7 version 7.0.4 released today:
* Toolbar Export GIF button now honours the GIF export "area to save" setting
* Minimum page size is now 4 pixels

Phil