How to make a watch face Patterns and arrays

[kansas67]

I've just begun using Xara. I've used Corel before but can't see how to make pattern or arrays of objects in Xara. I'm needing to make mask templates for
Watch faces, graphics mask for tire graphics etc. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[wizard509]

Welcome to TalkGraphics kansas67. Is your screen name signicant to your location? Even though I now live in Missouri, I was born and raised in Salina, KS. I'm not certain what you are asking? Do you want to make a mask to protect certain areas form changes or to cut an object out of it's background? As to array's that's a whole nother story. Could you please post some examples of what you are wanting to do?

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics

No, you will not find a Ctrl R or an array function. Not that we have not begged and pleaded for these features almost from day one. (Larry, an array is an action or series of actions, that is repeated for a number of times. For example, to add the tic marks around the dial, one could rotate and duplicate a tic mark, then press Ctrl R to repeat the last actions, or create an array that would repeat this as many times as indicated until the dial was populated with tic marks in one easy step.)

I believe the reason is that it is just not that easy to do with the current coding that Xara has. If it were easy to do without having to rewrite the code from scratch, it would have been done a long time ago.

On the other hand, if you liked CorelDRAW's interactive screen controls, intuitive gradient fills and transparency, and Corel's context sensitive menus, then you can thank Xara because back around DRAW 7, Corel incorporated these breakthrough features that they borrowed from Xara.

Here's an old tutorial that will show you how to do this in Xara http://www.xaraxone.com/tutorials/nov04/index.html

[wizard509]

Thank you Gary.

[kansas67]

Thanks guys for the info. Yes I am from Kansas (Wichita) now in Texas. Hope Xara will be able to add this in the futue, seems so basic for a graphics program.