Recolouring A Drawing Made With Brushes

I work with people who have disabilities and a user drew a tree using a brush.

It appears that you cannot recolour the tree - however if I ungroup the drawing and move the various elements apart, it is then possible to recolour the individual elements of the tree but then you have the problem of reassembling the tree back to its' original position. Is it possible to recolour the drawing in-situ?

On a separate question, where can I find explanations for the three cursors that I have added to the drawing - namely the broken arrow, text cursor and the square cursor? They seem to appear whilst I am attempting to recolour the tree.

Thank you for your help.

Hi there. I've managed to recolour the tree by ungrouping all the elements (Select the entire tree and then press Ctrl+U several times) then select the entire tree again and select the fill colour.

As for the icons, I am new to Xara (I'm an avid CorelDRAW user), but as far as I can make out they are, from top to bottom:

1. Change the attribute colour, i.e. the default fill colour of all new objects created.
2. Change the outline colour of the currently selected object.
3. Change the fill colour of the currently selected object.

Can anyone verify I have deduced these correctly?

Stu.

If you are drawing with a Brush, you can change the outline color which should change the color of the pine needles. With the stroked line selected, right click on any color on the screen palette, or edit the outline color in the Color Editor (Ctrl e)

The three cursors you show represent feedback when you drag and drop a color onto a drawing. The first cursor is the color being dragged. The second with the line indicates that the color will be dropped onto the outline. The last cursor indicates the color will be dropped as a fill.

I see while I was trying to figure out an answer you have received two answers. :)

I'll throw mine into the mix just for fun.

The default Hairy Brush does not have the change colors enabled. I created a new brush using the same quick shape used to create the Hairy Brush. I named it Green Hairy.

Open the file I have attached to this post and the brush will be available in the line gallery and the Select existing Brush portion of the Freehand & Brush Tool info bar. You can select Kristi's tree and then using the Freehand & Brush Tool select the Green Hairy brush. The tree will be come green. You can now right click any color on the color line and select Line Color to change the tree.

As for the cursors Open Xara Xtreme help and in the Index select Apply fill & line colors by drag & drop. Display that topic to see all the various cursors applicable to the subject.

BTW you can copy the graphic(s) for any of the default brushes by opening the Line Gallery. Right click on one of the Noveltry or Natural Media brushes and select "copy brush graphic to clipboard'. Paste the graphic into your drawing. Change the colours or fill and then using the Freehand & Brush Tools infobar Create Brush to make your own version. If you do want to be able to update colours later simply by selecting a line colour in the Fill properties of the Edit Brush dialog select All Brush Colors.

You will probably be interested in JokeArtist's tutorial that outlines a great brush usability improvement. It doesn't help with drawings that have already been created, but you will probably find it quite helpful in the future.

edit - Changing the brush to one like JokeArtist's, as in Soquili's method, does help with drawings you've already created.

Kristi may enjoy seeing the her tree change color simply by dragging or clicking on the color spectrum in the Color Editor. See attached image.

Many thanks for the quick responses so far - they have just come in time for me for tomorrow morning's lesson.

As for Soquili pointing out to me where to find the cursor information in the help files was not possible as I failed to mention the fact that we are using Xara XS on three computers here.

Many thanks again for your help.

Does Xara XS not have the help menu?

I'm not familiar with that version although I see from your file it uses the version 3.0.0.4357 Xara Xtreme file format.

Xara XS does have a help file but not as comprehensive as Xara Xtreme has (which I have on my home computer).

In the last few minutes I have tried out Soquili response in post number 6 and that idea does not work on Xara XS.