Xara Plus - Buttons

Dear Xara...

...your Xara Plus Buttons XPro+v22:

• render the button's states as images
• cannot be used to construct your NavBars
• have the shapes locked so it can only be stretched
• break ever so easily
• cannot handle MouseDown
• do not allow different opacity or positioned state shadows
• came with no instructions - I had to guess how to adjust Fills
• have a poorly names Smart Control - visibility
• can only be skewed left-right
• do not allow a current MouseOver button to be converted
• force the text into the Alt label
• are particularly uninspiring

Acorn

Other than these few quibbles, how do you feel? :)

Thanks for your feedback Acorn. Could you expand on your "break ever so easily" comment please? If you could explain the steps that lead to breakage, that would be helpful so we can fix them.

Thanks

Neil

Neil, thank you for engaging.

Taking just the Gradient I-icon button: Attachment 132443

1. Click+Select the text of either state
   
   1. Skew the text
      
      • It does not replicate through to the other state - Soft-group MOver/MOfff text does
      
      
   2. You can skew outside the button boundary
      
      • You have now lost control and would never be able to recover back to the original position following a Save

1. Ditto for Text Rotation

1. Set text to Shrink on Overflow and add more characters
   
   • Other state text changes to match but retains previous Shrink setting - it does not change in size and Overflows the button

1. Exotic but does occur
2. Changed Text to 2 Columns
3. Errored:
   
   • Quote:

     ---

     JavaScript error: "TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'content')"SmartLayout.js (1): define(["./Path","./Shared","./SimpleSmartShape","./Matrix","./Rect","./Point","./Camelot","./ComplexSmartShape","./PhotoLib"],function(t,e,r,i,n,o,a,s,l){var h=s.ComplexSmartShape,p=o.Point,u=n.Rect,c=r.Simpl eRectangle,d=e.HandleID,g=e.FillType,f=(e.printfDe v,e.getResString),y=e.isNearly1;function v(t,e){return void 0===t?"undefined" :( "0000000"+t.toString(16)).substr(e?-e:-8)}function m(t){if(Array.from)return Array.from(t);for(var e=new Array(t.length),r=0;r<t.length;r++)e[r]=t[r];return e}function x(){

     ---

   • Subsequent Drag+Select containing 2-Coumn Button, same error

1. For a test:
   
   1. Add Name type:symbol to the Text Area
   2. Replace with any symbol
   3. Undo
   4. Original Font is lost

1. Cannot Paste Attributes

1. Select a group of buttons
   
   1. Errored with 11988k.no.ts message

1. Cannot have Bold alone

1. Cannot add a Line Width

1. Can only change a symbol and its colour
   
   • Not its size
   • Or Skew
   • Or Rotation

Acorn

With MouseOver Buttons, I can toggle the layer on & off to see how my page balances.

If I have 20 Xara Plus buttons on a page , there is now no comparable action.

As you have designed the Smart Button to have a singular toggle (Visibility) action, you ought to be able to still toggle MouseOver for the same effect.

Acorn

If you chose to make the Xara Plus Buttons the same width, alignment is then dependent on the (invisible) size of the Text Area, making any alignment near impossible.

Acorn

You're on a roll here Acorn ;)

Thanks Acorn.

These buttons are primarily intended for users who want to simply change the text, symbol, width and colors and then use them as designed. So they don't support customisations like skewing and rotating the text inside the buttons, which are not commonly required. However we should be blocking these actions, to prevent them breaking, so this will be done for a future update. You can still of course create your own custom buttons with skewed/rotated text, as before, if that's what you need. And you can continue to use the MouseOver layer as before.

Regarding your comment about an error with a group of buttons - please provide a simple example (xar file) so we can fix that as grouped buttons seem to work ok generally.

Also please send an example showing your problem with alignment of buttons with the same width, as I'm not clear what the problem is there.

Thanks

Neil

Sorry Neil, I already provided Xara plus v22 - Buttons.xar in my OP.

• Grouping - group all buttons and move as a block.
• Alignment - H-Left-align the three leftmost buttons.

"These buttons" are now the only buttons available in the OCC. You have removed the MouseOver ones.
In do so, you have also destroyed the ability of construction of a NavBar from these Xara Plus Buttons.
You cannot even create your own from scratch.
Mid-flight, I want to change my XP Button to rounded corners...

By all means clamp them down.
The more you do this, the more they will break.

• V-Flip an entire XP Button
  
  • Now Click-Select the Text and V-Flip that.
  
  
• Try with H-Flips.

Another XP Button:

• Select the Text and apply a Glow of 35% (so you can see it)
• Toggle (Visibility).
• Change the Text.

You need to allow workable Shadows on Text, symbol resizing and its alignment within the button, symbol shadow, copying of common attributes between states, HTML Filter support for Text & SVG instead of a blocky pair of images, fixed and aligned button widths, page toggle (Visibility) action, better Colour Theme management, ...

Where is the detailed description on their use?
Say, I want to reverse the gradients, change text alignment, alter the mouse over transition, ...

The majority of issues that I found were in a 5-minute play.

Acorn

@acorn. Regarding making nav bars. I haven’t played with this yet, but it would be very disappointing.

As I understand your statement, 5 buttons in a row, grouped, is not a nav bar? Or are you talking about changing the entire group or individual buttons ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bwood

@acorn. Regarding making nav bars. I haven’t played with this yet, but it would be very disappointing.
As I understand your statement, 5 buttons in a row, grouped, is not a nav bar? Or are you talking about changing the entire group or individual buttons ?

---

Bill, by all means use five buttons and you have a top-level NavBar.

What I was digging into is you can no longer use an OCC roll-over button (MOff with MOver) as the starting block of a Xara sub-menu NavBar - 1) because Xara has removed them from the OCC; 2) the Xara Plus Buttons fail to make a NavBar: Ungroup one and try with that and it all blows up.

Almost six weeks on with no real response from Xara.
It will be interesting to read the How To guide.

Acorn