I have been looking for a way to rotate the workspace in Xara Designer Pro 6 but obviously this basic function is completely missing. Can anybody confirm this disappointing discovery or just tell me, that I am some stupid lad.:(
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I have been looking for a way to rotate the workspace in Xara Designer Pro 6 but obviously this basic function is completely missing. Can anybody confirm this disappointing discovery or just tell me, that I am some stupid lad.:(
Hello and welcome, dycs.
May I ask what you are wanting to accomplish by desiring to rotate the workspace? Any graphics program I have worked in this is not possible. Instead one would rotate the objects one creates.
Take care, Mike
rotating the workspace is not a basic function in a vector editor
Welcome to TalkGraphics
The only rotation options are portrait and landscape.
You could group all the object on your page and then use Ctrl click to select a particular object to edit. And you could rotate the entire group as desired.
I Just have a lot of vertical and horizontal texts in my layout and it would be fine if I could go without rotating my screen again and again to have a look from the right angle. I actually do not understand why vector based applications (Illustrator is the same) just do not offer this basic functionality, that can make things so much easier. Is it just tradition or incompetence?
Hm, so basic things do not apply to vector editors. I wonder how mankind has evolved from cavemen if they would have said:"Well fire is not a basic functionality. Let's wait until the next lightning strikes!"
You seem to be stirring the pot.
Exactly which software are you using that allows one to rotate the canvas itself?
Cannot you rotate all the objects to see how they look from different angles (actually, simply rotated)?
Take care, Mike
Is your layout for a web page? If so how do your visitors "rotate" the layout to read the text?
Artrage allows for rotating the canvas, for one (I seem to recall Corel Painter does as well, but I could be wrong). To be perfectly honest, I would actually like this to be a feature as well. From an ergonomic point of view, it's easier for me to draw vertical lines than horizontal, and this feature would bring the program a step closer to the experience of drawing on actual paper. I'm willing to wager that most people are not even aware of how often they rotate a piece of paper when they're drawing on it.
If viewing Xara Designer Pro as merely a desktop publishing or web design product, then this feature wouldn't be very useful at all. However, as a vehicle for illustration, especially in concert with a drawing tablet, it makes perfect sense.
So, yeah, +1.
-- Ben
I didn't know about Artrage. Just went and looked. While I didn't see that one can rotate the canvas itself, I did see that one can rotate the floating panels.
If this is an important issue for anyone and while awaiting Xara to implement such a feature, they can create a "piece of paper" on a layer. Lock the layer and draw away on layers above it. At least visually one would see the "paper" at a pleasant angle to the eye.
fwiw, I do rotate a piece of paper when both drawing and writing. Since 1987, though, I have never had an issue with drawing on a "fixed" piece of "paper" in an illustration program. I guess I'm dualistic thatta way.
I also do not and likely will not use XDP6 for anything other than illustrations. And, as if I had a vote or an influence on Xara's decisions, would rather have them spend time on other features to enhance the vector-side of the program. That doesn't mean I don't think my list of wanted enhancements or features are any more important than anyone else's.
Take care, Mike
No, my layout is for print only. Anyway, everybody knows that you can rotate the canvas (or workspace) in Photoshop and it makes a lot of things very convenient. I just cannot imagine why anybody could question the usefulness of this function as it is obvious to me.
Speaking Manderin is obvious to those that do it daily, but not so easy for those that do not. ;)
Rotating the contents of the drawing area is easily done within Xara vector applications.
Boy, I guess I have been not keeping up with PhotoShop. In my version one cannot rotate the canvas.
dycs, what is an obviously invaluable feature for you obviously isn't for every person. Nor can I think of a single instance it would have been even slightly useful for me.
It is OK that we disagree. True?
Take care, Mike
To rotate the contents of the drawing area you can select all or marque select the object you want. Enable the rotation handles if you wish to move the center of rotation. Type in the number of degrees you wish to rotate the objects. Negative values rotate clockwise and positive values rotate anticlockwise.
EDIT: remove embedding code.
Did the last update to the forum software disable embeding of wmv file? It does seem that way. :(
Sorry but you will need to download the .wmv file to view it.
Maybe flash (swf) embedding still works.
What we Xara Users take foregranted is the easy way we can rotate individual objects and/or multiple objects.
In Photoshop it is more limited as the entire drawing is rotated, flipped, etc. as a whole. The terminology is slightly different as well
The same can be done within Xara vector and other vector applications but you must select EVERYTHING and then do a rotate, flip, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adobe Photoshop Help
Myself I hate Photoshop Xara rules...lol...but that's just my opinion;)
photoshop is not a vector application its a raster one
anyone who does not understand the difference between an object orientated vector editor and a canvas orientated raster editor might miss the point completely
as Bill [soquili] says - it's dead easy to rotate in xara, but its just not done the raster way, which of course it isn't in illustrator either is it? :D
it's simply not necessary to rotate workspace [which incidentally is nothing like a canvas], and therefore it's not a basic function - ok?
I think canvas rotation is not related to being vector or bitmap based software - it's a universal concept.
It's reasonable to request the feature, but ridiculous to suggest it as a necessity.
As others have said, it's an "essential" feature I've never missed in Xara and never used while using PhotoShop.
there is no such thing as a canvas in xara Paul is there?
[or in illustrator, or inkscape]
sure rotation of a drawing is a universal concept, but you cannot rotate what isn't there
in vector drawing applications you have object[s] which you can already rotate - selecting them for rotation is a precise one click operation, unlike pixel selection which can be wooly
this is important to stress - the caveman will not evolve until he understands it ;)
Xara has a background - you can colour it. If we were painting our background would be a physical canvas. Xara has the concept of a canvas, but not the terminology.
Rotating the canvas is not a feature I miss. Pixel selection certainly isn't wooly.
ok
:D
a xara background is an object - it exists on a background layer and you edit it exactly the same as any other object - right? - you can lock it out of rotation, or include it if you wish
and you don't paint it - xara does not paint, it creates objects, and therefore it has no canvas
pixel selection is wooly only in the sense that with tools such as a magic wand there is threshold to consider - contiguity - because you are not selecting something that is discrete [in the mathematical sense] you are trying to define an internal boundary, which can only be done to a given level of precision
Steve, there's a load of differrent things going on there!
All software builds analogies to the read world so that users can migrate real-world concepts to a user-interface.
Of course, Xara doesn't paint, but neither does painter or photoshop. Xara doesn't paint, but does have brushes! Xara has no explicit canvas, but does have a page, so effectively page = canvas.
Pixel based editors are entirely discrete - they don't describe images using mathematics - as per vector software, but they do describe images in terms of discrete units - pixels - that represent information as distinct blocks.
You are entirely right to say that vectors have a wide range of precision for representing images, while pixel based editors are limited by the number of pixels used in their representation. That said, the selection within a pixel based editor is entirely accurate - it selects only whole pixels, the only imprecision is due to the skill of the user and the quality of the interface. Of course, if an image is zoomed out in a pixel interface, it's not possible to pick some pixels precisely (since one screen pixel represents multiple image pixels).
Xara doesn't have the ability to rotate canvas (cough, page) and content, but it's absence has nothing to do with Xara being vector based.
Interesting discussion.
yes interesting :)
ok - wooly was a bad choice of word, agreed - selecting precisely and quickly takes a lot of skill in a pixel-based editor, and in a vector one [usually] not anything like so much
I really only mentioned this because I think its important to realise how easy it is to rotate objects in vector as opposed to selections on a canvas
semantically you can call a page-area/art-board/canvas anything you like and interchange the labels too, also agreed
And I'll grant you that pixels themselves are discrete, but in the sense that cells in your body are discrete [which they are] - on this analogy a photoshop layer is like all the organs within the body and its interconnecting tissue, discrete in a sense but all connected up as one [hopefully :eek:] - xara objects are like separate people, they have an existence of their own :D
you cannot have pixels missing from a raster matrix they are always there, whatever their visible state at a given time, so a layer is homogeneous, there are no gaps as there are in xara
Umm.. bitmap software doesn't have to have a representation for every pixel on a layer internally, so I don't really accept that they are "always there"!
It may be convenient to have a representation for every pixel, but it doesn't have to be so. Software manipulating large, mostly empty datasets will use sparse arrays, or similar. In a bitmap editor a given pixel can be absent until the user decides otherwise, or the image is exported to a particular graphics format.
now we are moved to programming and I bow to your expertise regarding sparse arrays and the like for the actual donkeywork as opposed to the representation of workspace
to my non-technical mind a sparse array is a form of compression, still maintaining a 'contigual' integrity - however I am sufficiently out of my depth there to not be certain
my original point was about how the user should visualise the workspace, as a means of appreciating a fundamental difference between raster and vector, without going deeply into matrix, bezier, arrays and such, which like I say, I'm no expert at :o
Anyway, I think we both agree rotating the workspace/canvas/page is something I've never missed or even thought about - it's hardly essential.
no its not essential IMO, agreed
if xara were a freehand drawing tool of the calibre of say paintool-SAI then the ability to move the canvas round with the mouse or tablet keys 'at the same time' as you draw with the tablet pen, would be useful - but xara is not that kind of a drawing tool..
Could be really fun with a tablet and a pen tool..
Wow. I really didn't expect that a request for a feature that wouldn't really be intrusive at all for those who don't find it useful to generate this much debate.
For those of us who use the program for illustration or drawing comics, the ability to rotate an entire page and its contents, without having to select all the objects within it every time, and (this is the important bit) also preserving existing objects' orientation on the page, would be absolutely invaluable. It has nothing to do with the end product, it's simply a way to streamline workflow. Sure, I could switch to Artrage, Manga Studio, Corel Painter, or whatever, in order to get this functionality, but the fact is that I like Xara Designer Pro much better than any of those.
Vector vs. Raster drawing really doesn't have anything to do with it. If anything, being a vector-oriented drawing program should theoretically make including this feature easier than it would be in a raster drawing program, since all the math is done already.
-- Ben
Hi Ben
what exactly do you mean by this - all objects rotate around the page axis or each round its own axis in one global operation ? - if its the latter that is a completely different ball game to rotating a canvas or a workspace - outside of CAD/3D programs 'costing the price of a small car', I can't think of anything
In a 3D program you would move the 'camera' and not rotate the 'canvas'. ;)
A friend has provided some additional thoughts about rotating within a Xara document.
Quote:
Here are a couple of further thoughts: You could just use the text tool, click on the page, type, cut, and paste into one of the rotated text areas. Re. rotating the selection: If you have locked layers you may need to "make all layers editable" before you select all. If your page is coloured, you could also rotate the page shape by ensuring it is also selected (although be careful not to selected the pasteboard shape!). That could have unwanted effects if the doc has multiple pages and the "all pages the same" or "same layers on all pages" switches are set...
The former. In other words, say I have objects that have already been placed in a specific configuration on the page (ie: I'm in the process of "inking" a sketch I had drawn on paper and scanned in), and I need to draw some large sweeping curves, but they happen to be at an angle that is physically awkward for me to draw (usually horizontal). I'd like to be able to rotate the page and all the objects on it (keeping all of the existing objects in place relative to their position on the page), draw that curve, then reset the page orientation to normal. Ideally, the rotation of the page wouldn't have any effect on the finished product (ie: if you exported the picture while the page was rotated, the resulting image would still be 'upright'), it only pertains to the presentation within Xara itself while working on the file. That's what I mean by preserving the position of the objects within the page.
-- Ben
Hi Ben
ok I've no problem with that - perhaps a graphic driver that rotates your screen might help .... [edit - I'm assuming here you are using a tablet you can rotate - be a bit awkward with a mouse]
@SOQUILI ....and you can set up multiple cameras, one for each view, and you can sync them.... :)
Hi Ben,
Like I mentioned in post #10 following your first post in this thread, suggest this to Xara.
The above statement is really too inclusive. Like I have mentioned, all I use XDP6 for *is* illustration and some small-scale design of fliers, posters, etc. I would include myself in the "for those of us" statement you made. Perhaps you would not.
Take care, Mike
Steve: Rotating the whole screen wouldn't help too much, as that would introduce issues in accessing toolbars & menus & such. Rotating the tablet on my desk is a workaround, but that introduces a disconnect between the movements of my hand and what I see on the screen. In both of these instances, the result is actually worse than the original problem.
Mike: I really don't see how being too inclusive would be a problem, as I really don't think the feature proposed would affect anyone who didn't use it. For example, I personally have no use for Live Effects, and it's easy for me to ignore them. I know there are lots of people use them, however, and I certainly wouldn't begrudge them that feature.
Unless you're talking about inadvertently misrepresenting the demand for such a feature, in which case I understand and agree completely. To clarify: In the course of using XDP6 for illustration and drawing comics, I personally would find such a feature especially useful. Not essential, certainly, but it would cure a lot of headaches and save a fair bit of project time. I can't imagine I'm completely alone in this regard.
-- Ben
no you are not
we all have our wish lists [eg: any chance of going back to being able to add a layer without it deselecting objects ? - and give us the option as to whether we want to reset current attributes on an ESC double click.... I could go on ]
good luck - if it were there I would no doubt use it
Oh come on! Fire! Rotation that important to the majority?! I'd rather see Xara bring in diffusion curves and other vector stuff. Sheesh!