November 2013 Free Giveaway - Snowflake Maker Template

Snowflake Maker Template

by Frances Proctor (Angleize online)

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With the special Xara Designer snowflake maker template angelize created for this months’ XaraXone.com Giveaway, and Xara’s tools like Live Copy, you can easily make a whole snow drift of snowflakes for your holiday cards, publications or even for your living room windows. Kick it off by downloading the template by clicking on the download button, then skate on down to the steps and you'll get expert guidance.

Show your holiday spirit and how it Flakes You Out in this thread.

Thanks Barbara! I hope the Snowflake Maker comes in handy :)

I had a go at this, Frances.
It takes a bit of playing with to get the hang of it.

OK, my effort is not as good as yours, but, once you see what's happening, it's a lot of fun!
Not just snowflakes, you could make all sorts of different shapes.

A great gift for the festive period. =D>

And I thought I would have a go at a simple looking snowflake as well. :)

Rik, you just proved that no two snowflakes look alike (posts 3 and 4).

:)

-g

Very nice Rik :)

These snowflakes also look beautiful bevelled.
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Here's an idea, if everyone who downloads the snowflake maker posts a vector snowflake (or two) in this thread we will eventually wind up with a beautiful collection :) Please include a .xar file and a thumbnail.

Here is one from me to start the collection!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angelize

Very nice Rik :)

These snowflakes also look beautiful bevelled.
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Dagnabit!
Why didn't I think of that?!

Here are two from me, to add to the collection.

Very nice Rik I like those.

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thank you all
will give it a try
I just want to say when downloading xar files or zip files in explorer 11 I get error (xar gives php extension , zip files are all named attachment zip
in chrome it works well

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Originally Posted by germaine

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thank you all
will give it a try
I just want to say when downloading xar files or zip files in explorer 11 I get error (xar gives php extension , zip files are all named attachment zip
in chrome it works well

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Yup. I get the same. Dead annoying.

But, what I discovered was that you can change the file name and type to what it should be and everything gets saved as it should be.

Hi Germaine—

Our Administrator, Barbara Bouton, is responsible for the links on Xara Xone, not Frances.

But I cannot repeat your error in IE 11; I just tried it.

You don't want to choose Open, but instead choose Save As when given these options.

We try to test against multiple browsers when we code the pages, so we are happy that at least Google Chrome works for your configuration.

My Best,

Gary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rik

Yup. I get the same. Dead annoying.

But, what I discovered was that you can change the file name and type to what it should be and everything gets saved as it should be.

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I don't regularly use Internet Explorer, but Rik, your advice is absolutely bang-on, and I propose this is a browser problem and not the way the download page is coded. If IE thinks that you want to download "php", then it needs some serious debugging.

Question: has this ever happened before with Xara Xone downloads? There's a 0.0045% change we screwed up.


-g

Hi Gary.

It's not to do with the Xone, for me.

It's when I try and click on a .xar file on TG.

You will see by the attached pic that I clicked on the .xar file and IE11 wants to open it as 'attachment.php'

Well, Rik, you have a Save drop-down and I imagine it has "Save As", but this really shouldn't be happening.

Perhaps the browser doesn't understand XAR as a valid mime type and is defaulting to the page's suffix. "php" is Personal Home Page, the module running this thread, not really a file ie11 should think it should download. Not really sure, sorry!

-g

It is sure IE11 issue and not general one. Just the old rule, in any versions IE = incompatibility and strange problems :D Better to wait with its using until the most IE11 bugs are fixed

Well, that's a relief for us to hear csehz!

We try so hard to accommodate about 7 different browsers with the Xara Xone. I wish the internet was standardized to one browser, or one browser set of rules! But that would be a monopolistic thing, wouldn't it?

Has anyone ever looked at the Xara Xone on a mobile device? I think the responsive coding makes it look kinda neat. That was Barbara's work.

My Best,

Gary

So does anyone have any questions about the snowflake maker? or snowflakes to share?

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Originally Posted by angelize

So does anyone have any questions about the snowflake maker? or snowflakes to share?

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So how did you come up with this idea?

I used to create snowflakes with an online snowflake making site that was similar but it only provided a bitmap image that needed to be cleaned up and traced to get a vector result and that vector result often wound up with thousands upon thousands of nodes. One day I got playing around with some live copies and it occurred to me that I could use live copies to create the same kind of snowflakes right in Xara. I had to make up some flakes for a client job this saved me time, and I was able to provide the client with unique artwork. I thought others would find the template handy so I thought I'd share :)

This topic deserves a lot of attention, that is just an awesome idea.

Frances thanks that you shared it, there were so few live copy ideas or maybe just I did not perceive, but that is very interesting. Not even only for snowflakes, but a kind of next level of QuickShape tool and which can not customize more there, it can be done here.

I just jumped into it for some minutes, modifying just that simple triangle and so possible to add control points and playing with the negative space

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It is really very inspirating

I'll post some examples later but just thought I would mention you can also intersect another shape with the master and you can fill with a transparent PNG file to get different effects.

Christine

here is a PNG fill example.

Christine

That is an awesome continuing of this great idea, thanks Christine I will also give a try of this version

And from a picture of lace...

Christine

That's a great idea Christine :) I really like the lace one it reminds of a lace doily.

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wow
some great ones here
mine are much simple I had to give them some color

I like the colour germaine. Thanks for joining in :)

I just had a play today with the live copies and still think that the idea of Frances is revolutionary in Xara :)

Because if that can be done with snowflakes, it should work with everything which has objects repeating, even in different angles and sizes.

Sure someone can do a much better Christmas tree, but keeping the master forms simple maybe easier to understand and develop more ideas from it

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It's great to see how the idea is giving rise to other ideas. Basically what happens with the snowflake maker is that two live copies make up each of the six sides and of those two shapes one is flipped. I discovered that flipping is not a global edit, that is not all copies will flip. So this allows the symmetry. I have some more ideas based on this that I'm going to try sometime in the new year.