Missing key combination hint in Status Bar

I don't know when it changed but in my jump from Xara Designer Pro X11 to X16 I found that there has been a change in the way bitmaps are stretched when being resized along only one axis.

I've used the Xara drawing software almost daily for 20 years so suspected that there'd be a way to stretch a bitmap somehow - but couldn't find anything in the right-click menus, the regular File/Edit/Arrange/etc menus, nor in the Status bar's tips.

I found it as Alt+drag by guessing. I suspect that change has been made and you forgot about the Status bar. It tells us of how Shift+drag and Ctrl+drag affects things, but not Alt+drag.

Attachment 122376

to do it the old way:

first off right click the lock aspect ratio button on the select tool info bar and untick smart transform

second always use the boundary handles for this operation and not the fancy new blue ones

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Originally Posted by handrawn

first off right click the lock aspect ratio button on the select tool info bar and untick smart transform

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Thank you very much.
Now I know what it's called, I can search the F1 online help, and confirm: smart transform doesn't appear. I'm glad that it wasn't there because it reduces the chances that I was being an idiot.

it's was implemented 'in a rush' at ver 15.1 because there was a major backlash against the original removal of the one axis drag in ver 15.0

xara's focus today is on the creation of documents for web/video and print 'in a modern office environment' and they lost sight of the fact that other designers at least, may wish to manipulate text/bitmaps in an asymmetric way - they seem to think this is almaost always 'unwanted distortion'

some background:

https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...ing-megathread

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Thank you very much.
Now I know what it's called, I can search the F1 online help, and confirm: smart transform doesn't appear. I'm glad that it wasn't there because it reduces the chances that I was being an idiot.

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F1 Search for "smart transform does appear; the page is "Scaling (resizing) objects". It is also in the new PDF Manual. You are not the idiot here, it is with Xara for hiding the context menu under an icon: given the Xara User Interface, I would challenge anyone to find it.

Acorn

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Originally Posted by Acorn

the page is "Scaling (resizing) objects"

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...but the words smart transform don't make it into that article, nor does anything about Handrawn's right click. Having seen the old posts now, I kind of understand how it wasn't documented for v15 but it really ought to be by now. It nearly is, being in the manual but not the online help. I might never have looked at the manual before though, the online help and the interface's intuition has traditionally been enough.

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did you notice the bit:

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Note that these handles are shown only on rectangles which are not photo filled because stretching other objects in one dimension rarely produces useful results (photos become distorted)

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pure arrogant patronisation - really strange then how many people stretch bitmaps all the time, but that is the market xara is now going for apparently

looks like the help in ver 16 is not the same as in ver 15.1...

if the boundary handles have been removed from the selector tool in ver 16 for bitmaps [which in my case are hardly ever photos] then that is going to be an issue for me when I eventually get it installed - looks like I'll have to put it on a spare machine as trial and test that out...

Sorry the status bar does need updating to reflect the changes, I'll log this for our developers.

I'll also get in touch with the manual/help department to make sure it's clearly listed in the help.

Otherwise, we do have an article here on it: https://xara.kayako.com/article/425-...mart-transform

Thanks
Rob

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Originally Posted by Daniel

...but the words smart transform don't make it into that article, nor does anything about Handrawn's right click. Having seen the old posts now, I kind of understand how it wasn't documented for v15 but it really ought to be by now. It nearly is, being in the manual but not the online help. I might never have looked at the manual before though, the online help and the interface's intuition has traditionally been enough.

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Sorry if I am misunderstanding you here Daniel but the v16.0 Help has "smart transform" highlighted 7 times on the same page you have. Perhaps you are reading the v15 Help?

Acorn

And the 15.1 help has it for sure... I don't recognise what Daniel has posted either way - edit I assume it's ver 16 from what you say... won't get that installed until tomorrow

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Originally Posted by Acorn

Sorry if I am misunderstanding you here Daniel but the v16.0 Help has "smart transform" highlighted 7 times on the same page you have. Perhaps you are reading the v15 Help?

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Originally Posted by handrawn

And the 15.1 help has it for sure... I don't recognise what Daniel has posted either way - edit I assume it's ver 16 from what you say...

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I have never downloaded or installed either v15 or v15.1. I have used X11 for several years and this week installed X16. The same page in X11's help is different, so X16 isn't showing X11's help files, and I've never had X15 or X15.1's so it can't be that, either. The screenshots I posted were from X16's help: pressing F1, then the Search tab.

Sorry Daniel - but the topic your screenshot shows on the right [Stretching and squashing objects] is not the topic the sceenshot shows on the left [Scaling (resizing) objects) - if you go to that topic you will see what we are referring to - when I search smart transform in both ver 16 and ver 15.1 I do not get what your screen shot shows

Dniel, just a quick check for us.
Open Xara and navigate through Help > PDF Manual.

If it is there then you have v16.0 open.

Then try F1 Search.

Acorn

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Originally Posted by handrawn

Sorry Daniel - but the topic your screenshot shows on the right [Stretching and squashing objects] is not the topic the sceenshot shows on the left [Scaling (resizing) objects)

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...yes, you have solved the mystery. I'd assumed that when there's only one search result on the left, that's the article on the right. It's not.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

it reduces the chances that I was being an idiot.

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...reduced chances, but it turns out I still was.

I'm going back to Designer Pro X11: not because I just don't like change; that the transform thing is disruptive; that the few changes are barely noticeable... but that Magix's support brushed off the Windows 10 Recent files irritation. I'd have paid the £89 for that alone, but will ask for a refund as I've got to suck and swivel on that anyway.

indeed you have to select the result you want even if there is only one...;)