Cloning objects

So, I have this coin image with a little dropshadow. The coin itself is 6mm in diameter. I'm cloning it with drag+right click, and I want the clone to be smaller. So I go to the toolbar, enter 4mm in the width text box and press Enter... Oooops, my coin is smaller then what I expected. How come? Well, because after cloning both the object and its shadow are selected, thus manually entering a size affects both as a group. So, to have this right, after cloning I have to hit Esc (to unselect everything), then click the cloned object, and then alter its size.

May I ask to change this behavior?

By comparison - you see, when you click the shadow, it gets selected, which is reflected on the toolbar (the width and height text boxes display the shadow's dimentions), but - but - when you try to drag the shadow, the "main" object magically gets selected, which is of course reflected by the width & height text boxes.

So, I'd expect to have the "main" object selected after cloning (just as when you simply drag it around), not the object and its shadow.


I have another request regarding cloning. You see, I have this coin image with a dropshadow. It is right behind a text area (on the same layer). I want to clone it, and I want this clone to stay behind this text area. May I ask for a feature like, for example, holding Shift or Alt while cloning, that would place the cloned object right above its original, not on the very top?

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Originally Posted by morris

So, I have this coin image with a little dropshadow. The coin itself is 6mm in diameter. I'm cloning it with drag+right click, and I want the clone to be smaller. So I go to the toolbar, enter 4mm in the width text box and press Enter... Oooops, my coin is smaller then what I expected. How come? Well, because after cloning both the object and its shadow are selected, thus manually entering a size affects both as a group. So, to have this right, after cloning I have to hit Esc (to unselect everything), then click the cloned object, and then alter its size.
May I ask to change this behavior?

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morris, I would have selected a scaling of 66.7% myself.

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Originally Posted by morris

By comparison - you see, when you click the shadow, it gets selected, which is reflected on the toolbar (the width and height text boxes display the shadow's dimentions), but - but - when you try to drag the shadow, the "main" object magically gets selected, which is of course reflected by the width & height text boxes.

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But the shadow is not a shadow of its own being, it is a shadow of the object. Both are linked and the change of one necessarily forces a change on the other. Clone your object and add a feathering and a transparency with the needed shadow colour. Then you can alter scaling and other aspects like an envelope to reflect an undulating surface. Far more versatile.

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Originally Posted by morris

I have another request regarding cloning. You see, I have this coin image with a dropshadow. It is right behind a text area (on the same layer). I want to clone it, and I want this clone to stay behind this text area. May I ask for a feature like, for example, holding Shift or Alt while cloning, that would place the cloned object right above its original, not on the very top?

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That's why the Page & Layer gallery and drag and drop is useful. Easy to use it flexibly and intuitively.

Acorn

if as I suspect, Morris is requesting that a cloned object be placed above it's source and not at the top of the layer stack, can I say +1

it is not fun dragging objects up and down the layer stack [in the layer gallery] all the time in a program that once claimed to be fast... [remember that... anyone]

I am currently in a minority here but I find navigating sub-menus or multiple meta-keys for half-remembered options slower.
Click-drag-drop is more in keeping with a drawing package.

Ctrl+k for Clone to top.
Ctrl+Shift+k for Clone above.
Ctrl+Alt+k for Clone under.
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+k Clone to bottom.

?

Acorn

I may have missed this answer but the shadow is taken into account when you reduce the size.

There is a similar problem when you add an outline around an object. If you add a 1px outline around the circle, it still shows the same size but it adds 1/2 the line width outside the shape.

@ acorn - it may depend how big your stack is and how often you have to do it, and how well suchcommands are integrated into customisable keys

personally I could say it is more natural [in keeping] to draw freehand, but I'm not suggesting the program abandons the shape tool...

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Originally Posted by handrawn

@ acorn - it may depend how big your stack is and how often you have to do it, and how well suchcommands are integrated into customisable keys
personally I could say it is more natural [in keeping] to draw freehand, but I'm not suggesting the program abandons the shape tool...

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I am ambivalent over this but the correct direction Xara should be considering is setting up a macro control language so any repetitive task can be set up as a QuicKey.

Acorn

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Originally Posted by Acorn

morris, I would have selected a scaling of 66.7% myself.

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That was just an example. If my "source" object was 0.65cm and I wanted the clone to be 0.36cm, I'd like to be able to set the size explicitly, not calculating the needed percentage first ;-)
With the current cloning (or after-cloning, to be precise) behavior, it requires two additional mouseclicks, or a keypress and a mouseclick.

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Originally Posted by Acorn

But the shadow is not a shadow of its own being, it is a shadow of the object. Both are linked and the change of one necessarily forces a change on the other. Clone your object and add a feathering and a transparency with the needed shadow colour. Then you can alter scaling and other aspects like an envelope to reflect an undulating surface. Far more versatile.

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That was also just an example - to illustrate that shadow is treated a bit differently in dragging and cloning.

When you have an ellipse with a shadow and click (select) the shadow - the status line says "1 shadow". When you try to drag the shadow, the selection automagically jumps to the ellipse (watch the status line). That's fine.

Now, when you select this ellipse and clone it, you end up with two objects selected (see the status line - "2 objects"), while you'd expect only the cloned ellipse to be selected afterwards (well, at least I'd expect that).

Morris, remevetheshadow first and see my example
I don't know but this is how I would go about it.

Attachment 124047

I don't know but this is how I would go about it.

Attachment 124048