Biting the Bullet Challenge

Xara is extremely moribund in updating Components its Online Content Catalogue (OCC).

The Xara Desktop application (XDA) is predominantly a vector product.
With recent versions, Xara has introduced new functionality and rendering that makes some of its Component design particularly bad.
The Challenge drives to the heart of the matter; TG needs you to revive the following:

• Go to OCC > Components > Print & web Components > Bullets and Numbering.
• Import any of the Bullets.
• Create a test page with the Bullet clone a number of time, scaled or embedded with text.
  
  • The point of this initial exercise is to get you to Preview and look at the output in as high a magnification as your browser allows --> Jaggies!
  • If you care, look at your index_htm_files folder in a local Export and see each Button has its own associated image.
  • If you deconstruct the OCC Bullets, you will find a general laxity around symmetry and the use of editable shapes rather than building up and arranging more regular shapes.

Now, I created a testbed for trying to convert these Bullets in to sleeker, crisper versions:
:pointAttachment 126711

The Buttons with a Red background are the OCC versions.
The Buttons with a Green background are my implementations. I accept I compromised by ignoring Shadows.
Those in front of yellow are my failed attempts to deliver better.
You should Preview the testbed page with the Old Xara Bullets layer hidden to see that there are only images for the yellow background Bullets.

Tricks you should know

• Xara renders a Circle as an image (bad).
• Xara rendered a Rounded Rectangle as a SPAN (no image); you simply change the rounding to maximum and you get a Circle (no image so no jaggies).
• Such a shape can be squished/squashed and it stays a SPAN.
• Xara allows Simple Fade Linear Fills to be rendered as CSS linear gradients (no image).
• You can double-click to add Fill Points along the Linear Fill to force sharp colour transitions.
• These colours can even be 'no colour'; you get a white shape but it renders transparent (no image). A Transparency renders as an image (jaggies).
• From XDA v16.0, Xara introduced Web Properties >Image > Group images > Separate images for group members.
• There would be no point is creating all these sleeker, crisper Bullets if youur grouping forced an image to be rendered (jaggies).

The Challenge

Create you own Bullet without a rendering image for a shape or its background fill.
Your design can by any sensible multiple of 64px; I would expect a real Bullet to be only 32px tall.
You should use Named Colours to show Xara how it should be done.
You will find the 'yellow' buttons quite problematic so any solutions here will be lauded.
One Button (family) per design file please.

Do not limit you imagination to the testbed examples, create your own. It could be a rollover version if you like.

Show Xara what design is all about.

Acorn

Not to mention, a circle once is it converted to editable shapes, often loses the same arc. Not quite sure why this happens and it is most noticeable at much higher % than normal, and maybe at normal print or bitmap resolution not a problem. But still.

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Show Xara what design is all about

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dare I say, not using ephemera such as the OCC... ?

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Originally Posted by handrawn

dare I say, not using ephemera such as the OCC... ?

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You may but avowing it does not address the fact that you are paying for the OCC each and every update.

Show we can do better and that we object to third-rate mechandise, repackaged.

Acorn

I wish you luck... I suppose it is more suited to TG than showing we can do better in another application full stop.....

I am sure there is no other graphics package than can natively handle something like this:

:pointAttachment 126721.

Attachment 126722

Acorn

you may well be right, but then it would be more of a challenge would it not ;)

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Originally Posted by Acorn

I am sure there is no other graphics package than can natively handle something like this: ...

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?

Huh?

Have to say I don't know what it is supposed to do, I went no further as soon as I saw the document had mouse over / mouse off layers, assuming it is a web design thing

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Originally Posted by mwenz

? Huh?

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My premise was only Xara has taken the effort to render vector objects in HTML as CSS and SVG objects. Other packages would generate PNG, JPEG or other bitmap format. I am stressing this as the Xara Desktop application (XDA) is striding ahead and leaving the Online Content Catalogue (OCC) components far behind (c.f., NavBars, anything that is simply grouped, lack of shared Filenames to name a few).

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Originally Posted by handrawn

Have to say I don't know what it is supposed to do, I went no further as soon as I saw the document had mouse over / mouse off layers, assuming it is a web design thing

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Yes it is a web sort of thing. I happen to choose a Web Design document for those who like to see things in bits rather than everything at once; I have an Instructions Layer and a Construction Layer too. I had intended to make it a Presentation but if all you do is open it to find what Layers to has, that would have been a wasted effort. Sorry, the last was a bit pointed but I hope i can let off some steam. I recall, in early TG days for me, everything I was was a fix in HTML as I kept overlooking PDF and pur graphical design; since then my blinkers have been removed and I have a better appreciate of others' positions.

I have tried to explain that if you produce a website with Xara Bullets or a Print document (glorified Vertical Supersite) with Xara Bullets then you end up with many, many images of exactly the same thing.
This drags the performance of the design down as it is rendering images and calling them up many times to download the same thing.

For a pure design document, you might think it doesn't matter. You change export at 600dpi and remove the jaggies that way.
No one wants to display low resolution images so when I zoom into one of my 32px bullets at 6400% magnification I take a bit of pleasure that it is rendering as crisply as I could make it.

I hope website designers see what I am aiming for.
I truly hope Xara gets it too - try using a Xara Bullet as a Bullet Point to see how wasteful it is. Xara, sadly, never engages in a meaningful debate.
At the same time, I am trying to extol the virtues of the XDA concept by driving it to the limit and find it is almost perfect already: XDA - good; OCC - bad; Update Service - ugly.

Acorn

thanks for the explanation - i have a passing knowlege of HTML [no doubt well out of date] and I can manage a blog on wordpress as long as it does not need CSS...

I can see the point you are making...

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Originally Posted by Acorn

My premise was only Xara has taken the effort to render vector objects in HTML as CSS and SVG objects. Other packages would generate PNG, JPEG or other bitmap format.

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Really? I would be surprised. SVG graphics with fallbacks are pretty common.

WYSIWYG Builder likely can.

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Originally Posted by mwenz

Really? I would be surprised. SVG graphics with fallbacks are pretty common.
WYSIWYG Builder likely can.

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More than happy to be corrected here. i did mention Xara was moving (slowly0 towrds SVG but my point was few would render out in pure HTML.
The advantage is 10s of byytes for quite complex and colourful objects versus many kBs for an image that is of poorer rendition.

Thanks though.

Acorn

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Originally Posted by handrawn

thanks for the explanation - i have a passing knowlege of HTML [no doubt well out of date] and I can manage a blog on wordpress as long as it does not need CSS...
I can see the point you are making...

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...and my knowledge of PDF/EPS, in particular, is rather stale.

Acorn

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Originally Posted by Acorn

More than happy to be corrected here. i did mention Xara was moving (slowly0 towrds SVG but my point was few would render out in pure HTML.
The advantage is 10s of byytes for quite complex and colourful objects versus many kBs for an image that is of poorer rendition.

Thanks though.

Acorn

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We'll likely never know then...I'm completely out of webby stuff, even for playing. But if I were to do it today, I would use Pinegrow and build the pages (just like I used the now free MS Expression Web and/or DW).

I know the advantages of svg on the web. I'm happy that browsers have mostly caught up to using them...

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Originally Posted by mwenz

We'll likely never know then...I'm completely out of webby stuff, even for playing. But if I were to do it today, I would use Pinegrow and build the pages (just like I used the now free MS Expression Web and/or DW).

I know the advantages of svg on the web. I'm happy that browsers have mostly caught up to using them...

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I have Pinegrow with WordPress and am tempted to jumping and including its new step frame utility using GreenSock. Far more powerful than Xara but you need to be on top of all of it; my XDAs are where i experiment and then usually deliver from but I have other beasties to work with as and where I need them.

Acorn

Shadows are problematic from with an XDA as you end up with a graphic, mostly.

I know how to invoke shadows from applying CSS onto class names but I am trying to work my XDA capabilites to the max in this Challenge.

Here is how far I have managed:

:pointAttachment 126728
Just for handrawn - no MouseOff/MouseOver layers too.

Acorn

:D

I am slightly disheartened that no one has even attempted a Bullet design so far.

Not enough to not challenge myself.

I thought hollow bullets would be difficult but have discovered the Circular Fill accepts a 'no colour' node so I can construct tori (toruses / rings / doughnuts / donuts).
As these scale perfectly, they are now in my arsenal of general Shapes.

:pointAttachment 126751

Just to be clear, using a font's glyphs is a useful way to including Bullets but it has a 75kB overhead for Wingdings; fine if you are using it liberally but heavy for one or glyphs.

Acorn

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the Circular Fill accepts a 'no colour' node

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could be wrong here, but if you do this does it not actually default to white ?

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Originally Posted by handrawn

could be wrong here, but if you do this does it not actually default to white ?

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No that's the fun discovery part. It renders white in the design but 'no colour' on Preview (sorry it is still a web thing).

Acorn

so that is just the OCC element [bullet] then... does it do this with other fill types - I can't look at it at the moment as i am using P&G, no web tools

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Originally Posted by handrawn

so that is just the OCC element [bullet] then... does it do this with other fill types - I can't look at it at the moment as i am using P&G, no web tools

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Circular and Linear Fills so far.

Acorn

OK Without reading all this. Some time ago Xara added the ability to copy a vector or a bitmap and use it for a bullet. This is fine if your bullet list does not have sub-bullets.

The bullet AFICT remains a vector object. And if you export the text to PDF > Commercial quality the bullet remains a vector.

@ acorn

probably a general OCC thing then ?

there is a lot to be said for an integrated gradient/transparency tool

I assume you can still use white ?

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

OK Without reading all this. Some time ago Xara added the ability to copy a vector or a bitmap and use it for a bullet. This is fine if your bullet list does not have sub-bullets.

The bullet AFICT remains a vector object. And if you export the text to PDF > Commercial quality the bullet remains a vector.

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But ASAIK Xara's PDF Export doesn't accommodate transparencies all that well and in this case fails to realise one of the Fill Colours is 'no colour'.

In your example Gary, on a web page the vector becomes a bitmap, loses definition and outputs an identical image file but with a different filename for each and every bullet.

If Xara actually gave its Bullets a filename in its own new capability and updated all the OCC components that actually benefit for this then we would have one image file.
That alone would be a great advance.

I am going further and removing the image file altogether and retaining vector onto the web page.
Faster and crisper.

Acorn

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I am going further and removing the image file altogether and retaining vector onto the web page.
Faster and crisper.

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Got it.