Fun with Sides - don't use the Rectangle Tool

You may not realise that the QuickShape tool allows you to make a rectangle that is far, far more versatile.

Create a QuickShape with four side and 0 deg rotation you have a rectangle!
If you right-click select Xara even tells you it is a Rectangle in the Page & Layer gallery. It is not. It is more; it has the full features of a QuickShape.
Change your tool selection to QuickShape and you can round corners (like a rectangle) but you can stellate and even drag the edges to an new shape.
Or even click the Create ellipse button. Xara now tells you it is an Ellipse in the Page & Layer gallery.
Or change the number of sides. Xara will tell you it is a QuickShape in the Page & Layer gallery.

If you try to Fill with an image, all the functionality goes away.
All is not lost.
I make my QuickShape black and overlay my image with a Bleach transparency and soft-group.

All the fun of the fair,
Acorn

Here's an example.

What many users do not know of have forgotten long ago is you can double click on almost any object in Xara to switch from the Selector Tool to an appropriate tool for that object.

For example, double click on a rectangle switches to the Rectangle Tool. Double click on a corner point, enables corner rounding.

Actually you can use the rectangle tool to draw, then switch to the quick shape tool and still get all the quick shape options.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Christine Farrelly

Actually you can use the rectangle tool to draw, then switch to the quick shape tool and still get all the quick shape options.

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Thanks Christine, I wanted people to explore and discover as you have done. A Rectangle is a forced 4-sided QuickShape.

I was trying to point out all the solid drawing shapes we have in Xara are created from the same proto-shape. Once you realise this, you can aspire to other manipulations.
Where the concept breaks down is loading an image (clearly a rectangle) and then giving it a flat fill. You then just have a "Shape".
Equally, using the Shape tool to create a rectangle also results in a "Shape".

Ultimately, I was hoping to convince Xara that a flat-fill rectangle (from a picture or drawing tool) ought to be morphed into a QuickShape to add he available functionality the QuickShape has.

Acorn

I agree, it would be great if the you could import a picture and manipulate it as a quick shape.

Christine