Message

[Eva]

My topic on layers is gone. I don't find it. So I post my answer here.

What Mark writes is the solution to the snapping.
What did I do?
I checked "snap to grid" and the moved the objects side to side, and nothing happened. It was the centre point that showed a magnet sign, not the side.
When you drag with a corner it works.

I also discovered that when you hold CTRL while changing the dimension of a group by dragging a corner Xara does not keep the dimensions. For example one of my squares. When you group and drag a corner bounding box handle with CTRL you make it a rectangle as you are not limited to 45°, even if you set that value for rotation. That is why things did not fit yesterday evening. If you change the value in the box, you can. Is there another way? I tried Altdrag, CTRLdrag and shiftdrag.

I also have had no answer to the CTRL+1 short cut.
Put two objects one beside another, with a side in full contact. Select both with shift and choose CTRL+1. Nothing happens (on my PC). But do the same and choose combine>add shapes and it works. It is indicated that CTRL+1 should do the same thing. What do I wrong here?

And the fill that stays lighter where the outline was. Make two objects with an outline and put them side by side. Combine>add shapes. Then, as you see in the orange triangle above, there is a difference between giving a fill first and then change the outline colour to the same colour as the fill, or start with the outline and then filling the object. Why is this?

By the way: I know you all love Xara and hate Corel. So I wanted to challenge you a little.
Thanks for your reactions. I hope you will give me answers to these and coming questions too.

MTFBWY.

[Eva]

My topic on layers is gone. I don't find it. So I post my answer here.

What Mark writes is the solution to the snapping.
What did I do?
I checked "snap to grid" and the moved the objects side to side, and nothing happened. It was the centre point that showed a magnet sign, not the side.
When you drag with a corner it works.

I also discovered that when you hold CTRL while changing the dimension of a group by dragging a corner Xara does not keep the dimensions. For example one of my squares. When you group and drag a corner bounding box handle with CTRL you make it a rectangle as you are not limited to 45°, even if you set that value for rotation. That is why things did not fit yesterday evening. If you change the value in the box, you can. Is there another way? I tried Altdrag, CTRLdrag and shiftdrag.

I also have had no answer to the CTRL+1 short cut.
Put two objects one beside another, with a side in full contact. Select both with shift and choose CTRL+1. Nothing happens (on my PC). But do the same and choose combine>add shapes and it works. It is indicated that CTRL+1 should do the same thing. What do I wrong here?

And the fill that stays lighter where the outline was. Make two objects with an outline and put them side by side. Combine>add shapes. Then, as you see in the orange triangle above, there is a difference between giving a fill first and then change the outline colour to the same colour as the fill, or start with the outline and then filling the object. Why is this?

By the way: I know you all love Xara and hate Corel. So I wanted to challenge you a little.
Thanks for your reactions. I hope you will give me answers to these and coming questions too.

MTFBWY.

[jens g.r. benthien]

Eva,

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I also discovered that when you hold CTRL while changing the dimension of a group by dragging a corner Xara does not keep the dimensions. For example one of my squares. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

next to the tiny dimension fields there is a small lock - press it before you start any operation, and both values will be modified proportionally.

If you press SHIFT and drag the corner handles, the object or group will be scaled from the center, if you grab one of the side handles, the object or group will be scaled in one direction only.

Hope this helps a bit.

jens

[Ross Macintosh]

Eva - It seems your other thread found it's way back. This forum's software is slightly buggy when it comes to editing posts. The phenomenon of the temporary disappearance of threads has happened to others too (myself included).

With regards to the control key - it is important to note that it does some special things as do the alt and shift keys. Try searching for Ctrl in the xara help system. It is full of useful info and tips.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[Egg Bramhill]

Re *I also have had no answer to the CTRL+1 short cut....*

Are you using the numeric key pad on the right hand side of your computer? This doesn't work. Use the numbers along the top of the keyboard below your function keys and this should work.
Egg

[Erik Heyninck]

I have been asking for a shortcut to center objects, but Mark's answer showed that Xara doesn't need one.

Activate snap to objects. When you drag a corner, you snap to a side, when you drag from somewhere in the object, you'll see a magnet appear when the centre comes close to the centre of the underlying object. This is MUCH quicker than "align".

Another thing: when you rescale a bounding box, the opposite side stays at its place. But when you hold down shift and drag, both side compress or expand simultaneously. This too is handy when you work with centered objects, as the middle line stays at its place.

But you already knew all this, didn't you? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

Thanks Jens and Egg for those two tips: I didn't know the either. (should learn more shortcuts)

[Mickie]

Erik,

Good centering tip...but it looks like you have to drag from the center point. If you drag from somewhere else within an object, it seems to snap to the coresponding point within the second object. Might there be a use for that also?

Mickie