Small change, need to update every frame?

[pauland]

Thanks for replying. I'm afraid I dont understand. I'm using Xara Pro, not Adobe Flash, and I can't open your fla file. Are you referring to Adobe when you talk about grouping together as a movie clip?

Yes, I apologise. What was I thinking about?! I was thinking Flash not Extreme!
My example is totally irrelevant to Xtreme.

PS: the site works fine usually, but is indeed having a problem at the moment. Might wish to try later. 1st time it froze on me.

I did get it to load but it's terribly slow. There are plenty of other sites doing similar things (more efficiently).

Back to your question. If you animate in keyframes (layers in Xara) then inevitably you will have to propagate changes by hand on every keyframe.

I suspect that cut and paste will help you no end.

Your example highlights that while Xtreme can be used to animate in Flash it isn't necessarily the best way. I expect that your file sizes will be bigger than a native flash solution too.

Hope that might help a tiny bit.

Paul

[Tallis]

"I suspect that cut and paste will help you no end."

If I make a change, then copy it, is there a way to paste in relative absolute position on the next frame? ( If you know what I mean ). Kind of like paste in place, but relative to the next ( shoved over a bit ) frame?

[pauland]

"I suspect that cut and paste will help you no end."

If I make a change, then copy it, is there a way to paste in relative absolute position on the next frame? ( If you know what I mean ). Kind of like paste in place, but relative to the next ( shoved over a bit ) frame?

No, but you can explicitly set the position of things - look in the toolbar for the x and y position. If you have ten things to animate together (as per the example you gave), group them, give the group a name and animate that. Should be simple to recreate the whole animation without cut and past.

Paul

[remi]

If I make a change, then copy it, is there a way to paste in relative absolute position on the next frame? ( If you know what I mean ). Kind of like paste in place, but relative to the next ( shoved over a bit ) frame?

It's no problem to insert a object on the same position on the next frame:

1. Select your object on the last frame and press CTRL+C
2. Move to the next frame and insert the shape with CTRL+Shift+V

But that's all.

Regards,
Remi

[remi]

Or you can use the "Duplication distance":

1. Set the "Duplication distance" (Menu "Utilities" -> "Options..." -> "Duplication distance")
2. Select your shape and create a duplicate (CTRL+D)
3. Cut the object with CTRL+X
4. Insert the object with CTRL+Shift+V into your next frame

Remi

[Tallis]

Well, I meant the same relative absolute position. It's the same position in the moving rectangle that I'm zooming in. It's not the same absolute position because the recangle is moving on the X axis in the - direction.

"S" is a spelling mistake in the 600x800 rectangle. The lines are 4 frames in the animation. They are always identical, except for position. I want it "zoomed" or slid in.

|.....|xxsx
|..xx|sx
|.xxs|x
|xxsx|

the items xxsx are grouped and then named.

I see the spelling mistake "s".

I change it. Then I need to go to frame 2, ungroup, change, regroup it.

Then I have to rename everything, or rather rename the regrouped 1st frame items, then re-copy them to the next frame... what?

I feel like I have to redo the whole (simple but still tedious) animation every time there is one change.

[pauland]

Well, I meant the same relative absolute position. It's the same position in the moving rectangle that I'm zooming in. It's not the same absolute position because the recangle is moving on the X axis in the - direction.

"S" is a spelling mistake in the 600x800 rectangle. The lines are 4 frames in the animation. They are always identical, except for position. I want it "zoomed" or slid in.

|.....|xxsx
|..xx|sx
|.xxs|x
|xxsx|

the items xxsx are grouped and then named.

I see the spelling mistake "s".

I change it. Then I need to go to frame 2, ungroup, change, regroup it.

Why can't you just copy the corrected group then paste it into the second frame and adjust it?

I feel like I have to redo the whole (simple but still tedious) animation every time there is one change.

Xtreme gives you the ability to do these things, though there are other packages that do it much better. Be glad you can do it at all in Xtreme.

I can't help but think you're making this a bigger thing than it needs to be.

Paul

[remi]

Perhaps you can create a Autohotkey script for your task. Apart from that you can ask the Xara developers if there are plans to implement a scripting solution within Xara Xtreme. I never received a serious answer from them about that (only the "impression", that they are not willing/able to develop such a feature)...

Remi

[Tallis]

"Why can't you just copy the corrected group then paste it into the second frame and adjust it?"

This is my question. If I see errors, or need to make adjustments, and I have several frames that form the animation, I need to adjust each and every frame to make one small change. My question was oriented towards optimizing this tedious propogation workflow by seeing if there is an easier way that I'm missing...

"I can't help but think you're making this a bigger thing than it needs to be."

Just trying to understand the dynamics of how Xara animations and naming items or groups to tween can be done efficiently is all.