setting the origin position of an object in XaraX

[bputnam]

I haven't been able to reproduce any problems with this by dragging the origin or by setting values in the tabs. Note that the values in the tabs specify the origin relative to the lower left corner of the page, increasing Y is up, and increasing X to the right. If I specify values that are out of bounds, a message pops up. I'm using XaraX 1.0b and an ancient P5-100Mhz running Win95.

Bryan

[bputnam]

Drowan, are you referring to the small square with the nine grid points in the infobar for the selector tool? That's labeled as the "origin position locator" (or something like that) I don't have XaraX with me, however in another place in the Help files it's referred to as the "translation center" locator. You can see the translation center if you have the rotation handles turned on. As far as I can tell it is working properly and has nothing to do with the position of the "origin" for the coordinate system.

The (X,Y) position of an object as specified in the selector infobar seems to be the position of the lower left corner of the object, and is not effected by the with the setting of the "translation center."

Bryan

[amoore]

As you say, Bryan, the square with the grid points in the selection infobar moves the translation center, regardless of what the tooltip says.

I really need to be able to switch the origin point of both rulers and objects to the upper left corner. All the other apps I regularly use measure from upper left.

When I'm using Xara to anti-alias an object against a particular part of a bitmap background for use in another application, I waste a lot of time trying to calculate the correct position. If I could genuinely set the "origin point" to upper left, I could simply take the coordinates from the other app and set the XX guidelines accordingly.

BTW, setting only the ruler origin to the upper left doesn't count as even "half a loaf". Not only are the object positions still specified from lower left, moving back and forth between two open apps that define a "minus" vertical coordinate in exactly opposite ways is a stubborn obstacle to productivity.

Allison

[mike engles]

Hello Erik.

By video card I mean that it might be useful to update the drivers if you have not already done so.

I am sure I have read on a Photoshop group about problems with Zone Alarm. Try disabling that, if that is taking commands from XaraX.

There are some of us who have no problem, so it could be some specific aspect of your installation.

Easier stated than found I know!

Try downloading a earlier tryout of CorelXara 2 and see if there is a problem with that.

[bputnam]

Yes, that would probably be useful to be able to toggle between the current "lower-left" origin system for both the coordinates and each object, and an upper-left origin system which has increasing Y in the down direction. It does seem that the convention in modern graphics programs is to use the upper-left style, probably because we (or most of us) read pages starting at the upper left. However, the lower-left origin with increasing Y in the up direction has been the convention in scientific work for hundreds of years. I suppose the original Xara coders had scientific backgrounds which wouldn't surprise me because of the simple and elegant way it's designed.

Bryan

[jens g.r. benthien]

Erik,

when I read the comment from Christine, I guess I know where the problem arises: Win 98 ME. Users with Win NT 4 and W2K Pro don't have all these problems.

All I can say is: go for a professional OS, not the kiddy stuff. And ME is even worse than 98 first or second edition.

I am running XARA X on Win NT 4 SP5 and a 233 MHz Pentium One and 128 RAM as well as on my laptop with W2K Pro SP 1 with a PII 300 MHz, 196 RAM, and I don't experience any of the mentioned problems. XARA X is running very fast on both set ups. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Believe me, when I switched to Win NT a couple of years ago, I solved 99.9% of my former problems, be it with CAD, 3D, animation or design software of any kind.

That's my 50 cents to this topic.

ciao,
jens

[Erik Heyninck]

I mailed Mick at Xara about this and they are working on it. They have FIVE different Windows systems they have to try out...

He also asked to mail the bugs and or problems to Xara because they cannot be reading this forum continuously.

The way around I use now is to place an object where I want it, activate "snap to" and drag the zero point from above left to the object. To place it back down left, simply doubleclick.

Jens: I like the style of your arguments. I have been musing on changing to NT.

I run 98 2nd, and will try first on another (experiments) partition to get rid of Exploder with 98Lite.

www.98Lite.net

This makes Windows much more reliable...?


Still, if it doesn't help, I might well go for NT. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

[jens g.r. benthien]

Erik,

you **might** try it - I've tried so many alternatives, but none of them made win 98 more stable. I even tried the c:> project, that means you don't have to use the Explorer at all, but that set up required more of precious ram than disabling the 'Internet Look' of Explorer.

And: though I like W2K Pro a lot, it leave a hughe footprint on your harddrive. Win NT4 with SP 5 needs only 25% of the disk space - but you have to sacrifice for the kids stuff like Active X, Direct X etc. But in my humble opinion, these weird add-ons shouldn't be used on a professional machine anyway. Any installed game can ruin your complete set up and bend pointers of the OS. But this is what customers don't want to hear (...come on, ***one*** little game at least doesn't hurt...). Wrong. It hurts, because game developers are the least ones who care for system stability and reliability.

Besides all above mentioned arguments, NT or W2K Pro speed up your system by around 20 to 25%. If this isn't a reason to move ahead...

ciao,
jens