My "I'm new to Xara" blog.

[Acorn]

1. Yes I have Snap to Objects enabled. It only seems to apply to moving things and creating shapes, not creating lines. For example, how would I draw a line from the centre of a circle to the corner of a square?

1. Draw a circle.
2. Draw a square box.
3. Select snap to shapes.
4. With the straight line tool, start a line approximately in the centre of the circle and extend it to the require box corner - this will 'snap'.
5. Release the line.
6. Click on the start of the line and move it about until it 'snaps' on the centre.
7. Release the line.

Acorn

P.S. Changing the centre to a tangent is much more challenging.

[Acorn]

2. Window > Arrange Icons doesn't do anything.

Yes it does. Windows > Arrange icons does what it states in your Help: it tidies up any icons for minimised windows.
You have six windows open and they are all minimised. At some point, you click and drag one to the middle of the window area.
You want to put it back but you can't park it nicely. Use Windows > Arrange icons.

Minor functionality but it does work.

Acorn

[Acorn]

2. I mean anchor the text dynamically in the centre (or at the bottom). All text is by default anchored at the top and I can't see how to change it. I suspect this feature isn't available?

My guess is you want text to grow in the same way it does in MS Word table cells. In Xara, we currently have Left, Centre and Right Justify.
Do you need Top, Centre and Bottom for vertical alignment? In Xara, we have Top.

As a pure design exercise, with no practical application:

1. You can simulate Bottom by placing a near transparent box above the text block and making it Repel text under.
2. You then drag the bottom of the box downwards until the text box shows overflow and ease back.
3. The squeezed middle is harder - complete 1 and 2 above.
4. Clone the box and place vertically under the repelled text.
5. Group both boxes.
6. Move them upwards to move the text to a position of your choosing.

Acorn

[Acorn]

1. Automatically view two or more windows side by side. Neither tabs nor the automatic vertical stacking seem very good for working on two documents at once

I think you win on this one but the ability to do this would hamper the pinning of the galleries.

If I had to do this, I would cheat.
I would open my previous version of my Xara application and my current Xara application and use MS Windows 8's Windows Key + Left/right arrows to present the applications horizontally stacked.

One thing you get with multiple windows (either method) is drag & drop is a copy operation.
Undo is, however, very specific to the Xara files so this can be confusing.

Acorn

[Acorn]

So far, I am confident that when the jury returns, there will be a Not Guilty verdict.
I don't find the "blog" approach adds anything as the TG search only locates the Thread and not the specific reply.
If this blog extend to 500 entries, who is going to romp through it to find a reported bug or an answer somewhere on Windows > Arrange icons? I doubt the developers will have the opportunity.

Acorn

P.S. This probably acts as a hijack so I would recommend no direct replies here - raise a new Thread or post me a Personal Message.

[handrawn]

you can open two instances of the same xara version with a different document in each [actually with the same document in each if you really want, but this I do not recommend ]
actually I would find side by side option useful, but I don't usually pin galleries I prefer them floating [two monitors helps]