February 2014 - Tips and Tricks - Seven Things You Might Have Overlooked in Xara Desi

[csehz]

Larry thanks for that tip it is super, I was not aware.

Stygg relating that sliced image not sure that doing well, what do you mean selecting the sliced area, assumingly not like on the attached picture so marquee selecting those handle points because after the Backspace made the slice bigger

[angelize]

What Stygg is referring to is when you chop a portion from the inside of the photo for example with the owl if you draw a circle over one of it's eyes and slice out the eye. What the Backspace button trick is actually doing is deleting the selected nodes. So in the case of slicing off a corner that action removes the corner node and when you select the remaining two nodes and hit backspace those two nodes are removed and more of the photo is trimmed. When a portion is trimmed inside the photo and your photo basically has a hole in it when the nodes around the hole are removed the hole fills in.

[stygg2003]

Look at image 1 Csehz, I've sliced a part of it out, now look at image 2, selected the image then with shape tool marquee around the empty space, you can see all the nodes selected, now press the backspace button and the space is filled again and you still have your sliced piece.

Stygg

[csehz]

Frances thanks the explanation, I understand so in this state pressing the Backspace and the whole image comes back

[csehz]

Stygg thanks also for you, I posted at the same time

[stygg2003]

Stygg thanks also for you, I posted at the same time

You've got it right Csehz as well as decapitating the poor owl

Stygg

[Gare]

Bring them on, folks!

I might even do a revisit of these tips you all have submitted (with credits, of course) later on, perhaps after we've accumulated 7 (or 8) more!

@Larry—the reason control points don't show on a text object is because it belongs to a class of objects that need to have their special properties removed, they need to be simplified—IOW they need to be not text objects, in order for the control points and handles to show. Yes, adding a shape to a text object will provide you with un-editable text that you can freely manipulate, but so will Ctrl+Shift+S...Edit>Convert to Editable Shapes.

So let's call this Overlooked Feature Number 9 for the moment.

@Csehz: another way to restore an image is to go to the Bitmap Gallery and just drag the original out, onto the page again. Xara doesn't destroy images ever: you're importing copies of originals on your hard disk (okay, if you create a bitmap within Xara...Ctrl+Shift+C you can screw it up, but not imports). But even if you drag 15 copies of an image onto the page from the Bitmap Gallery, your saved file size will be basically the size of the original bitmap.

And that's why it's important never to delete a bitmap you want to use later from a file and then cose the file. The bitmap will not be saved in this event.

;)

My Best,

Gary

[csehz]

Thanks the advices. Not long ago learnt this tip on TG but unfortunately did not find from who, seems small thing but fast became my habit so maybe someone would use it too

If you drop any color from the color line to the Color Editor icon, that makes it named color



A small message comes that would we would like to copy that to the document so Yes



but it spares the finding out name + typing in it for the named color and I like that through just a click

[gracehjs]

You know there is a group called "Tips and Tricks". It would be nice if this was updated with these tips when we are done adding to this thread.

[Gare]

Little as I like the term "trick" when it comes to an undiscovered feature (I think I've mentioned this trhree times, sorry! :), I'd agree that these are worthwhile additions to the other thread, and if you post 'em, please link back to the Xara Xone page, if you would.

Incidentally, I get the distinct impression that Named Colours, as csehz points out in #18, is a much overlooked feature, especially when it comes to prototyping. This is from the version 5 Official Guide. It took a little trouble and bother to tag all the color's but csehz's tip above makes it all the more easy.



Then I adjusting the named colors in the attached document. I think you'll be surprised, and if anyone isn't clued into the possibilities of Named Colours, let me know. It might be worth a tutorial, eh?



My Best,

Gary