Angle Constraint flawed in XDP X9

[Sadler]

Angle Constraint works in an earlier version of Xara but (for example) 30 degrees constraint gives this in XDP X9:



Pretty but not what I want. There should only be 360/30=12 shapes rotated but in this image there are 28.

[Egg Bramhill]

You're correct Sadler, for some reason with the contstraint set at 30 degrees, on rotation it snaps to 14.10, 30, 60, 75.80 & 90

[Sadler]

Thanks for confirming that Egg. Note that it is not just 30 - almost any angle constraint doesn't. Also applies to earlier versions though was working as expected a few versions back. Perhaps it will be put straight before the imminent XX release.

[Acorn]

Will it not simply be a feature of the number of control points a shape has?
If the object is a line, I get 12 x 30 degs.
With a random shape, I was getting 0.3, 20.3 30, 30.3 etc.

What I do is rotate the object using the right mouse button and watch the Angle window and left click on the required angle when the Ctrl key is held down.

Acorn

[Egg Bramhill]

I thought this might be the cause initially Acorn, so to eliminate this possibility I placed the shape well within the confines of an outer circle and grouped the two, thus elimainting various control points as it was now a perfect circle. It showed the same error. The constraint was never 30, 60, 90 etc but some very odd angles.

View in HD

[Sadler]

Thanks again for doing the vid Egg. Just to confirm - angle constraint works as expected without any fractional angles and with any shape and any centre in Xara PGD 7.

[Egg Bramhill]

Yes that appears to be the case Sadler, it's a bug that's crept in on later versions. Personally I never use the constraint feature, prefering to type the required rotation angle into the rotation text box each time.

[handrawn]

I tried it in xdpx

square: - works fine with both 30deg and 45deg
triangle: works with 30deg, but not 45 deg
above three point... starts to 'play up'

I think it has to do with where the centre of rotation is relative to the actual centre of the shape [as opposed to the boundary handles]...

[Egg Bramhill]

But if this were the case, surely enclosing it within a circle and grouping ensures the centre of rotation is the centre of the circle?

[handrawn]

don't know with version 9 egg I don't have it - just passing on the results I got with version 8 for the record

how did you centre the star in the circle? - using the alignment tool won't work, as that goes by boundary box [had a discussion about that earlier in another thread] - if it wasn't centred according to geometry rather than BBox, just grouping it might not be enough?