X10 - Fill+ Line?

**sadicus** · 15 August 2014, 09:52 PM

Originally Posted by ad1066

I can see how that would be useful. The situation I've been dealing with (on multiple versions and multiple PCs) is when no object is selected at all. I would prefer the program to give me a fill color when I left-click, and a line color when I right-click, and not have one affect the other, and that is very frequently not the case.

-- Ben

...yea, what Ben said.
I've used Xara for several versions, but come from a Corel background. I really try to use Xara for all my design work, but there are some things it just cannot do as well.
Thanks to all that responded!

**handrawn** · 15 August 2014, 10:26 PM

Originally Posted by PhilM

We made an improvement a while ago to set the line colour of a line (i.e. a line that's not closed and so can't normally have a fill colour) if the user attempts to set the fill colour.

Prior to this change if the user had a line selected and he or she attempted to set the fill colour nothing appeared to happen and that was confusing some users and a waste of a useful click. So I think this is a good improvement.

you really think so?

I'm sorry Phil, but the guys who get confused are the ones that don't bother to learn the difference between a line and a shape, who don't read the help or the manual - and please do not start talking about 'wasted click's when changes over the years have added to my click count when using the program a lot

just one example: following on from what I said above I would like to go back to left and right clicks on the colour line contoning a bitmap, that would save me a few clicks with the popup menu or colour editor... I use contoning a lot

**Egg Bramhill** · 15 August 2014, 11:44 PM

I totally agree hd, some features are becoming over-enginered like the group squeeze. This example is another one.

**PhilM** · 22 August 2014, 02:26 PM

OK, I have investigated this and, technically, there is no bug with the way current line and fill colours are handled when no objects are selected.

Here's why: The program maintains different sets of current colours for open lines and closed shapes. (In fact whole attribute sets are maintained for lines, shapes, text and for various other object types).

The drawing tools choose which set to use when creating a new object according to what they create. So, when you draw a shape with, say, the rectangle tool it uses one set of colours, when you draw a line with the freehand tool it uses another.

And the corollary of that is that the drawing tools update different sets of current colours when the user changes a colour. When there's nothing selected the freehand tool always updates both the line and fill colour in it's set of current colours, which are applied to open lines only, to be consistent with its behaviour when a line is selected.

You can see the different current colour sets by switching between shape-creating and line-creating tools while you have no objects selected.

OK, so that was a bit technical but what it means in practice is this:
1. It doesn't really matter that line and fill colour are both set when clicking on a colour in the freehand tool because those values are only used when new open lines are created, and so you normally only see the line colour. As soon as you close the line to create a shape a different set of current colours will be used.
2. If you want to preset different line and fill colours for creating closed shapes you can do so. You just need to switch out of the freehand tool (or the straight line tool) before you set the colours. The simplest way to think about that is to remember to switch to the tool that you're going to use to draw the shape before you set the current line and fill colours.

Phil