Image and text skewing / distorting megathread

**Egg Bramhill** · 04 January 2018, 03:41 PM

Hi Rob. Thanks for some response.

I believe the decision was made with the intention of preventing users (especially new users) from accidentally distorting their images

I never saw any indication of this in the release notes. In fact I believe all current users and any new ones see this strange behavior as a bug. If I create a vector shape it appears with 8 resizing handles as previously it did with images. Selecting the top/bottom/left/right centre handles allowed for resizing in that plane. Holding down shift whilst doing so increased/decreased the resizing equally in that plane.

Why does the decision to change this make it easier for new users? You're suggestions work but it's far from intuitive.

Was this introduced to fit in with the new auto-resizing feature? If so, in my opinion, you've broken the program to fit a feature that not many people will use. Bring in the new feature by all means but don't break the remainder of the program in the process

**Rob-Xar** · 04 January 2018, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

Why does the decision to change this make it easier for new users? You're suggestions work but it's far from intuitive.

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean, this change was to prevent the distortion of images and text - vector shapes remain unaffected. This change doesn't have anything to do with the auto-fit feature which would never squish anything in the first place.

**handrawn** · 04 January 2018, 03:57 PM

no rob it was introduced to prevent those who don't know what they are doing from messing up at the expense of those who do - 'distortion' is often a requirement!! [aka morphing]

if you are going along those lines can you please remove all automatic switching of tools when double clicking, dragging/dropping etc as I have lost count of the number of times they have made me swear or worse; squishing I don't have a problem with

**Rob-Xar** · 04 January 2018, 04:07 PM

Originally Posted by handrawn

no rob it was introduced to prevent those who don't know what they are doing from messing up at the expense of those who do - 'distortion' is often a requirement!! [aka morphing]

if you are going along those lines can you please remove all automatic switching of tools when double clicking, dragging/dropping etc as I have lost count of the number of times they have made me swear or worse; squishing I don't have a problem with

I'm not disagreeing with you, nor have I in any of the previous replies.

I need to take some examples back of why this is important and what why users deliberately distort images and text.

As also mentioned in the original message, please keep on topic as well!

**Acorn** · 04 January 2018, 04:17 PM

Matching the profile of an existing bitmap banner to replace a crest or flag with vector.

Acorn

**handrawn** · 04 January 2018, 04:20 PM

Rob - I think I did both of those things

and if pointy-head programmers don't understand why the deliberate distortion of images can be useful, maybe they should be designing something other than drawing progr.... oh yes they are, they are designing website creation software [silly me]

mind you I think distorted images probably have their use there too if only 'for effect' - no disrespect, but has anyone at Gaddesden Place really got a problem with that kindergarten level concept? [which is an example and therefore on topic]

sorry to go on, I'll stop

**Acorn** · 04 January 2018, 04:52 PM

Stretching or squishing an image or text is a totally instinctive feature Xara has offered until now.
I can still skew an image.
I can still skew text.

Currently, a designer can "accidently" rotate a text block by a small angle to find it is now rendered as an image.
Ditto skew.
To remove stretching and squishing is simply wrong.

I am sorry that Xara has not made the decision to render text with CSS3 Tranform where possible.

Acorn

**angelize** · 04 January 2018, 09:42 PM

Guys Rob is asking for actual examples. Put together a .xar file or post a png image showing how you would use squishing/stretching. Want this feature back? Lets fill this thread with examples!

Text squishing and stretching can be very useful for headlines. It used to be so simple to fit headlines that way. It also adds a bit of visual variety to your headlines while still maintaining a single font.

In the attached .xar file I have 2 examples of how i used to use stretching/sqiushing on headlines. I would be happy with a modifier key I could hold down while dragging side and top /bottom handles to allow me to have that ability again.

**angelize** · 04 January 2018, 10:12 PM

here is another example this time it is a bit of descriptive text under an image. The image has text repelling set so there is only going to be so much space for the description/by line/ etc.

Again I had to reset the aspect ratio and play around with it by trial and error to get a good result and it took me far longer than it would have if I could have just grabbed the side of the text area and squished it.

**handrawn** · 05 January 2018, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by angelize

... Put together a .xar file or post a png image showing how you would use squishing/stretching. Want this feature back? Lets fill this thread with examples!

Why? - it should just be fixed... [and I gave examples earlier - I have not got the time to play beta tester anymore]

what worries me about this thread is that instead of just restoring a basic bitmap editing fuction that is so fundamental it should never be in question, Xara is considering implementing another of their 'oh look a fancy new way of doing something that will probably have yet more unintended consequences elsewhere' features

maybe they could just implement another class of object that is actually a bitmap pure and simple for those of us who need it, and not a fill in a shape container pretending to be one -heck I might even upgrade