Image and text skewing / distorting megathread

**Rob-Xar** · 04 January 2018, 02:07 PM

Hi all,

Apologies for my absence lately, holidays and sickness's have been straining support lately and keeping me busy. I'll try to poke into the forums some more in the coming days.

I understand there has been a bit a explosion of disagreement over the latest change to prevent the squashing and distortion of text. Truthfully this change is new to me also, and I believe the decision was made with the intention of preventing users (especially new users) from accidentally distorting their images and text. With text especially for websites, this would get exported as 100% aspect ratio so the changes wouldn't be seen.

As a work around, you could use the mould tool (Shift + F6), or alternatively select the image with the fill tool, hold Ctrl + Shift and drag one of the handles. This will stretch the image, and to uncrop it you can select the photo enhance tool, then click the photo and drag the side handles as normal. This will only work for images, for text I'm afraid you would still have to use the mould tool.

It's also been requested of me to gather some examples of text and image distortion for those higher up so I can show them the usefulness of it to them. If you guys can send me some examples that would be fantastic and I can send it onto them.

I know emotions are running high at the moment but please keep it civil and on-topic. If I can get back to management with some constructive comments and examples, we can make this work for you :) If you have anything else you want me to look into, please either PM me or start a new thread, let's keep this to text and image distortion issues.

Many thanks
Rob

**gwpriester** · 04 January 2018, 02:18 PM

Sometimes it is useful to condense the width of text a little. And honestly when Xara tries to make things easier for new users it almost always irritates old users. At the very least have a keystroke to over ride this.

**handrawn** · 04 January 2018, 03:21 PM

HI Rob

just replied here:

https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...411#post586411

post #233

**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