This is going to be hard to explain. On home computer I own Xara pro 11. At work I own Xara Pro 16.
In version 11 you have black handles around a selection that do various tasks... if you grab any you can resize the object... if you put your cursor JUST INSIDE a corner it becomes a rotate function... if you put your mouse JUST BESIDE a side handle it becomes a skew function.

At some point in the version updates they changed this. So, now in version 16 I have these annoying purple handles that only have certain functions for each one. If I want to resize I HAVE TO use one and only one handle to do so... if I want to rotate I have to use one and only one handle to do that.

Is there a way to revert version 16 back to the way handles worked in older versions?

I'll post some screenshots if needed.