The rotation thing

[handrawn]

and (this is the important bit) also preserving existing objects' orientation on the page, would be absolutely invaluable

Hi Ben

what exactly do you mean by this - all objects rotate around the page axis or each round its own axis in one global operation ? - if its the latter that is a completely different ball game to rotating a canvas or a workspace - outside of CAD/3D programs 'costing the price of a small car', I can't think of anything

[Soquili]

In a 3D program you would move the 'camera' and not rotate the 'canvas'.

A friend has provided some additional thoughts about rotating within a Xara document.

Here are a couple of further thoughts: You could just use the text tool, click on the page, type, cut, and paste into one of the rotated text areas. Re. rotating the selection: If you have locked layers you may need to "make all layers editable" before you select all. If your page is coloured, you could also rotate the page shape by ensuring it is also selected (although be careful not to selected the pasteboard shape!). That could have unwanted effects if the doc has multiple pages and the "all pages the same" or "same layers on all pages" switches are set...

[ad1066]

what exactly do you mean by this - all objects rotate around the page axis or each round its own axis in one global operation ?

The former. In other words, say I have objects that have already been placed in a specific configuration on the page (ie: I'm in the process of "inking" a sketch I had drawn on paper and scanned in), and I need to draw some large sweeping curves, but they happen to be at an angle that is physically awkward for me to draw (usually horizontal). I'd like to be able to rotate the page and all the objects on it (keeping all of the existing objects in place relative to their position on the page), draw that curve, then reset the page orientation to normal. Ideally, the rotation of the page wouldn't have any effect on the finished product (ie: if you exported the picture while the page was rotated, the resulting image would still be 'upright'), it only pertains to the presentation within Xara itself while working on the file. That's what I mean by preserving the position of the objects within the page.

-- Ben

[handrawn]

Hi Ben

ok I've no problem with that - perhaps a graphic driver that rotates your screen might help .... [edit - I'm assuming here you are using a tablet you can rotate - be a bit awkward with a mouse]

@SOQUILI ....and you can set up multiple cameras, one for each view, and you can sync them....