Xara Designer Pro+ 22.1.0.65105 SL x64 Sep 2 2022 - Released

[PhilM]

@Egg, don't give up on Tables right away.

You can make one as a 1x1 single ell and turn it into a text panel where the border and fill are sensibly constructed.

With a very quick test, I have found:

1. The tables are row-centric in that you can add/remove/resize text and the Row height adjusts.
   
   1. Sadly, do a resize up and back to an embedded shape and the Row sticks at its deepest height
   2. You can manually drag the Blue Row bar to adjust.
   
   
2. The Table controls have greyed out dots that are a big UI advance.
   
   1. On the UI front, the Blue Dashed bounding box for selected shapes not longer kisses the shape edges.
   
   
3. Internal program error 5508.k.No.le when trying to Paste another Table into a Cell.
4. Table Cell Border Style does not show the Dotted ones.
5. To move a Row or Column and contents, you have to create a blank one, Delete the old and Paste into the new.
6. I would still like the Xara HTML Filter to render actual HTML <table> tags...

Acorn

Hi Acorn,

1. (Tables are capable of growing and shrinking when text changes in all four axis directions but this is not exposed in the UI yet.)

1.1 Not sure what your test case is here (or why the embedded shape is significant) but Rows (and Cols) record their size whenever it is set by the user and won't automatically shrink below that size.
E.g. If the tallest text in a row is 5cm high, the user drags the row height to be 7cm (or sets it numerically), then types text to make the row even taller and deletes back again, the row will stop shrinking at 7cm.

3. Unfortunately this is a late introduced bug. It will be patched soon.

4. Don't understand. Table border styles are not the same as Camelot dash patterns (which don't include a true dotted type), they are a subset of HTML table border styles. Here's the borders dialog showing the dotted border style:

5. Movement of rows/cols by dragging will be implemented in the near future. The online client can already do it.

6. We're working on it.


I will answer your follow-up post next. Please bear with me.

Phil

[Acorn]

@Matt & @Phil, thank you both for the new Table Tool. Is is a great advance and I want it capabilities to be as slick as possible yet easy for all to use and understand.

The text grow/shrink is very useful.
I simply embedded a Shape and resized and the Cell grew. When I resized back the Cell stuck at its largest so Embedded Shapes do not perform in the same fashion as text.
What is happening is if the Shape is H600xW300px and the Cell Text Width is 100px then the Shape is shrunk to scale into the Cell Text Width but the Cell Text Height is changed to 600px. You gain an Embedded Shape H200xW100px but the Cell Height is 600px.
When you reduce the Cell Height to its smallest, changing the Cell Height or Width scales properly.
You missed a calculation.


When I rendered my Dotted Borders, I get the bottom right image.
It shows fine in the design.

I look forward to the RC dragging.
It will sort out the problem with Zebra Striping.

I get the same error when pasting copies cells that try to extend the table RC limits.

Acorn

[Acorn]

@Matt, I like to talk through a simple example: One box Wonder.xar

It is a single Cell Table:



It has 10px orange Padding.
It has a blue grid symbol.
It has four different borders, 4px wide apart from the 2px left edge.

Table Menu
Selecting the single Cell, you see the Delete Row & Delete Column icons appear.
The Menu items for these both become disabled. I can not see their need anyhow.

Padding
There is no mechanism to apply non-Flat Fills or Transparencies.

Text
There is no detection of a glyph's width to grow the Column Width.

Borders
I get dots in the design but a solid purple line with circular end caps in any browser. Is stroke=url(#pattern) missing?
There is no mechanism to alter the stacking of the borders.
If you skew the Cell, the border ends are wholly disjointed.

Table Cell Borders Dialog
I think if the Dialog is open and you select something other than a Table it should hide.
'Border Filter' should be renamed 'Applied to:'.
Its presentation is over-complicated. It should really have four separate Styling options around a Cell.

Key Shortcuts
Once a table has been created, changing the number of Rows or Columns is tedious.
Arrow keys currently table around the table nicely. Alt+Arrows could create a Row N & S and a Column E & W. Perhaps Shift+Alt_Arrows to delete?

Acorn

[Acorn]

@Phil, can you explain the logic behind the Colour Bar disconnect?

I would expect and want to be able to drag a colour onto the Padding and realise the tables background colour.
Equally if I drag a colour onto a Cell in Selector mode all Cells are so coloured.
In Table mode, a drag onto a selection colours that.
Also a Shit-drag should handle the above for Cell Borders. I realise the difficulty of colouring four sides of the Cell would still need the Borders Dialog but that is the more exotic consideration.

I also find the enforcement of your current dropdowns to Named colours and the Edit of a single Local colour to be highly constrictive.

Acorn

[Acorn]

@Phil, Shift+Drag to keek the Table size works for Rows but is the opposite for Columns, contradicting the Status Bar prompt.

Acorn

[Acorn]

@Phil, Merge any column and then try and select any Row.
Unless it is the first Row, you cannot view the Delete icon to delete the Row.

If the merged Cells are the first Column, any Row selection forces the merged Cells and the first Row only for deletion.

You have a similar mess when adding Border styling to a merged set of Cells.
if you unmerge, the styling is applied to only the top left Cell.

Acorn

[Acorn]

@Phil, Solo mode a table on a Page with several tables and those other tables still present the background colour and the Cell edges.

Acorn