February 2015 Video Tutorial -- Creating a Casino Poster Part 1

[Gare]

Hi Gary!

Thanks for the file.
the command Ctr + shift + E lead me to a saving action of the programme. When I used shift Ctr S I could convert them to editable shapes. Then at 6.18 minutes into the video you mention that one needs to select the red innercircle and something else. This something I simply cannot make out what it is. I hear the word not good enough for me to understand what other item I need to select.Furthermore I noticed that you use DSP extreme 10 (which I also work in). I noticed that you had another drawing tool in your flyout bar that actually works. However much I try to get that pentool into the drawing toolbar, it seems to work a bit like the shapeditortool?
Yep.......I scrutinised your video over and over and over again

I hope I make sense.

Hélène

It makes perfect sense and I think this is the first time in a video I called out a wrong command. Ctrl+Shift+S is indeed "Convert to Editable Shapes, found under the Arrange menu.

Second flaw: you created early in the tutorial a circle that at this point straddles the black band, yes? I want you to select it, and then select the black band. There are two ways to do this: 1.) go to wireframe quality mode and it's easy to see the center (red) circle and select it), 2.) Hold Alt while the Selector tool is the chosen tool, and the cursor turns upside-down. This means it is in "Scribble select" mode. And all you do is scribble over both the center red circle and the black band and magically, both are selected. NOW, press Ctrl+4, the Slice Shapes command. NOW, you have two alternating black and red circles and they can be rotated as I show in the video.

And everyone should remove the green outline around all the checkers. Select both bands, and then choose None from the outline width drop-down on the Standard Bar.

Oh, my toolbar is not the same as those used by others because I customized it using the Window>Control Bars command, then selected the bottom entry, I checked Tool Palette. The trick with this guy is you need to hold Alt while you drag a button on or off the toolbar or the Standard Bar.

I used the Pen tool a lot in this tutorial although many users are more comfortable making lines with the Shape tool. If you're comfortable editing a line or two in the Windows Registry (do not do this if you're not confident or don't understand Windows Registry—to make the Pen tool stay on the flyout, not just appear on the toolbar as a standalone button, in the Registry, go to (Use Ctrl+F to FIND)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Xara\XtremePro x64\10\Options\FlyoutBars
Set ShowPenToolOnFlyout value data to 1.


Hélène, my apologies also for my enunciation. I'm American, I speak US English, which can be easy to misunderstand if one is from a different country that also speaks English. Also, I think my voice was a little muffled because I had just finished eating lunch, pastrami on whole wheat with Grey Poupon mustard, and Romaine lettuce.

Sorry for over-sharing and I hope this helps with this tutorial and future ones.

My Best,

Gary

[mwenz]

...
I used the Pen tool a lot in this tutorial although many users are more comfortable making lines with the Shape tool. If you're comfortable editing a line or two in the Windows Registry (do not do this if you're not confident or don't understand Windows Registry—to make the Pen tool stay on the flyout, not just appear on the toolbar as a standalone button, in the Registry, go to (Use Ctrl+F to FIND)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Xara\XtremePro x64\10\Options\FlyoutBars
Set ShowPenToolOnFlyout value data to 1. ...

Or use XaReg to edit the various options.

[stygg2003]

While waiting with bated breath for Part 2 of the Casino Poster I just had to put some extras in as Rik did. Don't take it serious folks, just done for a bit of fun, although it did remind me of a Casino night some time back in Salford, Manchester. Darn it, Big Swing Band gave away my age.

Stygg

[mwenz]

Oh I dunno. I have listend to swing since I was a teen. I was a teen when rock was king...Summer of Love and all that.

[Gare]

While waiting with bated breath for Part 2 of the Casino Poster I just had to put some extras in as Rik did. Don't take it serious folks, just done for a bit of fun, although it did remind me of a Casino night some time back in Salford, Manchester. Darn it, Big Swing Band gave away my age.

Stygg

The wait won't be long, stygg, as I'm videoing (is that a word?) some of the steps on making a custom brush right now. And yep, if you saw my SWF in post #31, you're looking at the hand-drawn "extruded" shapes we're going to play with. Add to that some Poker chips and a set of dice Rik lent me (he wants them back when we're done ), and my Goodness, it wouldn't be a Casino Night without some playing cards...the whole deal will be engaging (Gary hopes) and more than anything, technical tricks will take a back seat to good composition.

By the way, stygg, I LOVE your choice of fonts, really, truly, I could use your piece asd an example of good typography if I do the tutorial I want to in April. The only thing? I don't think tilting the phrase "Happy Hour" contributes to an otherwise thoughtful, delightful composition. Text such as yours (and I did try to match your fonts, but only came close) can "embrace" and integrate with the rest of the written idea. Text that tilts like that detracts from reading the notice as an overall text phrase, it stops the reader for a moment when it should lead the reader into completing this terrific deal on beer!

The other reason why I advise away from text at an angle when everything else is at a different angle, is a personal one, a sorry vision of how layouts were done in te early 1970s. I used to see this done by paste-up artists when I worked at my first ad agency, hated it then, but realize now that because we own programs such as Xara, we can do anything we can imaging with text.



Thoughts on this revision?

Stygg, this shows great "Thought Work" and that's where all great Art begins.

My Best,

Gary

[Hajeem]

It makes perfect sense and I think this is the first time in a video I called out a wrong command. Ctrl+Shift+S is indeed "Convert to Editable Shapes, found under the Arrange menu.

Second flaw: you created early in the tutorial a circle that at this point straddles the black band, yes? I want you to select it, and then select the black band. There are two ways to do this: 1.) go to wireframe quality mode and it's easy to see the center (red) circle and select it), 2.) Hold Alt while the Selector tool is the chosen tool, and the cursor turns upside-down. This means it is in "Scribble select" mode. And all you do is scribble over both the center red circle and the black band and magically, both are selected. NOW, press Ctrl+4, the Slice Shapes command. NOW, you have two alternating black and red circles and they can be rotated as I show in the video.

And everyone should remove the green outline around all the checkers. Select both bands, and then choose None from the outline width drop-down on the Standard Bar.

Oh, my toolbar is not the same as those used by others because I customized it using the Window>Control Bars command, then selected the bottom entry, I checked Tool Palette. The trick with this guy is you need to hold Alt while you drag a button on or off the toolbar or the Standard Bar.

I used the Pen tool a lot in this tutorial although many users are more comfortable making lines with the Shape tool. If you're comfortable editing a line or two in the Windows Registry (do not do this if you're not confident or don't understand Windows Registry—to make the Pen tool stay on the flyout, not just appear on the toolbar as a standalone button, in the Registry, go to (Use Ctrl+F to FIND)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Xara\XtremePro x64\10\Options\FlyoutBars
Set ShowPenToolOnFlyout value data to 1.


Hélène, my apologies also for my enunciation. I'm American, I speak US English, which can be easy to misunderstand if one is from a different country that also speaks English. Also, I think my voice was a little muffled because I had just finished eating lunch, pastrami on whole wheat with Grey Poupon mustard, and Romaine lettuce.

Sorry for over-sharing and I hope this helps with this tutorial and future ones.

My Best,

Gary

Thanks for getting back to me.My confidance in your tutorials surpass my faith in my programme. and myself, so if you mention something in your tutorials it are your words that are my gospel. I guess you understand why I do not install the pentool. I used the method you described but all of a sudden i had a smart shape circle in my fly out bar. Luckily it was gone after I had closed the programme. I got interested in this tool because you did such a neat thing with it. Elongating the line, grabbing the former endnote and then closing the shape. Everytime I tried to do that like you did I ended up dragging the whole line with me and turning it the other way round

Yes it is a big shamble in my head from time to time. Swedish to my surroundings, Dutch to my family and English for this forum.

I have heard so much over pastrami (on rye?) That I almost whished I could come over and have a bite 😊

You gave me valuable advice. Thank you.

Hélène

[Gare]

Dear Hélène—

I see no reason why that line of code didn't do the trick, and instead gave you the Circle SmartShape, except perhaps there was an extra space in the code, or there was an unwanted line break.

Your English is a LOT better thank my Swedish—Jag är en idiot när jag försöker tala andra språk!—so I consider it a favor that you are requesting help in my own native language, which I failed in college.

I think the simplest way to get the Pen tool on the drawing bar flyout is to take MikeW's suggestion, download a copy of XaReg, and check the appropriate box.

1.) Go to this post, number 5 in the thread and click the XaReg2 Download in Steve's signature line. This prompts you to download a Zip archive, do it and unpack it.

2.)Now, XarEg contains only one executable file, no dlls or other files to contend with. My suggestion is to put it in a folder you create on your hard drive, and if you feel you need it all the time, make a shortcut of the program icon on your Desktop or something. The executable file when you double-click it will probably be flagged by Windows because as you'll see in this screen the Publisher is Unknown and Windows queries you about this sort of stuff. Close Xara...this app is going to do some dynamic things to Xara, and Xara doesn't like to be operated upon without being unconscious. Just click OK and we'll be on with it.

3.) Figure 3 shows the default page that opens and here's where you can find the macro that changes the Pen tool to remain in the group forever, from session to session. You first choose the version of Xara or other Xara products you're using.

4.) Figure 4 merely shows the checkbox that should be checked, After you're certain it's checked,

5. Figure 5, Run Selected Program. Click it, wait I'd say less than ten seconds, the screen should tell you that the hack has been successfully performed, and you're good to close it and open Xara with the Pen tool there.



Two addendums here: Xareg is a program originally developed by member Steve Ledger and the late Bill Taylor, whose absence on this forum is keenly felt. He was a gentleman of a gentleman, gently self-effacing in a kindly way, and always here to help members. Member and Moderator John ("covoxer") Horn did the coding for the present version, and if you like and use the product, a big "thank you" to them from you is in order.

The second is that The Xara Group hate, hate, hate the Pen tool. It was originally put in there I think to lure CorelDRAW users to Xara; its functionality is almost identical to CorelDRAW's Bezier pen tool. However, the Management wants all new users to embrace and adopt the Shape tool which makes paths that you almost always have to edit to make the shape you intend to make. There are lots of members her who sing the praises of the Shape tool and hate the Pen tool. So I try to sit in the middle of this "Preferences Debate" and use the Shape tool when I feel it's logical in a video tutorial—it's actually a multi-purpose tool that can draw and edit control points along a path—however, I try to do what I'm assigned to do on the Xara Xone, and not get "political" about a misbegotten choice of tools!

I hope this helps. Feel free to post again if you're still not where you want to be with the program. It's truly great and operates at what I like to say is "The Speed of Thought."

My Best,

Gary







3.)

[Hajeem]

Down with the flu right now but will give it a try.
Really appreciate your help

Hélène