Making your own stretchable buttons

[planetsquid]

Hello. Although I've lurked around these forums for quite some time, this is my first post......so hello.

Does anyone know if it's possible to create your own stretchable buttons within Web Designer? There are a good selection of buttons available, but I'd quite like to be able to make my own.

Thanks to Charles and the Xara team for a great new product. Bought it as soon as it became available. Never really got into the HTML side of Xtreme as it was just too fiddly, but love the web orientated tools/features of WD.

[Soquili]

Hello planetsquid,

Glad you decided to post.

I also would like to know if we can create our own stretch buttons. Maybe John or Charles will let us know.

[jclements]

I've the same question.

I tried searching the Help file and I could not find* any info about this. There is a reference that there are Stretch Buttons in the Design Templates (but the Trial version does not give you access to the Templates so you can't reverse engineer an existing example).

Stretch buttons are one the primary features of Designer I'm interested in. I want to know if this capability was improved over Xara's previous capabiltiies.

* Any chance the Help File could include instructions or, if the instructions are there already, tag them so that Help's search function can find them? If you can't create your own then explicitly state this in the help file. Thank you.

[stlewis]

Hmmmm. I've had a play. Just take a look at stretchable button on the page. It is a shape grouped with a text column. Both objects have text set to repel under. You can ungroup it, edit the shape, regroup and hey presto.

So even without knowing quite how it works, it looks as if you can... See the attached.

[Soquili]

Very clever Simon that works a charm.

[Charles Moir]

The official answer is that you need to use Xara Xtreme 4 or Pro4 to create completely new stretchy buttons and panels - and even then it's a bit cryptic.

The unoffical answer is, as you've found out, you can take and existing stretchy panel or button, un-group it all, edit he parts and re-group. That may not always work, and there might be some unexpected effects doing this.

It's all done with names and the Name Gallery in Xtreme 4. In fact you'll notice those parts of the object that stretch, have one name, like ButtonBack, while those parts that trigger the stretch (usually some text) will have another name like 'buttontext'. Internally we've marked the objects, so that 'buttontext' should stretchy those objects with the name 'buttonback'. This applying the stretch attribute is something that can only be done in Xtreme 4.

But those willing to experiment, and re-use existing objects, will find that it can be done in Web Designer. You can see the names on objects in WD using the names dialog.

[jclements]

Hi guys:

I must be missing something.
1- I created a rectangle with rounded corners. Applied a repel to it.
2- With text tool, I click-dragged a frame of text and typed in text and applied a repel to it.
3- Selected both objects and grouped them.

It didn't work.

I checked Somon's shape but I did not see it had any special attributes other than repel text.

????

===============

Charles posted before I could finish my reply.

[jclements]

Charles
1- Is there a specific syntax for the stretching text relative to its associated streching object? Does Xara and XDesigner look for the text strings "back" and "text" or do both objects have to have the string "button"? Something else?

2- Should BOTH the text and the button be given a repel attribute or just the botton most object in the group?

3- Are there plans to eventually allow XDesigner to create its own stretchies? Or at least make things less convoluted?

[Charles Moir]

No there is no specific syntax - it's an internal linking marker than simply can't be added in WD. So the only way to get this to work in WD is use existing objects with the right names and the hidden mark-up.

Or use Xtreme 4.

And yes we already have a long wish list of things for future versions of Web Designer.

[jclements]

Thanks, Charles. And the repel question?