Usability, workflow and bug fixes

[Chris M]

Err, Egg, are you talking about the attached pic? If so, then it may just be you. The shadow option is off by default and no amount of resizing makes it appear unless I tick the box. De-selecting makes it go away, and it stays off.

XWDP 17.1 and also tested on a friends XDP+ whatever number it's up to.

[rsrsrs]

>>>
Program will lock up when it is processing something, causing windows to say it's not responding (which technically is true but the program isn't dead) instead of simple letting the user know it's working. This has often been reported as a crash.<<<

how true.
Xara crashes only one or twice a year.
but i would like a t kill a process when it takes to long.

[Boy]

In the Selector Toolbar, add a button with which to toggle between the new (blue) selection handles and the old (simple, black) selection handles or integrate it into the 'Show object edit handles' button that, anyway, doesn't do what is says it does. So, latter needs to be fixed.

[handrawn]

In the Selector Toolbar, add a button with which to toggle between the new (blue) selection handles and the old (simple, black) selection handles or integrate it into the 'Show object edit handles' button that, anyway, doesn't do what is says it does. So, latter needs to be fixed.

well since boy has mentioned [Selector Tool]ShowXCBoundsBlobs as well, I may as well put in the other registry toggle that I think should be in the UI:

[Freehand]AutoDeselectFreehand

when sketching, having the lines auto deselect after each stroke means no accidental joining up and/or repathing of the strokes; but when drawing in a slower fashion it is better to have this off andhaving to exit the program to toggle is a real pain

as is having to exit the program to toggle the visualisation disrupting blue boundary lines

[Acorn]

Err, Egg, are you talking about the attached pic? If so, then it may just be you. The shadow option is off by default and no amount of resizing makes it appear unless I tick the box. De-selecting makes it go away, and it stays off.

XWDP 17.1 and also tested on a friends XDP+ whatever number it's up to.

Chris, this is a long-time issue. If you drop a colour onto the design page, it happens, repeatedly.

The shadow is off by default as the supplied templates do not have any colour for pasteboard or page backgrounds.

@Egg, never seen it for page size changes though.

Acorn

[Chris M]

Chris, this is a long-time issue. If you drop a colour onto the design page, it happens, repeatedly.
Acorn

So it does! Just goes to show that I've never dropped a colour onto the page. Pasteboard yes, page obviously not.

[behzad]

It is good to have you Rob look over all this stuff. I feel there is new life in Xara now. My beef is the attached. I sometimes work on large website where I leave it for upload and go away from the computer in hope of it finished when I return but I see this screen. I do understand that the information is good to know but it hinders my workflow. Also if at anytime I close Xara it starts again. I would be so happy if this can be fixed. Attachment 129863

[Egg Bramhill]

Re the drop shadow:

I believe the cause of my problem is that I was forced into bad habits many years ago due to an issue that existed on my computers at that time. Namely opening the Utilities / Options dialogue window taking several seconds loading, so I’d avoid doing so as much as possible.

https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...748#post589748

I prefer not to have a page shadow. Probably through changing page colour incorrectly applying a page shadow as mentioned by Acorn. To avoid having to wait for Options window to open I’d select the page rectangle in the page layer and remove the drop shadow. Unfortunately this way didn’t remove the Show Page Shadow in the Options window, so as soon as the page was resized the shadow would reappear. There appears to be disconnect between the page rectangle and page size.

Strange how bad habits persist. I attach a xar template file which shows this behaviour. My bad, not Xara’s.

[handrawn]

you are not alone egg - a decade or so ago xara removed bitmap tracer from the work area right click context menu and I hardly ever used anything else in that menu I got out of the habit of using it - these days everytime I do right click to access the relatively recent multiple page view toggle I remind myself that page options is there, but I still automatically use the options menu route - there is even a shortcut to the general options, a file menu route to page options as well.. but hey you can't remember everything, and somethings become embedded; one reason why workflow changes in the UI, if they bring no personal benefit or worse cause disruption, can be hard to adjust to...

[Acorn]

Rob, a long time hate is Curvature. It is tied to the WxH of the initial box.
If you select a curvature control when the Editable items box has Curvature selected and then adjust it, the top Primary curvature ratio is varied, the Stellation curvature ratio is activated and has a fixed value of 0.2.

As you do not have stellation for a box, this ought to be a 'Secondary curvature ratio' so the curvature controls can be made independent, along with a meta-key to lock or unlock this action.

Acorn