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Another one of my "is it possible with Xara X" questions:
how can I draw a continuous line that has rounded corners (see the picture attached). This is something really easily done in Visio and I am missing this capability in Xara. I just can't find how to do it short of creating a bunch of rectangles, round their corners and then chop them up.
Anyone has a better idea about the rounded corners?
Thanks for any idea or comment!
Cheers,
D~
Unfortunately that's one of the things I have always wished Xara, in its various guises, has been able to do, but that, along with decent wrapping of text around an object, has never been seen as a priority.
Hmmmm, I was just playing with this. You have forced me to get to know better a tool that I hardly ever use, the Pen Tool. With this tool it is quite easy to do what you would like, it just takes a little practice. Make two points to make the starting line, then the third point on the side you will be going to. Before letting go of the mouse button, push or pull that new node and you will see your curve take form.
It's a bit fiddly, but you can do it this way using the shape editor tool..
Thank you for your replies, guys.
I should try the proposed approaches. The only problem I still see is that the lines will look hand-drawn, and I want them to look perfect because the rounded corner lines are going to be used in technical drawings/diagrams. So I am looking for something that is rounded by the program itself with an eye on the consistency in the radii etc. I guess, if this feature is missing, this would be the first one I would propose to add in the future releases.
Does Xara have an official feature wish list?
Thanks again.
Another way.
Set the grid to 30 pix.
Show Grid
Snap to grid.
Using the shape editor tool set to line and smooth joins :-
Draw your shape as the top version.
Now drag select over every 2 nodes you want rounded.
Hit the "Make Curve C" (highlighted) for each curve you require.
This you may find useful when using the shape editor tool.
When pulling the red handle thingoe, if you hold down the ctrl key while doing so, you can constrain it to 100% horizontal/vertical.
So if you do this with both handles on a curve and put one exactly (zoom right in for 100% accuracy) on top of the other you will have a perfect curve on your corner.
Not a good explanation, so see attached image which should simplify things.
P.S. You can also use this method to get your curves right after re-sizing a rectangle with curved corners.
Paul's method, with an addendum, will give you what you want. It isn't as good as Visio's approach, but it is still quite doable.Quote:
Originally Posted by scriptster
Create a circle with the radius you desire, and use that as a template. Make that circle have a transparent center, and give it a thin outside thickness. Place the circle tangent to both lines. Then select the original line, and using the shape editor tool, create the new nodes, delete the center node, and drag the center of the new connecting line until it overlaps the arc of the circle.
Then drag the circle to the next intersection, and repeat. It will look machine-done in the end.
David
ps - when moving the circle, you can use the 'Alt' key and the arrow keys, to move the circle in very small increments, which makes final placement of the circle pretty easy.
And that's the problem with all these methods, they're workarounds, some of them more Heath Robinson that others, but none of them easy for somebody who needs this automated because of the number of lines and corners. I don't understand why, when we have been able to auto-round off box corners, we cannot have a tool that does this for a line. Other than it's not a priority.Quote:
Originally Posted by David O'Neil
I sometimes do wiring diagrams and flow charts and this limitation in Xara frustrates the heck out of me. Visio is an expensive app with a fairly specialised and narrow feature set. Xara could really nab some of its customer base by including the ability to draw lines with all corners the same radius (customisable as with the rectangle tool) and then include a bunch of galleries of common symbols for line drawings.
IMHO
I agree with your comment completely. Xara is a great tool, but it's also one of the most frustrating tools because of it's glaring feature holes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Frank
I'm not going to even mention nested layers.. ..oops, I did!
;-)
Come on Xara, pull that finger out.. (and don't dare suggest that if we want it so much we should write it in ourselves..)
Paul
I cannot tell you the number of times I have been told over the years "it's not a priority" by people who work on the product but do not use it in real-world situations. Many of my wish list features would make Xara the kick-ass graphic design app, the one that would make the Adobe die-hards truly sit up and listen, but I feel in my heart that this is not what Xara want it to be.
Another not-so-neat workaround:
- Draw your line with straight corners
- Using the contour tool, make an outer contour of 50pix with 1 step
- Convert to editable shapes, ungroup. You now have a rounded shape and a line.
- Select the rounded shape (not the line)
- Add an inner contour of 25pix with 1 step, and inset (From this step onwards, see attached pic)
- Use the Shape editor to select the nodes in either the top or the bottom half of the rounded shape and delete them. You'll also have to break your shape open in order to end up with just a line.
- position this rounded line on the original line (with straight corners)
- You'll notice the rounded line is too big and doesn't fit. So move the cluster of nodes at 1 of the extremes - which falls out of the left or right side of the original line - back to fit the original line.
Note: I didn't test this on any other lines, so I don't know about the limits of this method.
An important note is that the inner contour must be half of the outer contour.
Just change the Freehand Smoothing control up to 100%.
That should get you most of the way there.
Then tweek as necessary with the Shape Editor tool.
- AF
Doesn't work in my opinion. That way you get no straight lines at all. You'd spend all your time tweeking.Quote:
Originally Posted by AndFarr
I have tried this with the smoothing control at 50% and the result is average at best because it is clear it is still a freehand drawn line when what we're looking for is something that looks machine-generated.
The best way I have found to achieve this is to use the pen tool thus (if somebody has already explained this my apologies for the repetition):This is the closest I have come to reproducing what Visio does. It is still, as you can see from my attempt below, a hit and miss affair, but it is as close as you're going to get in my opinion.
- click to create a point
- click to create another point, you now have a line
- click at 45° to the second point to create your first curve, but do not let go the mouse button
- drag the mouse a little in the direction your next line will go - you'll see the short line becomes a curve
- click again to create a straight line from the small curve you just created
- repeat 3,4 & 5 as required
This is, incidentally, the only use for the pen tool that I have ever found.
rather new as I am, I took the challenge and came up with this (jpg below); I admit, there's a LOT of mouse-clickin going on, but seems to have worked for me! I do hope this will be helpful and not just take up room. Thanks :)
Just been searching and have to say that this last post is perfect for the solution. Maybe I'm far behind here but now I understand! Grid on, snap to grid on, f4, press L for line, click a straight line, press C for curve, hold down ctrl to restrain angle, click, press L for line again, draw the straight line. It works perfectly. If we could only have a "preview arc" instead of what it looks like before clicking another node, it would be PERFECT!
Well Scriptster your right it is a bit of a letdown. It can be done but it’s a bit like trying to cross a room without standing on the carpet. If only there was something put in place where you could set the size of the required radius and then just click on a corner node to apply your exact corner time after time and they would all be the same. It’s time like that I have to leave and use another program and it hurts me so because I love my Xara..
Xara's never got this curved corners right and it doesn't matter which method you use the rounding on Xara is always to flat. If you compare a circles Next Curve Handle between a true circle & Xara's curves the handles are always to short.
video
Great video, Egg.
Thanks for putting that together. I certainly enjoyed watching it.