Rounded corners on rectangle

[DukeofThomas]

DukeofThomas, maybe the attached animation will help explain the way I move the rounded corners.

If using multiple shapes as shown in the attachment, marquee select all the shapes. Switch to the Shape Editor Tool and marquee select the nodes you want to move.

Thanks, that's the way I'm doing it now. It's still a lot of unnecessary steps though, when this problem should never have arisen in the first place.

Can anybody here tell me who WANTS the corners of a rectangle to deform like this? I'm not talking about other shapes, only rectangles. Where does this behaviour produce good results?

[tonylondon]

It IS a lot of completely unnecessary work if you have to do it every time you want to change the size of the rectangle, which in my case, could be four or five times while I decide on the 'look' of it. The ability to simply resize a round cornered rectangle without deforming the corners should have been the default behaviour of Xara from the beginning. Who on earth would want the corners to deform when they adjusted the height or width of the rectangle? What possible application could it satisfy, looking, as it does, like rubbish?

I simply can't use Xara because of this problem. It's the main thing I (was going to) use it for - generating nice round edged rectangles with bevelled edges and a shadow.

Do any of you know the best way to work with Xara to resize a round cornered rectangle with a bevelled edge and shadow? When I try to convert it to shapes to resize it, I then have to individually resize each part! The bevel and the rectangle - separately. What a great idea! It's only a few clicks...

You could of course get Xara to expand the box automatically as you change the text. That way the rounded corners remain true. You'll find the information on how to do this in the help pages, if it isn't too much work for you of course...
Tony

[DukeofThomas]

I looked in the help pages but couldn't find it. Any chance of a clue?

Can you answer this question for me Tony? "Can anybody here tell me who WANTS the corners of a rectangle to deform like this? I'm not talking about other shapes, only rectangles. Where does this behaviour produce good results?"

[Charles Moir]

Can anybody here tell me who WANTS the corners of a rectangle to deform like this?

Yes this behaviour is, I'm afraid, entirely logical for the simple reason that the Selector tool always maintains aspect ratio of the objects being selected. If it didn't then a LOT of things start going weird and un-predictable. So Xara has always tried to keep a consistent, logical UI and that means that when you, for example, scale a complex drawing, it behaves the same way as scaling a bitmap would. That's what most people expect. And that means if you, say, want to squash a picture or skew it, that all parts of that picture have to squash, scale, rotate and generally transform in exactly the same way.

It would not be acceptable that, for example, you wanted to squash your drawing a bit, and everything squashed correctly, except any rounded rectangles you might have in the drawing. That would be hugely unpredictable, and would break the core 'act like a bitmap' rule that Xara works to (and this is one of the reason, whether most people realise it or not, that makes Xara so 'logical and intuitive').

So really we have almost no choice on this point. We could make rounded rectangles exceptions to the rule, but then we know we'd get people saying that transforming complex drawings doesn't work right or in a logical way. We could make a rule that when resizing individual bitmaps it behaves differently to resizing lots of those in a group or a large selection. But that's a terrible bodge and will result in confused users.

Having said all that we are aware and have been for some time that this does cause problems. And we do have a proposed solution, which has been suggested before I think: Which is to change the behaviour of the Rectangle tool to keep the aspect ratio the same when resizing rectangles. This means you just need to use the Rectangle tool to resize your rectangle and it will keep the roundedness. Use the Selector tool and it will act 'like resizing a bitmap' so keeping everything consistent and logical there.

We might also add an optional overrider on the Selector tool, so that if you say hold a special key down it will behave in rounded rectangle mode. This would be acceptable only because it would be the user deliberately overriding the normal behaviour. Most users wouldn't know about it and thus get consistent resizing results.

I can't say when we'll get this feature change in, but it's now been agreed and is on the work list.

[Xhris]

Perhaps a reset button for the rounded rectangle property would be useful. For example, after scaling and the corners lose their aspect ratio, if the rounded corners button was deselected, then reselected, the corner aspect ratio is restored. This is quick and intuitive. And furthermore, holding a button (eg control) and dragging on a curve control point allows manual changes to the aspect ratio.

[GeoBen]

M. Moir answered the question about as well as it could be answered.

If the rectangle is part of a larger compostion, when you distort the larger image, the rectangle and its nifty rounded corners HAVE to distort to match. I believe M. Bramhill demonstrated this earlier with a drawing of a bus and its windows.

I was going to suggest the latter of the options M. Moir mentioned (a 'constrain corners' option key) and I hope that they will do some such thing, but, given the option of distorting or NOT distorting, I think they made the right choice.

And it is not merely loyalty to the product we eventually chose that inspires this defense. Many here, I am sure, have used others. I have used both Corel and Freehand and liked both. I keep a copy of Inkscape on my drive for specific features (in particular, POTRACE and SVG output. I did a lil 'happy dance' the other day when I read of Xara/Inkscape co-operation on Linux and File format exchange... but i digress).

ALL of these products will distort rounded corners. It IS logical. Not a trained artist myself, I would find it very difficult to get the perspective qualities i like if Xara did not distort in a "natural" way.

geo.

[tonylondon]

I looked in the help pages but couldn't find it. Any chance of a clue?

Can you answer this question for me Tony? "Can anybody here tell me who WANTS the corners of a rectangle to deform like this? I'm not talking about other shapes, only rectangles. Where does this behaviour produce good results?"

The key word to search for is auto-scaling.
All the best,
Tony

[DukeofThomas]

Yes this behaviour is, I'm afraid, entirely logical for the simple reason that the Selector tool always maintains aspect ratio of the objects being selected.

Hi Charles. I fully agree that the behaviour is expected for all other shapes except for lone round cornered rectangles. I understand why it happens, but a lot of people want to be able to resize rectangles without deforming the corners. So all it would require is a special 'round cornered rectangle' tool, that would ignore the previous size of the rectangle when resizing, and just redraw it as if it were a new rectangle, then apply the round corners automatically. That's all there is to it. Quite an easy solution, then we'd all be happy!

It would not be acceptable that, for example, you wanted to squash your drawing a bit, and everything squashed correctly, except any rounded rectangles you might have in the drawing.

I agree, that's why I think all it needs is a separate 'round corner rectangle' option. Or even a 'turn on fixed round corners' option, so if turned on, whenever you stretched a rectangle, the corners would stay the same. (This could also be applied to all objects, I don't know what the effect would look like. Have you any examples that show the difference?)

That would be hugely unpredictable, and would break the core 'act like a bitmap' rule that Xara works to (and this is one of the reason, whether most people realise it or not, that makes Xara so 'logical and intuitive').

So really we have almost no choice on this point. We could make rounded rectangles exceptions to the rule, but then we know we'd get people saying that transforming complex drawings doesn't work right or in a logical way.

You don't have no choice - that's precisely the solution - CHOICE! Give the user the CHOICE to either have fixed round corners, or deformable ones. Then everybody is happy!

We could make a rule that when resizing individual bitmaps it behaves differently to resizing lots of those in a group or a large selection. But that's a terrible bodge and will result in confused users.

Make it a choice and then those that want it can turn it on, those that don't won't even have to know about it.
The first rule of interface design: always give the user CHOICES.

Having said all that we are aware and have been for some time that this does cause problems. And we do have a proposed solution, which has been suggested before I think: Which is to change the behaviour of the Rectangle tool to keep the aspect ratio the same when resizing rectangles. This means you just need to use the Rectangle tool to resize your rectangle and it will keep the roundedness. Use the Selector tool and it will act 'like resizing a bitmap' so keeping everything consistent and logical there.

Sounds fine to me. If it's implemented in Xtreme then I'll upgrade from X1.

We might also add an optional overrider on the Selector tool, so that if you say hold a special key down it will behave in rounded rectangle mode. This would be acceptable only because it would be the user deliberately overriding the normal behaviour. Most users wouldn't know about it and thus get consistent resizing results.

Yes, that would be absolutely perfect.

I can't say when we'll get this feature change in, but it's now been agreed and is on the work list.

Terrific!

[tonylondon]

So all it would require is a special 'round cornered rectangle' tool, that would ignore the previous size of the rectangle when resizing, and just redraw it as if it were a new rectangle, then apply the round corners automatically. That's all there is to it. Quite an easy solution, then we'd all be happy!Terrific!

Xara, by design or otherwise, has managed to limit the number of tools to a sensible number. To have a tool that did just that and nothing else wouldn't be very efficient.

Another program I won't mention allows you to add rounded corners as an 'effect'. That would have a wider application and not occupy tool real estate
Tony

[DukeofThomas]

The key word to search for is auto-scaling.
All the best,
Tony

Thanks Tony, I've found the relevant help section. Is it just X1 or my screen, or is some of the help file text literally too small to read on your screen?

If you search for auto-scaling, how big is the following text in your help screen:
"Both the button and the text must be named objects. So the first step is to give separate names to the text and the button."

Mine is about four pixels high, virtually unreadable. I've pasted in a screengrab below. Of course, there is no option to adjust text size in the help file, that I can find. It's a bit Windows 3.1ish.

Anyway, this is where I've got to, and in typical help file fashion (like about 99% of the help files I've come across over the years), it doesn't tell me where the options are that I'm supposed to be using.

To wit:
"2. You can use either the Selector Tool or the Name Gallery.

In the Selector Tool click Create new name. Enter the name you want and click Apply."

Where is "Create new name"? Wouldn't it be 'help'ful if the help file showed me an image of what I'm looking for? I've tried looking with the object selected, and with it unselected. I've tried right clicking on the object, but I can't see "Create new name". I realise I can use CTRL+SHIFT+F9 to bring up the Name Gallery, but I'd like to know where I'm going wrong with the 'Create new name' option. Is it obvious and I'm just missing it?