Drawing line with rounded corners?

[pauland]

It's a bit fiddly, but you can do it this way using the shape editor tool..

[scriptster]

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.

[Egg Bramhill]

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.

[Intbel]

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.

[David O'Neil]

...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...

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.

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.

[Big Frank]

It isn't as good as Visio's approach, but it is still quite doable.

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.

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

[pauland]

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.

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.

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

[Big Frank]

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.

[The Alien]

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.

[AndFarr]

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