Drawing line with rounded corners?

[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

[Big Frank]

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.

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):

1. click to create a point
2. click to create another point, you now have a line
3. click at 45° to the second point to create your first curve, but do not let go the mouse button
4. drag the mouse a little in the direction your next line will go - you'll see the short line becomes a curve
5. click again to create a straight line from the small curve you just created
6. repeat 3,4 & 5 as required

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.

This is, incidentally, the only use for the pen tool that I have ever found.

[hgregory]

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

[rpc9943]

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!

[Tabian]

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..

[Egg Bramhill]

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

[Rik]

Great video, Egg.
Thanks for putting that together. I certainly enjoyed watching it.