Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
you exactly how few shapes were needed to create the drawing.
Often, it is the fill and outline property you apply to shapes that
gives a design visual robustness, and not always the intricacy of
path you draw.
Exploring the Xara Interface
The following sections get you up to speed with the features
in Xara Xtreme. You'll see a relationship between creating a
shape with a tool and
assigning
an effect or other property to
the shape; the interface is shown in Figure 1-3.
Most tools in Xara Xtreme serve more than one use. You use keyboard modifiers (
CTRL
and
SHIFT
,
most often) in combination with dragging a tool on the page to change the action you perform.
You also have the pop-up context menu you can access when using a tool; right-clicking provides
you with several invaluable options.
The Items in the Interface
As in most design programs, your Xara tools are located in the
Xara Xtreme Toolbar. A
control bar
is the name of the general
category of interface elements that can dock or be floated,
including the Toolbar.
To float a control bar, position your cursor toward the edge of the bar and then drag into the
workspace—the area where the page and the pasteboard are. To dock a floating bar, drag
it by the top to the position you intend it to dock—you'll see a dotted line preview of the bar
when you're undocking or docking it. When the preview dotted line becomes thick, this is your signal to
release the mouse button so the bar docks or floats.
Other control bars in Xara provide information about object
location, areas where you can manually set positions and path
outline width and provide additional settings for tools based on
which tool is currently chosen. One of the most important bars
in Xara contains the galleries; they're referred to as palettes
in other applications and store all the resources you'll need for
filling and stroking paths, plus a Designs gallery, invaluable
for quickly accessing the drawings you may have installed
