Copy/Paste a Rectangle gets strange results... [SOLVED]

[goddi]

Greetings,

I was inserting some rectangles in a slide and got a strange result.

In O&A, I added a rectangle from its menu. I used the Shift/Left Mouse button to resize it. Normally, if I wanted to duplicate the rectangle in that slide, I'd be sure that the rectangle was highlighted first and then I'd do a Ctrl-C. Then I'd unhighlight the original rectangle and do a Ctrl-V and then move it to its location.

However, I noted that if I did not unhighlight the original rectangle and did the Ctrl-V, the result would be a very tall thin rectangle. The top of the rectangle would extend to the top of the O&A window and the bottom would extend to the bottom of the O&A window.

This might be the wrong proceedure but it does not seem to get any logical result. I am using 7.52 and it also happens in 6.5.

Is this an expected result or not?

Gary

[fh1805]

Gary,

I cannot recreate this problem using v7.5.3. My steps were as follows (please confirm these are EXACTLY what you did):

- Opened a new project

- Insert Blank Slide (by right-click in Slide List area and taking the option)

- Into O&A window

- Add Rectangle (from toolbar icon)

- Re-sized by Shift+Left-mouse drag of one corner

- Re-positioned to centre-ish (by simple drag)

- Selected the rectangle in the Objects list

- Ctrl+C to copy to clipboard

- Ctrl+V to paste from clipboard

This resulted in the second rectangle being a child object of the first and appearing overlaid on its parent and reduced in size proportionally.

If I repeated that sequence of actions but un-highlighted the rectangle object between the Copy and the Paste I got the second rectangle as an independent object that overlaid exactly the original rectangle.

No problems whatsoever.

I have customised my Settings|Preferences and I have stored my choice of Project Options in a customized default template. Do we need to compare our Preference and Project Option settings? I have no reason to believe that any of my Settings|Preferences or my Project Options will have altered PTE's behaviour doing any of those steps.

regards,

Peter

[davegee]

Gary,

Please add a screen shot of the O&A with original frame highlighted and Animations Tab, 3D parameters and Size Position windows in clear view?

DG

[goddi]

Gary,

Please add a screen shot of the O&A with original frame highlighted and Animations Tab, 3D parameters and Size Position windows in clear view?

DG

==================================

Dave and Peter,

See if these 3 screenshots answer your questions.

Let me know if you need more info.

Gary

[fh1805]

That is perfectly correct. You had modified the dimensions of that rectangle, making it tall and narrow. The values that it has are percentages relative to its parent. If it is an independent object then its "parent" is the entire slide.

You then copied that rectangle object to the clipboard and then pasted it as a child of the first rectangle. Its values are now applied relative to the parent. Hence the rectangle gets even thinner. If you want that right-hand rectangle to be identical to the left-hand rectangle, you need to paste it as a child of the same parent as the left-hand rectangle.

A child inherits its parents attributes and then applies its own attributes on top of those. This concept is what gives PTE its marvellous flexibility to produce complex animations of multiple objects, such as those produced by Lin Evans or my Rubik's Cube sequence.

regards,

Peter

[goddi]

That is perfectly correct. You had modified the dimensions of that rectangle, making it tall and narrow. The values that it has are percentages relative to its parent. If it is an independent object then its "parent" is the entire slide.

You then copied that rectangle object to the clipboard and then pasted it as a child of the first rectangle. Its values are now applied relative to the parent. Hence the rectangle gets even thinner. If you want that right-hand rectangle to be identical to the left-hand rectangle, you need to paste it as a child of the same parent as the left-hand rectangle.

A child inherits its parents attributes and then applies its own attributes on top of those. This concept is what gives PTE its marvellous flexibility to produce complex animations of multiple objects, such as those produced by Lin Evans or my Rubik's Cube sequence.

regards,

Peter

=========================

Peter,

Ok...I kinda get it. I played around with changing the size of the original rectangles and then doing a copy/paste as a child of the original rectangle and I sort of see what is going on. Since I have not made any really 'complicated animations of multiple objects', I have not needed this 'flexiblity'. But it is good to know it is operating correctly. It just threw me for a loop to see the results as a tall thin rectangle. I expected the result to be the child of the first rectangle but also the same size as first rectangle, not a different sized rectangle (thin and tall).

Thanks..

Gary