Using a shadow I can build an object that behaves as illustrated by the following screenshot:
Caveat
Yes. Simple.
There are nuances that may make it better or worse for your particular use. You need to play with it and work the nuances out.
Advancement
In a similar grouped Object, I set the font in the rear Shape to Helvetica 24 dark red. Thus if I accidentally access the rear Shape and start typing, I get a nice red signal. That feature is in my Stencil.
Enjoy
Ok, but that does not affect the back shape in any way (see screenshot below): are you implying that the back shape must be manually resized? The point of my question is whether it is possible to avoid manually tweaking the stacked shape as much as possible. As far as I can tell, the only way is to use a shadow as a back shape (as in my first screenshot above), although that limits the back shape to one uniform color.
That’s a good tip!
Yes. That is what I thought you wanted.
I thought I understood your requirement. But now I have doubts about that. In stating what you did not want, I thought you wanted the rear Shape to remain unchanged when changing the forward Shape.
I don’t understand what you are saying.
I will just respond to the bits that I understand.
No.
You have this problem:
Because you have not built your Atoms yet. Those basic, essential Objects that you will then use to construct more complex Objects (Molecules) in your diagrams.
I will give you the atom required for this Object.
There, we have the second most useful atom, to make molecules from.
Use a Backing Object [atom] for the rear Shape. Click twice on the forward Shape, set the Fill to pink 50%. The rear Shape remains a solid colour, with a predictable Shadow. Set the Shadow as you wish.
Last, if you inform me as to exactly which symbol you are trying to build, I can provide more precision.
Cheers
Thanks for the detailed explanation, but I think I did not explain myself clearly enough. This is the stencil I want:
I can build it by stacking and grouping two rectangles, of course. But when the stencil is resized (say, vertically), the distance between the bottom side of the front rectangle and the bottom side of the back rectangle changes:
The behaviour I am looking for is rather this:
A (sharp) shadow would behave as I want, but a shadow does not have a fill and stroke color, so I cannot get the appearance of a white back rectangle with a dark border using a shadow.
I hope it is clear now. I can live with OG’s current behaviour, though slightly inconvenient: I wrote this post to know whether you gurus know a better way—perhaps, some setting that keeps the components of a grouped object aligned to the grid.
Yes.
The only way is to obtain both rectangles aligned is to resize each rectangle separately.
I don’t.
Ok. So the value in all that detail is, the Backing Object, which may come in handy as your grouped Objects progress and mature.
If I may say so …
The issue you have in intellective, and typical of people with an OO mindset. The larger problem is the suppression of the hierarchy. The specific problem is, they want both the total independence of each Component, and also the total integrity of the Group [grouped Object]. This is the Inheritance problem that they have never resolved. It is not an exclusive choice at the Object level. It is to be understood that in any given Object, due to multiple inheritance, several channels of access exist and that when using one channel of access, the others will be negatively affected.
In this example, there are only two such channels, but that is enough to expose the issue. The resolution is to apply the Grouping last: easy in a compiler, but impossible in a tool that works from the finished product (an OO Object or a OG grouped Object) backwards. One must be clear in the intent, when approaching a grouped Object on one channel, and not expect the behaviour of the other channel:
As demonstrated here, the correction was at the intellective level, the expectation.
Cheers
