OK, back to the tutorial.

As I mentioned on the home page, Xara's Linear Transparency is unique. CorelDRAW users should note that Corel's Linear Transparency was copied from Xara's.

Select the white highlight, then select the Transparency Tool from the main tool bar. From the drop down list of Transparency Shapes at the top left of the Infobar, select Linear.

As with the Xara's Linear Fill (the two are quite similar) the fill arrow appears in the center and extends to the right edge. Drag the control handles on either end of the fill path until the top edge of the highlight is almost opaque and bottom edge is almost transparent. Extending the fill path arrow slightly above and below the shape accomplishes this. If the transparency end of the arrow is inside the highlight, the edge cleanly disappears.

At this stage, except for the type and the drop shadow, we have replicated Apple's gel effect, without ever creating or editing a bitmap!

Now it's time to take the Apple effect to the next level.

Select the blue capsule shape, then select the Transparency Tool. From the drop down list of Transparency Shapes found top left of the Infobar, select Elliptical.

By default, Elliptical (and Circular) creates a transparency that is transparent on the outside and opaque in the center. We need this to be the other way around. With the Transparency Tool selected, click on either of the outside squares at the ends of the fill path arrows. Change the setting by dragging the Transparency slider on the Infobar to 20%. Click in the center square and change the Transparency slider to 100% .

Click again on the center square and press the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the transparency center down as shown. Cool?

NOTE of PRIDE: All the screen images for this tutorial were created in Xara X.

What's missing from our gel capsule is a shadow. We can add a soft diffused shadow with Xara X's new Shadow Tool.

Select the blue capsule shape, then select the Shadow Tool. Click the second effect from the left, Wall Shadow (the far left box removes the shadow).

Reposition the shadow so it is directly beneath the capsule by dragging the shadow with the Shadow Tool.

NOTE: You can also intuitively add a drop shadow to any object, or text object, by selecting the Shadow Tool, then dragging on an object in the direction you want the shadow to fall. It's kind of like magic!

It's not that I don't have the greatest respect for Apple's design team, but a gel-filled capsule does not cast a gray shadow. It casts a shadow the color of the gel.

To achieve this effect, select a solid blue color on the screen palette and drag and drop it onto the shadow. Compare this to the example in the previous paragraph. Which do you think looks more realistic?