Xtreme on a Mac

Long time, no post. After my electronic equipment had been stolen last year - including the external backup drives, a camera, etc - I decided to switch to a Mac after I had conducted some research.

So there is Parallels and VMWare Fusion2, which enable the Mac users to install Windoze with all needed software to run them seamlessly on the Mac.

However, as much as I like Xara I don't like having to install a lousy OS on a nice OS.

So the search went on, because Illustrator is of no use for me. I stumbled across 'Crossover for Mac'. This nice software doesn't require that Windoze is installed - it just lets you install many Windoze apps directly on your Mac.

Sounded excellent. I installed CrossOver for Mac, installed several programs (among others a software RIP for my large format printer) and conducted some test runs. Everything worked fine.

Then I wanted to install Xara Xtreme 3.x. However, the installer quit with following message: Xara Xtreme requires at least Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 to continue the installation.

Hello? What the heck does Xara have to do with MS IE, and why does it need it?

Is there a slight chance to offer a modified installer so Mac users will be able to install Xara Xtreme based on CrossOver for Mac?

I mean it's hilarious to install the buggiest software on earth just to install and run a graphics app, isn't it?

After the development of a Xara version for the Mac is dead as it appears, wouldn't it make sense to offer at least a clean installation script for Mac users?

I have tried many vector apps for the Mac, but none even comes close to Xara.

Now that even McNeel software develops a Mac version of the famous Rhino it would be fantastic if we would see a Xara Mac version at the horizon...

Just a thought, and believe me, I would appreciate anything that would help to install Xara on CrossOver - I have too many *.xar files which I can't convert...

You can fake the installation of IE6 by applying the attached .reg file. This is achieved by running regedit (you'd run command 'wine regedit' for wine, the FOSS version of CrossOver. I'm not sure how to do it for CrossOver) and then importing the file ("File\Import..." menu item). All the reg file does is set a registry entry that specifies the version of IE that is installed.

CrossOver provides it's own implementation of IE which is based on Mozilla rendering which should be able to everything Xtreme needs of it. The reason that the check is present in the first place is that it makes far more sense for Xtreme to make use of the existing IE web browsing functionality than ship it's own reimplementation and to do that it needs to make sure it's present.

Luke, thanks a lot, I will give it a try!

If this work in that way will be extremally usefull :)

Sounds promising

Luke, does that mean Xtreme 4.0 works under (a) Wine, (b) Crossover Office? That would be staggeringly useful. Well, not as useful as it running natively (obviously) but still staggeringly useful.

...and my follow-up question: if it runs under wine, does it run on Linux (for example latest Ubuntu?). Anyway, if you get Xara Xtreme Pro to run on Mac or Linux then my Windows is out the windows!

and BTW, nice hearing from you again Jens!

Paul,

well, it installs but it does have flaws. I've got error messages I've never seen on my PC, the handle bars are almost invisible, the cursor movements are sometimes weird... in short words: Crossover is like a walking stick, you won't be able to make a 100 m run with it.

So I'll stick to original Mac apps and see what I can do. Maybe some day in the future we will see a native Mac version.

Oh, btw, I used Xtreme 3.x for the installation because someone else posted in a forum that Xtreme 4.x doesn't run.

Anyway, heads and thumbs up - the future will tell if Magix will do some magic :D

What if we were okay with installing a buggy OS over a nice one? Has anyone had success running Xtreme on a Mac either with VMWare or Boot Camp? Certainly less than an ideal situation, but is it possible?

Spinny an old post by Charles Moir may provide some insight to using Xtreme on a Mac.
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showpost...81&postcount=4

VMWare showed improvement over Parallels using Xtreme on a Mac. Not sure about Bootcamp.

Isn't VirtualBox much more popular (since it's free)?

Remi

That whole thread was well worth the read, thanks for the pointer. My HP graphics laptop is now on its third hard drive, second mobo and vidcard. Eventually it's going to die the final death where it's no longer cost effective to resurrect it, and I need to figure out with what I'll replace it. The 17" Mac Book Pro is looking better and better, especially now that Rhino 3D is coming out in a native Mac version. I'm with the posters in that thread who don't want to be forced into using Illustrator all the time. Been there, done that, really didn't like it.

Thanks for the link Remi. I had not thought about VirtualBox.

The supported OS list is impressive. OS2 Warp is a blast from the past.

About 13 years ago the company I worked for had six machines running OS2 Warp to provide a Windows interface to the Unix like OS we ran on DEC 7000 minicomputers. The call center operators used windows computers in their cubicles. The OS2 machines translated the Windows requests for the DEC 7000s and created custom Windows forms to be sent to the Windows machines.

All the virtual machine approaches have one big drawback: they require that you install sloppy Windoze on a perfect machine and OS. In addition, you need a licence of Windoze which adds up to the overall costs.

Let's do the math: VMWare Fusion 2 some 80 Euros, plus Windoze XP Pro some 160 Euros, plus Xara Xtreme Pro some 180 Euros I guess (didn't check the prices for a long time though)

Total investment around 420 Euros plus the hassle and time to install the buggy Windoze plus the space it's eating up on your hard drive.

NOPE.

I'd rather spend 300 Euros for a XaraMac version and have a CLEAN system.

I blew right past Remi's post when mine went to page two. That link certainly looks very interesting, thanks!

I admire the purity of your convictions, jens! ;)

Installing Windows on a Mac works well, either using Bootcamp or one of the virtualisation products. Any perceived impurity of Windows does not affect Mac OS in any way and a decent modern hard drive has plenty of capacity for both. So you get the best of both worlds.

Does Xtreme run on Bootcamp? Yes. Several of us Xara developers actually /develop/ the program on Bootcamp on Macs. Please don't get too excited by that revelation, though. It doesn't mean that a native Mac version is any closer.

What I'm saying is, if you want to run Xtreme on Mac OS now, there's no need to be afraid of installing Windows on a Mac. It's a workable and pragmatic solution.

Phil

Thanks, Phil. Given that the Mac Book I was looking at has over 300GB on the standard drive methinks disk space isn't a problem--and I have about a terabyte of plug-in portables for data in case it becomes one. :D

I'm a huge Xara fan--have been using it continuously since 1995. But sadly it does not run well under CrossOver, which is kind of a bummer, considering I'm the COO of CodeWeavers. I have very cordial relations with Charles at Xara, and I test their stuff on our stuff every so often, but the bottom line is that it would take engineering hours here at the ranch to make Xara go, and the engineers are all working on product-related stuff and/or paying work for big customers. Hence, no go.

One of these days it'll just start to work, I'll bet. That's the way of things with Wine: you fix a bug in App A and suddenly Apps X, Y, and Z start running as well. So my sense is that it's gonna start working at some point. But that point isn't right now, sadly.

Thanks for your interest in the topic.

Cheers,

-jon parshall-
COO
www.codeweavers.com
"Your Mac/Windows solution"

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Originally Posted by Jparshall

but the bottom line is that it would take engineering hours here at the ranch to make Xara go

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But wouldn't that result in more sales for crossover?

Marc

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Originally Posted by Spinny

What if we were okay with installing a buggy OS over a nice one? Has anyone had success running Xtreme on a Mac either with VMWare or Boot Camp? Certainly less than an ideal situation, but is it possible?

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I run it on VMWare and it runs just fine. No problems at all. But that means I have to install Windows, and there are issues with clipboard interoperability. That's why I was interested in Luke's experience running under Wine / Crossover Office; Luke seems to have had more success than Codeweavers have.

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Originally Posted by abligh

I run it on VMWare ... and there are issues with clipboard interoperability.

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Ah; that's potentially troubling. Thanks for the info!

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Originally Posted by Spinny

Ah; that's potentially troubling. Thanks for the info!

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To be clear, the clipboard works fine between Xtreme and other apps running under VMWare. It does not appear to work reliably between Xtreme and native Mac apps. For instance, copying a bitmap from a web browser running as a native Mac app, then pasting into Xtreme does not appear to work reliably.

To focus on that one example: how is copying it to the desktop first, then dragging the resulting file into Xtreme?

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Originally Posted by Spinny

To focus on that one example: how is copying it to the desktop first, then dragging the resulting file into Xtreme?

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For bitmaps, it works fine so long as the bitmap is saved to the disk and imported. If VMWare shares a desktop between Mac and Windows (it may well do but I don't have mine configured that way), that would work too. As would saving it to the Mac desktop, then either using import (and finding it on the 'shared' drive which is your exported OS-X home) or finding the file in Windows Explorer in that share and dragging it.

For vectors, this depends on having a compatible vector format. I've had reasonable success importing OS-X generated PDFs.

Thanks. This issue is of more than just academic interest to me, if I make the switch, as I'd be needing to transfer vector paths (in .eps or .ai format) from Xtreme to native Mac modeling apps.

Xtreme's ability to import/export .eps or .ai should not be affected by whether it's running under VMWare or natively. When I said I'd had success with PDF, that didn't mean I'd tried and failed with .eps / .ai :)

Cool. Many thanks for all the insight! :cool: