Xara Co. READ THIS!

[Steve Newport]

To anyone and everyone who works at Xara building this amazing program, this is for you!
I would just like to make a suggestion on future development of Xara. Please take thorough consideration into the idea of making Xara X and future versions compatible with Macintosh. I was talking with my Mom and she said I really need to start working with other programs because no big companies use Xara!! And the realization hit me, I may not be able to use Xara in my future jobs! I can't even imagine using anything but Xara, it would be such a downgrade to have to go to illustrator or freehand. I've worked with both and thumbs down to both for ability and ease. Please for the good of the country, make it available on MAC so it can be more widely used and recognized so more people will accept it as a proffessional vector graphics program! Thanks for your time [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Steve Newport

[Steve Newport]

To anyone and everyone who works at Xara building this amazing program, this is for you!
I would just like to make a suggestion on future development of Xara. Please take thorough consideration into the idea of making Xara X and future versions compatible with Macintosh. I was talking with my Mom and she said I really need to start working with other programs because no big companies use Xara!! And the realization hit me, I may not be able to use Xara in my future jobs! I can't even imagine using anything but Xara, it would be such a downgrade to have to go to illustrator or freehand. I've worked with both and thumbs down to both for ability and ease. Please for the good of the country, make it available on MAC so it can be more widely used and recognized so more people will accept it as a proffessional vector graphics program! Thanks for your time [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Steve Newport

[gwpriester]

Steve

This should be the other way around.

Joe Skesick, who drops in from time to time, was working at an all Macintosh design shop with about a dozen designers using Illustrator and Freehand. When they saw some of the stuff that Joe was able to do in Xara, they broke down and purchased a few PCs so they could also run Xara.

We need to show the people we work with what Xara can do. We have nothing to apologize for.

And your mom can point out that Xara got a glowing review in Communication Arts Magazine (the one graphics magazine that just about every design professional reads and swaers by), this month and the reviewer said it was a really cool application. (of course the reviewer might have been a wee bit predudiced :-)

It goes without saying, of course, that a Mac version would remove all resistence, but I do not think that is in the cards.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

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XaraXone


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[heimo]

I thinkt that everey softwareproducer like that plays in the liga Xara plays now should not be afraid to learn new programming-tecnics for the interfaces of Apple, linux and others.
The number of poeple which would use Xara- would get close to the one of Photoshop (apologise me to use that name here...)
USE THAT CHANCE!
I personally use Win2k, but with certain things about microsofts politics, i think about ending my microsoft-using. For Example - i bought an Cassiopeia E 125G Pocket-PC - Casio- about 3 month ago.
I liked to read my e-books there on the MS-Reader.
Now - Microsoft upgrades to nwe Win2002 for PocketPC an there is no chance to upgrade my NEW Casio, because Microsoft does not support the Chip which is used in this thing in the future - it is a Mips-Chip. So i cant read new bought e-books there - i would have to by a new Pocket-PC!
If i had not found other Readers, i would have to throw it away - for that purose - So that cant be!

I downloadet Staroffice 6 beta from www.sun.com/staroffice instead of using Microsofts office , which i have bought last Year, and could read in the license-text that they dont want this software for the use with nuclear plants..-a big reason to use staroffice - not microsoft..

If Xara would run on Linux or Apple without restrictions , i would have changed my system a long time ago.

Xara is one purpose, Archicad the other! - But Archicad runs on Mac too!

greetings from Austra!

[FrankSA]

I have never learnt any of the other mentioned programs than XaraX (CorelXara). I'm not in the industri and far from a professionel, but I create a lot of printed material like posters, flyers and brochures using XaraX, and I face the problem everytime I send something off for print: We don't know the file format, please send in IA, Quark or PageMaker format. Sorry guyes. That's not possible, but if you are happy with a 300 dpi TIFF in true color and no compression, that's what I can give you, and that's what they all accept! I deliver the same high quality for print as others.

I have had proffesional printers and AD's calling back asking about the program I'm using, and if someone happens to know Xara they are not really exited, but there is nothing wrong with the work I delivers.

I'll keep using Xara as I use to, and I'll send out TIFF's as long as noone in the industry can read my fileformat.

Maybe one day! Maybe....

Only for the fun of IT.

[ashwinjain]

I totally agree, I have been sending 300dpi tiffs for a few weeks now and everythig is hunky dory.Till they do it, we still have a way!

Q

[Erik Heyninck]

Steve, in one way your mom is right, but she sees the situation as it "is" now. I mean: she sees how it is presented by the Mac -orientated industry.

Lost of them know that the battle has been lost. Indeed: in the beginnings, PC was horrible and no-one with a romantic/artistic mind could or would work with it. And then came Apple with their Mac which was easy to use etc. No thinking, and everything visually represented. Apple gave Macs to lots of design schools. So a tradition was created: Mac, Illustrator and Photoshop.

But PC evolved, and nowadays Mac holds only some 5% of the market.
Their fanaticism is a sign of fear, because if you're not the best anymore, others make take your piece of cake.
Personally I dislike the idea of a Windows (read Microsoft) dominated computerworld, but Mac isn't the future.
As a transition, there is software like Maclan which allows you to run Windows software on Mac.
But more and more design shops now accept PC, often because they can't do otherwise. I even know a prepress/printer who is becoming quite rich because he works for and with people who come with PC designs.

The toughest part is the real industry, those that sell Mac orientated tools for making offset films etc as they have to change their production line AND their belief-system.

The guilt of printers is a very conservative one -except for being motor driven, the process was the same in the nineteen-seventies as it was hundreds of years before. The use of computers is not yet twenty years old. Believe me: the next few years, there will be revolutions with an impact that makes a hydrogen bomb look like childs' play.

Xara is ready for the future: low energy processors, small, handy software etc, etc.
No, in my opinion, if Xara wants to add a new platform, they'd better choose Linux.

My idea.

[Sheff]

Considering the fact that most of the printing industry still uses Macs, what does Xara have to lose by porting it to OS X or Linux?

If anything, they will gain a foot hold where they had none before. How convenient will it become to bring a PC disc with a Xara file to a printer who is then able to open it on his Mac without any loss in translation?

Since OS X is based on Unix, Xara can then be ported to Linux and gain a foothold there. Not being familiar with Linux, is there any dominant vector program for that operating system? All I know about Linux is that it's open source and it's practical. There is a great article about Open source vs. Microsoft at:

Bill Gates Gives Open Source a Boost

Personally I am frustrated with Windows. Xara is the ONLY app that has kept me on a Windows PC. Yes I've worked with Macs in the past, and they too have their own share of problems, but I would have appreciated having a choice.

I just don't see the logic of being adamantly married to one platform. Diversity and competition are necessary to innovation and progress.

Look at Adobe and Macromedia. Their products (you can argue which ones are superior and which ones are not) are available on both platforms. I'm sure that if they only sold a PC version or a Mac version they would lose a significant amount of revenue.

Gary wrote a terrific article about Xara in Communication Arts, but how many designers (assuming they are on a Mac) are going to run out, buy a PC just so that they can check out Xara's 30 day trial? At best they might try and find a friend with a PC who's willing to do that for them. And what's the likelyhood of that friend being adept with Xara? And if they are convinced that Xara is a great program to have use and merits the purchase of a PC, will they then buy all the PC versions of Photoshop, Quark, Dreamweaver, etc.?

In spite of showing an Illustrator/Mac die hard how cool Xara is, the notion of switching platforms is almost insurmountable. I just think that the cost of switching for all your OTHER software is too cost prohibitive to be practical.

Until Xara can run on a Mac or Linux, I don't think it will ever give Illustrator a run for it's money. Now that's not a reflection on how good the program is, it's just an observation on what I think it takes to change an industry.

I think Apple will continue to dominate the printing industry for some time to come. Even to this day, I am told that I must deliver Quark files on a Mac disc. Change will be slow. (if it ain't broke, don't fix it)

Do I go out and buy a Mac? Not necessarily. I build the files I need and take it to a friend who has one. I only need a Mac and Quark once or twice a year.

But regarding this whole Windows XP thing and required registration. I'm not convinced that I need it and I doubt that I will get another Windows operating system ever again. If anything, I am considering a Mac or Linux.

It would be nice to take my favorite apps along with me but as long as Xara is strictly PC, I have no choice in the matter. Other than running a virtual operating system under another operating system.

I guess what I'm saying is that I would like a choice. The freedom to choose a reliable operating system regardless of the hardware I now possess and the ability to buy software and applications that are cross platform.

The arguement which is better either PC or Mac can rage on without me. I would just like to be able to make informed decisions on my own.

If Xara were to port to Mac or Linux I think that we will all benefit as consumers and designers.

Sheffield Abella
sheff@sheff.com
www.sheff.com

[RAMWolff44]

Hi,

I have used Windows (Winblows to Linux users [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] )
for as long as I have had a computer. I used BeOS untill it's demise and I used Linux (Mandrake for this boy) and an still receiveing the Mandrake newsletter, and when Linux is more improved I will venture into that pasture again.

Even using Win2000, I still have crashes and what not. I don't "push" the system and it IS optimized but it still freezes up and what not. I DON'T like Microsoft dominating the scene and their politics SUCK big time!!! But this is what we have, and yet there are other options out there, whether it be on PC or MAC fomats.

Xara SHOULD consider releasing versions that are compatible with MAC and Linux. There is no lesson to teach the world, it is allowing the world the opportunity to use a peice of vector software that far outweighs any of the more expensive ones. When Linux gets it together more and more, they are already backed by some of the big guns, and I KNOW that other software makers will port or write versions for Linux. MAC is already there!!

Xara Ltd. would be smart to consider this. At least CONSIDER it for crying out loud. Don't cut off your nose despite your face.

If this is not possible then Xara Ltd. SHOULD consider adding in the ability to save work in different file formats like some that were mentioned here already. Esp. if there is a possibility of even clearer, better production and printing. And why not also, while we're at it import similar file formats. XaraX has greater possibilties and they should be looked into and implimented. It's only going to increase sales and popularity!!!

Just my thoughts, it's important enough!!!!

RAMWolff

[Klaus Nordby]

I don't think any of you port-XX-to-the-Mac people understands the economics of this: Xara is small company, about 35 employees, specialized in 32bit Windows programming. Given that important chunks of the code is in assembly, which is platform specific, to port XX to the Max would be a MAJOR financial investment. And all for what? To reach the reactionary 5% of computer uses who still cling to the Mac!


K