Xara X on Linux

[Charles Moir]

While I would really like to see Xara X implemented on both Linux and MacOS X this is unlikely to happen in the short term (unless someone gives us half a million dollars which is what I'd guess it would cost to create a true port).

However there is another route to getting Xara X on Linux that may be a lot easier, and that's via WINE which is a sort of Windows emulator for Linux. Codeweavers is a company that creates a commercial version that's aimed at supporting specific applications, mainly MS Office. But they are now expanding their horizons and looking to create support for further applications, and they have a place on their website where you can vote for your fave app to be supported by Codeweavers / WINE.

I know there are a few Linux fans active on this forum, so if anyone fancies voting for Xara X, this is web page:
http://www.codeweavers.com/site/comp...ame?app_id=281

Actually there are some real Xara fans in Codeweavers. The top app has only 44 votes. CorelDRAW has just 9 votes! So you never know if we can get some support for Xara X this might be a way to make it happen on Linux.

[Charles Moir]

While I would really like to see Xara X implemented on both Linux and MacOS X this is unlikely to happen in the short term (unless someone gives us half a million dollars which is what I'd guess it would cost to create a true port).

However there is another route to getting Xara X on Linux that may be a lot easier, and that's via WINE which is a sort of Windows emulator for Linux. Codeweavers is a company that creates a commercial version that's aimed at supporting specific applications, mainly MS Office. But they are now expanding their horizons and looking to create support for further applications, and they have a place on their website where you can vote for your fave app to be supported by Codeweavers / WINE.

I know there are a few Linux fans active on this forum, so if anyone fancies voting for Xara X, this is web page:
http://www.codeweavers.com/site/comp...ame?app_id=281

Actually there are some real Xara fans in Codeweavers. The top app has only 44 votes. CorelDRAW has just 9 votes! So you never know if we can get some support for Xara X this might be a way to make it happen on Linux.

[RAMWolff44]

Hi Charles,

The only problem I had getting XaraX to run on Mandrake Linux 9.0 with WINE was the font itself is so proprietary that the WINE engine couldn't do anything with it so I could draw a shape but the shape was not present because there was no way for it to draw an outline around it and I guess the font has something to do with lines and line widths (am I right or wrong here). It's the only thing I and one other Linux guru could think of when we were playing around with XaraX on Linux VIA WINE.

Do you think in the new release of XaraX that you could make the Xara font TrueType instead of the .fon type?? This way if we could rule out this as one of the possibilities then we could get a bit closer to making it a reality! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

I would gladly take up the cause again if I was sure this was not an obstacle!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Many thanks! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Richard http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com//Publi..._Prowl_sig.gif

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com/RAMWolffsWorld

[Sheff]

I voted as well and I would like to know how goes the progress on the update for the PC. Can you give us a ballpark ETA?

Sheff
www.sheff.com

[jon spain]

Democracy is amazing, one vote (6 to 7) increased the rank from 22 to 16. Charles, please answer Sheff on the PC, though!

Jon

[Michael]

CodeWeavers is a firm which is trying to do the same as the OpenSource WINE has been doing for years. In fact, they based most of their code on the wine code.

What this means: WINE is a set of programs that delivers Windows(TM) programs services they need to run. For instance; if a program starts it needs to have some screen to put it's window on, so it sends a request to the underlying operating system (Windows(tm) ) to gfree up some space. If the programs wants to open a file, it asks the OS to open a dialogue box, and so forth and so forth. All these calls, services and procedures are windows specific and generally well documented by Microsoft(c)

The windowmanager running on Linux (r) is mostly XFree86. And XFree doesn't deliver these calls etc. So, that is where WINE steps in. WINE intercepts the calls that windows(tm) programs places and translates them to Linux specific routines and services.

If you would like to run Xara X under LInux, than all you have to do is to head straight to www.winehq.org and download the latest release.

Xara X is running under Linux, albeit with some issues. (It shows that Xara was coded very neatly and clean. Cuddo's to all the programmaers that were coding at that time at Gaddesden Place ...) You will find more information at http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?appId=787

I would suggest to have a look at WINE instead of CodeWeavers, in the spirit of the Linux community. It's always better to have a free alternative and to help it develop than to leave the development of these programs in the hands of the likes of CodeWeaver

Oh, Carles, would you also do it for €400,000.= ?

[Charles Moir]

We're continuing to work on the X1 update. I wish I could give an ETA, but you'd hold me to it. We hope relatively soon. This is not a major update and of course there are a load of things that we'd all like to see, but that won't make it into this release. We'll continue working on it.

Interesting point about the xarafont.fon. That's a bitmap hand-tuned font we use to put the small text in the Infobar fields etc. I'll ask the question as to how easy it is to use a more traditional TrueType font. However we do read TrueType outlines for almost all font rendering and so if they don't support that fully that might be a large stumbling block.

I suspect we're about to make WINE compatibility a bit more difficult as we're now using GDI+ in some small areas (getting high quality icons) and I bet WINE doesn't begin to support that. Still that winehq.org actually shows a screenshot of Xara X running on Linux (albeit after a bit of messing around), but that's rather encouraging.

[ivan louette]

That's Great news Charles !!!

kindly,
ivan http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

My mini-tutorials
botarosa

[Sheff]

Charles,

In all seriousness, will the update be released this year (2004)? Surely you can answer that with a yes or no.

And if so, what version of illustrator export will it support?

If you cannot answer with what WILL be in the update/next version, can you tell us what WILL NOT be in the update? That will help us who are in the position of needing to buy software to accomplish tasks that Xara will not.

I think that's not asking too much.

Sheff
www.sheff.com

[Charles Moir]

Sorry but updated Illustrator export is not on the agenda for X1. We think this is pretty major task, too much for the X1 timescale, which is definitely 2004. It is however very high on the priority list (as is better Photoshop export).

I really don't want to get into Q&A of what is / is not in X1 or later versions. We hear your requests. It all goes into the big melting of ideas and work priorities.