Broaden Xara X's appeal

[bluehat]

What is Extreme? - can't seem to find it on the website.

[bluehat]

John, please disregard the previous message - I just saw the other messages referring to Extreme. I'll try to download it instead of X1.

[jriemerm]

I second the request for underlined text. With all Xara's extraordinary advanced features and performance, virtually every graphics program in the world has it beat here.

This has often been dismissed as unimportant because there are other ways (italic, bold) to emphasize text, but this is wrong. Underlining is a central visual symbol on the web, meaning "clickable", and Xara should have added this in years ago.

[John Rayner]

Now we all have a reason to set up a linux box, just so we can fix the nagging whittle crap that drives us nuts...

That is what I plan to do... Will probably run both for a while... then goodbye windoze and good riddance!

[RedWombat]

After reading through this thread, it appears you have 3 groups of people here with different needs, some of which overlap.

You have:
Artists - Focused on Art, used for online or in print
Web Designers - Focused more exclusively online
Graphic Designers - Focused more exclusively in print and layout

As it is, Xtreme is great for the Artist set, but really lacking for the Web and Graphic Designers who need layout capabilities.

And more often then not in this time, these groups overlap. For example, I am all three at times.

Charles, you need to identify which group is your target, or is it all three?

If it's all three, you really need to get more integration with the apps Xara makes first, or integration with a 3rd party product.

I'll tell you, when I'm web designing for a client, I'm jumping all over the place with apps just to get the job done. I'm usually provided some artwork in an illustrator file another graphic artist put together for a print job, which I have turn into a Flash app, then a navigation menu, and then the static images used. And this is if the site is static and I'm not building a database and backend coding. It's nice to be the only one on a project pulling it together, you definitly have more control, but quite frequently you end up working with others, sometimes even from the Mac platform. :-)

When I'm designing a multi-page marketing booklet, I have to do the layout somewhere else, because Xtreme or X makes it unrealistic to use for this type of work. The absolute biggest need in this area for my work is to have Multiple Pages!

You guys have built a fantastic product for the Artist, vector that is!

You just need to decide where the product is going to go. If it's going to be for the Graphic Designer, look at more layout and blocks of text handling, if the Web is the focus, integrate more with the tools those folks are using, or enhance the integration with your products.

Maybe you don't want all this in Xtreme because it will bloat it up to much. Then either build another app that can tie in tight with Xtreme or partner up with a company that does and make Xtreme and that product work flawlessly together.

I want my apps to play well together

If it were my company, tail around some pros while they work and take a few notes at what products they are using and how they're using them. A forum reply is great, but watching them work is better!

Just my 2 cents.

As for what you really asked for: I DO NOT use X or now Xtreme for Layout. I do use it for many other types of work, but only as one place in the many hoops I have to jump through to get my projects done, NOT as the one app I would choose to produce most of my work in. It's one app in an arsenal of many. I think you want Xtreme to be the first app we would choose when trying to pull together any type of project.

Lastly, my apologies to the group for typing so darn much. It just came out! :-)

Red

[John Rayner]

Ummm... Red,

I have been using Xara for web design for almost 10 years... I have never had any problems using xara to create just what I need. Where does xara fail you when it comes to web design?

[BONES]

I have been using and evangelising Xara for years. The things that I need to go elsewhere for these days are few but significant. Those that I feel Xara should be able to do are:

- better layout for text. Most of it has been mentioned already but things like columns, tabs and multi-page documents always force me back to CorelDRAW.

- better object selection tools. Things like a circular selection marquee and the ability to choose to select objects that overlap the marquee would make it much faster to work with in many situations.

- more complex gradient fills. Specifically the ability to create multiple colours across the fill, like Illustrator, Draw, Photoshop, etc.

- better Illustator/eps export. I usually send TIFF's to the printer as its the only safe way to ensure that everything comes out right. That makes it tough when I'm working for clients overseas but there is no way around it. Maybe the new PDF publish thing will be a big help here, I am yet to test it.

Then there are the things that I go elsewhere for that I really don't see that I should want to do in Xara:

- colour correction. The XPE is a toy that seems to be aimed at amateur photographers. I do all my colour correction work in either PhotoPaint or Combustion.

- most animation. I do create the odd animated GIF button in Xara but any serious vector animation gets done in Combustion's Paint operator where there is far greater control over animation.

But if you want my advice as to where Xara could make a huge impact I would have to say in Motion Graphics and rotoscoping for film/TV visual effects. If you could come up with a good animation system [i.e. NOT like Flash or AfterFX but more like 3D app's] you could have a seriously useful tool that you could charge proper money for.

So what do I use XaraX1 for?

- all my GUI work for music applications like ORION and VST instrument plugins that I make.

- CD covers. I've made complete CD artwork in Xara X for 6 albums in the last couple of years, using a combination of bitmaps and vector work that I could never have done so efficiently anywhere else.

- web design. I mock up web pages in Xara X before creating HTML in PageMill [or eventually in R.A.V.E.]. Maybe that is something else that Xara could do? I also use the nav bar tool and make all other graphic elements that I use on web work in Xara, except .swf stuff which comes from Combustion.

- invoices. I do all my invoices and most correspondance in Xara X, unless it needs lots of layout things that Xara cannot easily do.

- general print work. I design artwork for night clubs [posters, flyers, newspaper ads] and t-shirts in Xara X. I keep mu clients because I can work so much more efficiently than anyone else, thanks to Xara X's unique blend of vector/bitmap workflow.