The NEW Xara X1 Feature Request List!!

[RAMWolff44]

Just thought I'd start this out.

1) PLEASE give us a little more control over the Glow/Shadow Tool. A slider and/or type box would make this area of the tool MUCH improved!!

When dragging the glow outwards I don't see any way to control it to exact points (as you have control over the blur and transparency) so sometimes on a complex object pulling a glow outwards (or inwards) can be time consuming for it to draw itself and most of the time it's either too large or too small!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/frown.gif If a slider and/or type box were provided this area would be just about perfect!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

2) A Mesh Tool would really come in handy for when you want to create a fill that "flows" with curved areas that are not exactly perfect ovals or rectangles (including circles and square shapes).

3) and one that will get a whole new slew of mixed reviews but it's my wish so there!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif A built in Spell Checker!

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

[J B Lansing]

Hi,
Its been awhile since I was here. And now there ia a new version of XaraX. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif Anyway I thought I would pass on a request. I work for Battleship Cove and we have ten seats of XaraX that are used in a program in which local teachers creat informational panels to be displayed at the Cove. The problem is we generate about 20 panels a year each with a great deal of text. The panels end up going through a number of revisions to bring them up to the Cove's standards. Under these conditions geting everything spelled correctly is a problem. This is especially true as I am not a good speller. So.... It would be really great if XaraX had a spell checker. I know that Corel has one. I suspect it came from their old AmiPro word processor. Or, is there some way to use a stand alone spell checker? Anyway the new Xara seems to have answered many of my other wishes. But this one is big for me and remains
J B

[amoore]

> I know that Corel has one. I suspect it came from their old AmiPro word processor.

AmiPro was Lotus. AFAIK, Corel never had anything to do with it. Perhaps you meant WordPerfect?

[daybe]

A few features I would like to see added to XaraX1 are: ( some of these have already been mentioned)

1. batch export - for instance the ability to to select a folder containing a number of xara files and have the ability to automatically open and export each one at a set size and extension and color depth.

2. Spell Checker

3. Mesh gradient parameter similar to Illustrator

4. When exporting I would like to see an option for export canvas, regardless of objects outside of the page area. (used to be in Corel Xara)

5. Style Sheets, Set parameters for objects such as strokes, fills, text and so on.

6. Text control, including tabs, bullets, formatting and so on.

7. An extrude or sweep feature would be cool.

8. The ability to add additional shortcut keys would be cool as well.

I think that will just about do it for me.

Dave

[RAMWolff44]

Dan,

I think you can already partially do this in Xara X1.

Select your objec, double click on it for rotate selection and then the point of origin is in the center. You can then move it out so that the object can be rotated AROUND it's point of origin instead of rotating it in it's CENTER of origin.

I'm not at all sure what you could be referring to with wanting to rotate a selected point (node ? )? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[amoore]

I prefer to use the mouse wheel for scrolling. I get very unhappy when I apply a tad too much pressure and it zooms instead of scrolls.

I'd prefer an option for turning the mouse zoom on and off.

[bertcat]

Double clicking on a layer should open up the properties for that layer with the layer name selected to make it easy to rename it.

Yes, standard keys cannot be used when entering text, but I can live with that - I usually use the spacebar to choose the Select tool which has the same drawbacks but hasn't been a problem so far.

[bertcat]

A couple of minor things to go in a Xara 1.2 :

Keyboard access on the layer gallery - arrow keys should select layers, ctrl+arrow keys should move the selected layer up and down.

'Get lines...' on the line gallery, the same as the clipart and fill galleries, to download more line types.

[RAMWolff44]

I still think it's a great idea to have an Object Gallery introduced. Each object would be present with a plus sign and when clicked on all the effects, fills and transparencied would be listed with the option to right click within the Object Gallery to edit (in case the object is buried under other objects, makes the work flow much nicer!)

Also something else I am not happy with currently and I'm not sure if this is fixable. If you have a bunch of layers with objects on each layer and you grab them and group them they are brought to the layer that is selected and when ungrouped they are not returned to their previous layer heiarchy. That's really not good for me. Working on the kind of project like the "Universal Being" makes it so I NEED to group and ungroup all the time to move objects that need to be lined up properly at all times but when I ungroup them I have to one by one move them back to their respective layer. ACK!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/eek.gif I know I could grab them all and NOT group them but there are instances where there is a NEED to group and ungroup so this 'side effect' is not a favorite of mine. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[jwhitham]

A huge ditto to stratocast's not letting me add objects to locked layers. I must have done that at least three times a day for the last ten years, and it was definitely a factor in the breakup of my marriage.

John