Is "talkgraphics.com" the best place to discuss XaraXtreme ?

[shiphen]

Hi

Is "talkgraphics.com" the best place to discuss Xara Xtreme ?

I think Xara is an EXCELLENT product but am disappointed
to find so few online discussions going on about it.
(e.g. I couldnt find much on groups.google.com)

Is this the only decent place to discuss Xara Xtreme online?

With thanks


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

[The Alien]

What discussions are you talking about?
This place has been used a lot for graphics related discussions.
I dunno if there are a lot of people here who want to discuss whether it was a good choice of Xara to go open source with Xtreme. I am willing to discuss this, but I'm concerned that these discussions will turn out into a flame war tbh

I believe there's also a mailing list of the development of Xara LX.

[jamesmc]

<soapbox> You can make your own user group. Google even offers you an email address.

As far as having other Web pages devoted solely to Xara, I don't think anyone could top Gary Priester's XaraXone. He sort of has a 8 year headstart.

The reason why programs like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop have many Webpages is stale mindset. People are convinced if they pay hundreds of dollars for a program it will somehow make them better.

Also, people squiggling for a buck, pound or eurodollar love programs like Adobe puts out. Why? Because the programs are unnecessarily overly complicated and the money hungry can write books, have blogs, open up Websites and be consultants all to the benefit of lining their own pockets.

It's great that a rare program like Xara exists. It has a beautifully designed interface with ease of use, 80 built in movies and support like TalkGraphics and XaraXone.

I think of Xara like the Rolls Royce jet engine. A lot of people are unaware of the powerful engine what makes an illustration fly. When they find out that its a Xara engine, they flock directly to the source. All the while getting accurate, first-hand information from experts like the moderators here and of course the Developers themselves.

Try that with an Adobe product and you'll get lost in a sea of menus, Web links and mindnumbing redundancy in filling out online forms in triplicate.

In a few words why there are few Websites about Xara?

Simplicity, Power and Concentrated Knowledge.


note: Yeah, I realize that products like Adobe have set standards in printing and the like. I just dislike their forcing it down everyone's throat and then hiding compliant code under copyright so no one develop even better alternatives. There could be much much better formats than PDF and in time the people would decide what is the best standard. Or one could be like Corel and swallow up their competition by purchasing their company. Then Corel takes the best out of that product line, discontinues the product and that product's support in order to maintain their fat Corporate posteriors.

</soapbox>

[gwpriester]

Not sure what your question is Ship.

There have been numerous discussions about the pros and cons of Xtreme in this conference, and some have been pretty heated.

But this is not a conference whose mission is primarily to find fault with Xtreme. New members can introduce themselves and ask questions. Older users can show off their work and share tips and tricks. Members for the most part are supportive and appreciative of Xara the power it brings to the users.

I'm not being defensive, I just don't understand your question.

Gary

[pauland]

I think Xara is an EXCELLENT product but am disappointed
to find so few online discussions going on about it.
(e.g. I couldnt find much on groups.google.com)

Is this the only decent place to discuss Xara Xtreme online?

Considering that talkgraphics really does have the attention of the Xara developers and the real experts in using Xara, I can't imagine why you would be dissappointed. If you need an answer or advice, this is the place to come. I'd rather go to one site than ten to get what I want.

The forums here are really well run, expert advice and encouragement abound. What more could you want?

Paul

[shiphen]

Background Yes I rather fellin love with "Xara" back when I saw it demo-ed at a show and it was called "XaraStudio" (i.e. before Corel tried to kill it off by acquiring it and then failing to promote/develop it).

Back free again Xara Xtreme is pretty good I agree - though certain things still bug the heck out of me after all this time: (e.g. the stupidly short view of font names which ends up meaning that if you have longer font names installed on your PC, then you can't see which they are; e.g. the way arrows dont have a handle at their point; e.g. the way exporting to GIF works - number of colours possible is crude, and it ALWAYS defaults to transparency every time you reopen Xara; the way the drawing tools and handles in general aren't very clever - and make actual technical drawing supidly hard...
Incidentally it would be great to turn have a mode that lets the user turn it into a full-on technical drawing package with popup rulers and intelligent suggestions such as tangents, 90 deg perpendicular lines being suggested etc. And another useful direction it could go in would be to have a mode where boxes INTELLIGENTLY knew which were connected to each other - something like a flow diagraming package. I would have hoped such things would have been developed
as bolt-on options that wouldnt really complicate the interface because it would only be available if you pressed some kind of Advanced User button... but I digress!)

But yes, I love XARA's intuitivenss and it's speed of rendering. And the fact that you can do most things you OUGHT to be able to do - e.g. add transparency as and when you want it - without very many limits.

BUT, no, for a place to discuss stuff to work one needs a reasonable volume of participants and I was wondering where they all are!?
Presumably here and "XARAZONE.com" is it?

I still think it's strange to find XARA missing from groups.google.com -if it were more in evidence it might end up getting more sales too!



Ship
Shiperton Henethe

[gwpriester]

Good points. And if you do a seach on these conference for Wish List you will see hundreds of similar excellent suggestions.

As for Groups.Google or Yahoo Groups, why not start one?

The Xara Xone is not a conference, it is a resource that has over 10 years of step-by-step tutorials, guest tutorials, tips, free stuff, featured artists, and more. The Xara Xone.

Gary

[shiphen]

Hmm OK and how often do any of these hundreds of excellent suggestions get turned into reality?!


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

P.S. I'm unfamiliar with this word "conference" in the online world. What's the difference between a "conference" and everthing else , e.g. a "group", a "bulletin board", "discussion list" etc etc

[pauland]

Hmm OK and how often do any of these hundreds of excellent suggestions get turned into reality?!

Ouch..

P.S. I'm unfamiliar with this word "conference" in the online world. What's the difference between a "conference" and everthing else , e.g. a "group", a "bulletin board", "discussion list" etc etc

No real difference at all.

Paul

[jamesmc]

Hmm OK and how often do any of these hundreds of excellent suggestions get turned into reality?!


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

P.S. I'm unfamiliar with this word "conference" in the online world. What's the difference between a "conference" and everthing else , e.g. a "group", a "bulletin board", "discussion list" etc etc

Well Ship, dunno the answer to that question. Only been using Xara since Jan of this year.

I used to program many years ago, Assembly, Basic, Visual Basic and Pascal (no laughing out there from the real programmers! )

I made some very basic programs that did a few things. It extracted database objects and put them into diagram tree forms. In my case, it was taking GEDCOMS (genealogy files) and making those fancy lineage trees. I was able to add a few functions like choice of tree style, page format and printer options.

However, after get a gazillion emails from people complaining about why it wouldn't do this and that, and it messed up on doing that or this, I gave up on the projects. The main reason is that I didn't have the resources to know every kind of printer there was, nor the complexities of different Window Versions and all those other issues that programming is involved with. It was freeware afterall and I just didn't have time, the knowledge or the resources to support all the requests.

With that long-winded explanation, let me filter this out a bit to what you are stating. Developers have a vision of their product. In Xara's case, they want their programs to be sleek, lightning fast and easy to use. They have achieved this through years of trial and error, blood, sweat and tears.

They most likely have a developer's list of things to do of known bugs, as well as a list of things to do for features not fully implemented or poorly implemented. It's just a fact of life that these things exist.

With hundreds of requests, they have to sort these out, prioritize them and then see if it fits within the vision of their program. Also, there may be other factors, too numerous to mention here.

Now, for the programming part. I think Charles Moir said something like a million lines of code exist for modules of the Xara engine. I would fall over dead just looking at the code, nevermind trying to figure something out to change it.

Program design is one of the hardest thing to do on the planet. There are many excellent programmers out there, but very few good program designers. When you get one that can do both, it is rare. That rarity exists at Xara.

Like I said before, the are other options, plugins (make your own), use software supplements and etc. Use Xara as a powerful tool and perhaps not an endall solution for every software problem that exists?

Anyway, nice to meet you and as you can tell I graduated from the University of Verbose.