A debate for adults.

[MarkMyWords]

An attempt was made in another thread to raise a serious discussion about Xara as it is and how it has developed. Predictably some got a little over-defensive and over-stepped the mark, the thread was closed.

I will attempt to raise the question again. Please do not take this as a personal attack or simply say "go and use something else", we all know the alternatives, this discussion is about Xara Xtreme, I'm sure we are all capable of a discussion without resorting to silliness. If the theme bores you then move on, vote with your feet, so to speak. There is no need to let everyone know how exasperated you are about those who want to raise this topic, O.K?

Firstly Xtreme is excellent, it is very, very fast and intuitive to use, of these things there is no doubt. To address the points raised in the other thread; Have the recent refinements to Xtreme been far less than they should have been and is Xara a good competitor for either Photoshop or Illustrator?

Well, I'm a newcomer so I cannot say too much about how far Xtreme has come over the years, nor how useful, or not, the latest additions have been.

But some things many think a professional graphics programme should have are missing. I have bored many in the past about the need for an actions/macro recorder and how it would make most workarounds a one-click solution, so I wont say any more about that.

Does Xtreme compete with Pshop or Illustrator?

Well it certainly is not aimed at the Pshop market, so that would seem a redundant question. Except when you take into account Xtremes speed. It is perfectly feasible that with the addition of some tools which emulate bitmap tools; floodfill, masking, better brushes, a mesh warp, an eraser and such that Xtreme could well compete with Photoshop, at least for painting with. The idea of painting with vectors is an exciting one, but A; this would only cover part of Pshops market and B; I doubt Xara are really interested in such a move.

Illustrator? Well Xara is perfectly capable of creating any image that Illustrator can (probably even images equal in style and complexity to painted Photoshop images too), but is that what it was designed for? I don't think so, it is relatively time consuming using Xara for complex illustration.

In my opinion, Xtreme is aimed at the graphic/web design market. The tools do not lend themselves as easily to complex illustration as they do to relatively simpler graphics. If this is the case will it change? I think that is unlikely, Xara has little incentive to make the huge investment needed to take on the 'big boys' at their own game and seems to be ticking along quite nicely as it is.

Of course how long that can last without some significant changes is hard to say, but the quality of the programme is undeniable and even if the changes over the years have not been 'killer' selling points, Xtreme is still massively faster than other vector software and generally much easier to use.


So, yes, I wish Xtreme could be the one to make the difference between bitmap and vector editing obsolete, I see no other software that looks close to having that potential, but to be a realist, I can't see any reason why Xara would want to take that route.

[Soquili]

Hi Mark,

Xara Xtreme and Xtreme Pro are advertised to be for web development. And are excellent in that respect.

How the program will evolve over time is something that probably on Charles Moir can say.

With different people using the application for different purposes there will always be things an individual or a set of individuals may want implemented over what another individual or set may want.

There are those that would like macro record abilities. For me that would be a very low priority as all my works are one of with no need for batch processing.

I can see how it would be useful for the people that do many of the same type of processes. And I would not feel slighted if that becomes a feature.

As long as the program remains very fast in responsiveness I agree to the features that become available as the developers have the time to create them.

There is a long list of features that Charles has available and as new versions become available they are checked and implemented as feasable within the time limits set for the next release.

[gwpriester]

Mark

The best tool is the one that works best for you.

There are Illustrator and Photoshop users who swear by these products. There are CorelDRAW users who swear by CorelDRAW. And even though it is not developed any more (that I know of) there are Canvas and FreeHand users who swear by these products.

What it boils down to is people learn to use an application and once they get up to speed on that product, they are reluctant to switch. Even if there is a better product available.

For many years, Corel tried to capture the Macintosh market with the CorelDRAW Suite. But even though CorelDRAW was superior to Illustrator in just about every respect, Corel finally pulled out of the Mac market altogether. Design professionals who learned to use Illustrator in school or on the job were not about to spend the time to learn another application. Because unlike most hobbyists and amateur designers and illustrators, design professionals see their software as a tool that helps them do their job. Nothing more. Nothing less. And as long as they can do their job, which is to create, then they are happy campers.

Illustrators might be more open to Xara because a lot of what Xara can do you cannot do in Illustrator. And professional illustrators tend to work from home as opposed to an office.

Gary

[ss-kalm]

I think that the big issue here, is that if people don't see their favourite application developing, they fear that it's going to be dropped and all support discontinued.

Although the software they have will continue to function as it is, it may not play nice with the next itteration of Windows.

And then it's gone ........... and "we" obviously don't want to see that happen.

[FLySOLO]

the only things that makes me constantly watch illustrator is the bad cmyk implementation in xara.

it would be really cool to have a working cmyk work-flow.

the only second annoying thing is the inexact slicing behaviour.

slice to circles and the resulting shape has a little straight line in it.

slicing in illustrator is exact.

some vector tools would be nice - the quickshape tool is very usefull and well done. maybe a tool to round corners or a spiral tool or something like the vector distortion filter in illustrator. very usefull would be a color changing filter (hls) or a global tool to change color values from rgb to cmyk...

i'm worried about that magix deal since magix seems to market xara as a low end bitmap editor. i'd like to see the faces of hobby photographers using xara the first time :b

corel marketed it as a web tool. since you have no control over text antialiasing xara cannot be recommended over fireworks in web stuff when it comes to text. (i know about the workaround with point size and placement but thats not nice to use)

just checked my files - i'm using xara since 1996 now and it's a love and hate relationship with lots of cmyk workarounds.

i love xara and i hate it's interface especially looking at illustrator - the simple orange start screen and the nice icons and toolbar symbols. a cool thing would be just a ressource dir with all interface bitmaps in it that can be edited. people would skin - zip - and provide it to other users.
of course the default skin would be built in.

the toolbar behaviour change made me install the trial 10 times and uninstall again later on. i didn't move to the latest version of it. (i know of registry hacks and the pro version thing but i would have wished maybe a statement and a mini update to this issue/feature)

thanks for xara,

i hope i'll use it another 10 years :b

bb,

FLy

[zaphodeist]

Just got the latest Outsider, where it says:

Look out next month for some Xtremely interesting news about new versions....

Anybody know what these are?

John

[Soquili]

I would guess that Charles Moir knows, but I'm sure he isn't telling until next month.

[Jon G]

I get 30-60% of my monthly income from graphic design, so I'm not a pro but neither do I consider myself a complete amateur, something in between probably. Xara is one of my tools, InDesign, Acrobat & PS CS2, RSP and XNView the rest, can't say what is the most important as none of the programs I use is "good enough" to handle all the tasks involved in graphic design..

Of course there are features I wish Xara had, things I'd like to see improved but guess what- the same goes for all the other applications I use. We don't live in a perfect world with perfect computer programs, no matter how popular/expensive they are. There are annoying and often enrageing issues in the programs. (well ok I have to say :-) XNView is quite close to perfection!)

All I hope is that we continue to give user input here, and that the developers read this input and realise it's value. At least in the past Xara has listened, like any good software company does, and a considerable amount of user wishes have been made reality - thanks! Programs don't mature in a void, they get fixed because of bug reports, and grow thru feature requests and suggestions.

My wish is that Xara is developed with the professional in mind, the hobbyist target group will be tempted by the same features. There are so many applications targeted at the "general consumer", and none of them are very successful.

The best applications are trusted by the pros, and lusted after by the amateurs.

[MarkMyWords]

Lots of good points here and clearly a programme doesn't have to constantly upgrade with 'killer' new functions to stay good. However this is the nature of the beast, newcomers will always want this or that tool, dissatisfaction is what makes us try harder and also leads to us nagging others to do what we want LOL!

Of course there is always the danger that any major change will 'ruin' the best features of Xtreme; make it too complex to use and slow it down. That doesn't mean we can't go on using the version we prefer. Hell, I'm still using Photoshop 7 and haven't seen any good reason to move up yet.

There is always the danger of trying to be "all things to all users" and thereby being the best at none. That has to be something the developers really want to avoid.

I suppose the only perfect programme (or the closest that we could get to a perfect programme) would be modular and each user would be able to add the tools and functions they needed, but, for now, such a thing is pie in the sky. Maybe we'll have it by the time we get flying cars?



Jon, if you are being paid to do it, then I think you are a professional.

[w00dy]

If Xtreme Pro were a cricketer, it'd probably be called Beefy or Freddy... for the uninitiated, two of the best all rounders to pull on an England shirt. It's a great program and in terms of value for money, it takes some beating. Illustrator costs the earth and although Drawplus X2 undercuts Xtreme, it doesn't get near it in the performance stakes. That said, I teach DP X2 and it does tend to be updated every eighteen months or so... but then doesn't everything Serif produce... do I use the must-have raft fo new features.. No for the most part! For the run of the the mill jobs, does your pro squeeze every drop out of XXP, Illustrator, PS or whatever takes their fancy... No!

Going back to the comparison with Drawplus, in many ways all DP7 and DP8 did was to introduce features that were in Xtreme, it was as though they were playing catch up. X2 goes down the line of Flash animation with some scripting, which puts it a bit ahead of XXP in those stakes. Serif is very pro-active the education market, I cannot ever see Xara matching them in that area and therein is lies one of the fundamental problems that Xara has. If kids grow up using Serif or Adobe in school, when do they get on the Xara bandwagon... likely never!

Yes it's about time for a major upgrade, hopefully not at a major outlay, and I'll buy it because I always do and it's in my price range. What if Xara folded tommorrow, would I immediately jump ship... No! The current version more that meets my needs for web graphics and will do for the forseeable future as long as my OS will support it, so why would I change. Having said that... adopting "an ostrich with its head in the sand whilst the whole world goes on around you mentality" is a sure fire way to extinction! Charles Moir is NOT an ostrich, I'll be very interested to see what the forthcoming upgrade offers.