Xtreme 4 - another update

[steve.ledger]

Apologies, I think I misunderstood you as you stated you had version 3.2 Pro

I own all the Xara Versions, but I bought the Pro Version 3.2 i believe late in 2007

I guess there's good reason it costs more to purchase the Pro versions. All part of those extra goodies that come with it

[Charles Moir]

..but I bought the Pro Version 3.2 i believe late in 2007

Doesn't matter when you bought Pro 3.2 - the upgrade to Pro 4.0 is only $49 (for the period of the introductory offer).

[Centaurus]

Hello Charles ,

Can you please tell when do you plan the next update for 4.0 and will there be minor fixes only?

I don't know about the new functionality for I personally don't use it, but a lot of simple basic features are broken.
My work slowed down considerably for I have to find workarounds for simple things, create support tickets every couple of days, and Xtreme 4.0 destroyed three of my projects while saving, so now I have to backup every step.
I didn't have such experience neither with 2.0 nor with 3.2 versions.
So after three weeks of testing I finally gave up and had to switch back to 3.2.

I just don't know whether to continue to wait for a stable version or just relax and go on with 3.2... and maybe check 5.0 one day.

[steve.ledger]

Sorry you're having bad luck, after following your previous thread and then reading your post #24 here, I was assuming you were all happy again

How many 'different' issues are you having with version 4 ?
If you can post any sample files here, there's a chance someone can help

[Centaurus]

Yes I was all happy, and many thanks to Suvek for that, but that was only one file, and I spent several days trying to restore it while my customers were waiting.

I have lots of issues, the most irritating are:
- Paste in place is broken. Objects are inserted far away from drawing edges
- Gradient fill on the group is broken (only one object changes the color when you modify the gradient fill on the group)
- Colot picker works wrong, when you try to pick color from lines and strokes (i doesn't feel the line widths)
- gradient fills are very unstable now. For some reason 'start' and 'end' colors were introduced and in the case of multuple-point gradient fills you never know which handle is active if you select one (it's mostly about intermediate handles)
- Undo sometimes "jumps" my drawing in some direction especially if it was zoomed in and I have to find where I was working. It's not a big deal but when it's happening over and over again...
- Undo sometimes just doesn't work
- When you change the object or line color with Color Picker, sometimes (pretty often) it doesn't work. To reactivate it you have to deselect object then select it again, change it's color randomly by picking some color in Color editor (to ensure it's ok now) and only after that you can use Color Picker again.
- I tried 3D extrude tool and among some strange behaviour with rotating angles and light sources display, it successfully crashed the appication. So I refused to test it further for I don't need it actually.
- applying Live Effects often leads to program crash. Ok that issue is from 3.2 version but 4.0 seems to corrupt every file that was saved with "Continue and save" feature. I had three such crashes during the testing period and three files are ruined. One was happily recovered with Suvek's utility.

That's only things I've remembered without looking to my notes. Of course I'm not moaning only, I create tickets to support team, with test files to reproduce the bugs and the support team tells some of the bugs are fixed in the next release. That's why I ask when the next update is planned, just to look if things go right now.

Some bugs are not easy to reproduce on simple test files for they appear accidentally, maybe depending on drawing size, maybe on work session duration, maybe on something else, I just don't know.

I myself love Xtreme and popularize it on my site and among my friends, and the last month's feedback I got was "that's rather buggy". Of course people who stick to Illustrator or CorelDraw tend to critisize something they are not used to... but these days I have to say "it's buggy" myself though I consider Xtreme one of the best graphic software.

[-=Drifter=-]

Centaurus, it sounds to me that all of these problems might be related to a computer memory problem or even overheating.

[Centaurus]

Bob, I don't think so. I don't see any strange behaviour that is common for all the application. Computer hardware problems would affect not only Xtreme 4.0.

I have several version of Xtreme installed on this computer, from 2.0 to 4.0.
And those problems are only with Xtreme 4.0. Previous versions has some bugs but I got used to them, there are not so many.

Moreover, after one of my colleagues installed 4.0 and worked with it for a couple of hours, he immediately reported some of this problems (color picker, undo behaviour, gradients).
And I did not even tell him there were some.

[ss-kalm]

Centaurus, it sounds to me that all of these problems might be related to a computer memory problem or even overheating.

Agreed, I haven't seen anyone else report any of these issues!

[Ron Duke]

I have had problems with these bugs also, as mentioned by Centaurus:

- Paste in place is broken. Objects are inserted far away from drawing edges
- Gradient fill on the group is broken (only one object changes the color when you modify the gradient fill on the group)
- Colot picker works wrong, when you try to pick color from lines and strokes (i doesn't feel the line widths)
- gradient fills are very unstable now. For some reason 'start' and 'end' colors were introduced and in the case of multuple-point gradient fills you never know which handle is active if you select one (it's mostly about intermediate handles)
Undo sometimes "jumps" my drawing in some direction especially if it was zoomed in and I have to find where I was working. It's not a big deal but when it's happening over and over again...
- Undo sometimes just doesn't work
- When you change the object or line color with Color Picker, sometimes (pretty often) it doesn't work. To reactivate it you have to deselect object then select it again, change it's color randomly by picking some color in Color editor (to ensure it's ok now) and only after that you can use Color Picker again.

I still LOVE this program! I know these bugs will be fixed in time.