Web Designer versus Xtreme Pro

[handrawn]

....this "Use a graphics package for a whole web site" thing hurts as if someone stabbed me!

I remember being miffed when electronic piano started taking over from 'real' acoustic piano - where are the harmonics!! - well given time the harmonics came through - they'll never be the same [IMO] but now electronic and acoustic instruments co-exist quite happily.

Speaking in analogy the ease of WD is akin to the ease of an early portable electronic keyboard versus good old Steinway - and I think the WD way of doing HTML is going to have a similar impact.

Give it time to mature

I could be wrong, I don't code HTML, but I have been here before - I sense a sea-change...

[BONES]

Sorry, I really don't want to offend anyone it's just that I'm a hardcore web developer and this "Use a graphics package for a whole web site" thing hurts as if someone stabbed me!

Well, I'm not and, as web design is the arse-end of graphic art, I don't want to have to learn some whole new application just to keep my band's website up to date and looking fresh. That's why PageMill still works perfectly for my needs and I have never felt the need to upgrade to something more powerful or modern.

Then there's 2) *Implementation*: Which is implement a layout in HTML/CSS that encapsulates the previously (graphically) drafted layout and design, with possibly added functionality.

Which is boring and it's great that something like Xara can take the tedium out of it for us, don't you think? Simplifying "implementation" for us artists is very liberating.

I wish Xara would listen to us users and stop making toys which are not very useful to the professional graphics community at large and get some decent developers working on their core big money product.

Sorry pal, but I am a professional graphic artist and I am 100% happy with the development of Xara since I first bought v2.0 almost 10 years ago. I have all the tools I need to get on with the job and do the best work of my career. Sure, there are things I don;t use every day, PDF export and the like, but when I need some of that, it's great that I don't need to go to another application to do it.

Anyhoo, personalities aside, I might be in the minority but I love the fact that Xtreme is a jack of all trades. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is the Master of Jacks of All Trades, which gives us the best of both worlds. 6 or 7 years ago I had a dozen or more graphics applications on my system for various things but as more and more stuff has been added to Xara, I've been able to cull things considerably. Today, I only have Xtreme and Combustion installed and they fill every possible need I might have, from trimming/cropping images through all manner of motion graphics and GUI design to websites and even producing finished art for album covers. I can do Flash, I can do animated GIFs, I can do anything my heart [or my client] desires, all without having to flip from one thing to another, using multiple formats, creating intermediate files and taking way too long. It's brilliant!

I imagine that Web Designer is supposed to introduce people to Xara, in the hope of enticing them to trade up to Xtreme, so I imagine all the goodies from Web Designer will be included in the next version. I sure hope so anyway, because I'm not going to bother with some template-driven web designer when I already have something far more flexible in Xtreme 4, even without the new features.

The other area I would hope to see worked on is the speed of the engine, as I still have trouble with very complex drawings that holds me back far more than any perceived lack of tools. I also wonder how representative the people active on the forum here are?