Web Designer versus Xtreme Pro

[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?

[Egg Bramhill]

What's your problem with the speed of the engine Bones. Are you saying there are faster engines out there or just that you want the fastest engine to become even faster?

[Metro Golden]

One thing some of you are failing to realize in a perceived purist slant is that if you want truly great innovations in following upgrades, sales have to be there and brisk. Although I was charmed by Xara Xtreme and all it's siblings, it was the web design aspect that pushed me to purchase X4 and hence put a few more dollars in the development till. I am happy with my business website that I designed with X4, in fact rather proud. I don't design for others and so don't have a professional bias. I don't want to have to buy another program if X5 emulates most of XWD's functions and improvements. I'll upgrade to that instead. Just remember the more money Xara & Magix makes by attracting more users, professional and otherwise, the better the end program will be. Perhaps to make some of you happy, they should offer a secondary installation pertaining to web design so you don't have to clutter up your workspace with functionality you neither want nor need.

[steve.ledger]

Metro I can see how a customised installation of the product as suite would make sense to some users.
I recall from the JASC PaintShopPro days that you had all the options to choose whether you wanted AnimationShop and it's support files installed, even Tubes and Frames were an option.
It's a sound idea.

[BONES]

What's your problem with the speed of the engine Bones. Are you saying there are faster engines out there or just that you want the fastest engine to become even faster?

I dunno about other engines, I only know that sometimes I have to wait a minute or so for Xara to complete a series of nudges, which is incredibly frustrating when you are trying to get things done. e.g. nudge a simple shape like a filled circle left x 5, up x 3 and it takes ages. I've tried putting the complex bits of the drawing on a separate layer and switching it off but that doesn't help. It's when I use really complex things like hand-made boiler-plate with thousands of vertices and stuff like that.

[steve.ledger]

e.g. nudge a simple shape like a filled circle left x 5, up x 3 and it takes ages.

That is definitely not the expected behavior BONES. Something is wrong for sure.
Could you supply a .xar file with a simple filled shape that exhibits this behavior for you please?

[EyesOpen]

Being HTML challenged I can only say BRAVO! for Xara Web Designer!

I started doing website design with Dreamweaver which I consider clunky and very slow. Then I progressed through 4 graphical webdesign software packages which all lacked various abilities.

Xara Web Designer looks like my dream software for creating small websites. Xara Xtreme is still the king for graphics design. They should both stand separate yet work together fluidly since Xtreme can do some things Web Designer can't.

I predict that Web Designer will become Xara's earnings champ within a few years. And with a few interations/versions of Web designer in the near future plus third party, graphically designed plugin forms, charts, chatboards and databases, etc.. XWD could become the defacto standard for future web development - personal and business. Sorry HTML enthusiasts.

[pauland]

I predict that Web Designer will become Xara's earnings champ within a few years.

Yes, I think it will.

XWD could become the defacto standard for future web development - personal and business. Sorry HTML enthusiasts.

It's not so much that HTML enthusiasts are enthusiasts for the sake of it, but that the way that XWD uses HTML has very definite advantages (precise layout) but also limitations (liquid layouts and concatenated text would be the tip of that iceberg); consequently, taking nothing away from XWD, it will have severe problems penetrating high-end websites, but will do well at the lower-end of the market where such limitations aren't so noticeable or monetary considerations take precedence.

[Nostaw]

Hmm, i've looked into the source coude web designer produces and it looks very clean indeed. That alone would be worth for me buying WD.

Question: Is it worth waiting for Xara5 to get the same features??

[steve.ledger]

Question: Is it worth waiting for Xara5 to get the same features??

For the answer/s to this question, please see here