XX5 - Woooo! Another Let Down

[haakoo]

No,

I didn't make it personal,JA did
He did it by constantly complaining and whining about things that should have been implemented,not only this thread but the many he posted the last year(and even before under a different membername).
Anyway i use multiple tools for what i do and don't get hung-up by the things I'm missing out on.

[pauland]

Could you please expand on this? What is complex and what is crappy? What is lacking in XWD that makes it non-professional?

Jumping into this conversation..

This is somewhat off-topic.

XWD does a fantastic job at allowing anyone to product a clean looking website with the design functionality that Xara provides - it is very impressive.

To achieve it's magic it generates HTML in a particular way, so that it reproduces the design layout correctly. While it does an impressive job it requires that it has control of the creation of assets and the generated HTMl is created in a particular way that does adhere to web standards but is not consistent with the coding practices of professional web designers such as JA and others. There's no point in going into detail further. As a generator XWD does not perform as HTML editor or site importer - that's not a criticism just a statement about functionality. Nor does it support common behaviour in professional designs such fluid layouts or variable size layouts that dynamically adapt to generated content (from a Content Management System or database)

In a professional studio environment, web designers expect complete freedom over how they design and how HTML is manipulated. This freedom is at a price - it requires knowledge of HTML behaviour and standards, browser inconsistencies and related web technologies besides pure HTML - this knowledge requires time and money to accrue and often the generation of more sophisticated web designs take some time to do and involve rather tedious programming.

In this professional studio environment XWD is totally unsuitable it does not have the flexibility and is unable to meet the day to day demands that a professional web designer faces - often manipulating pre-built designs that come from clients and need tweaking, etc.

So JA and his supporters are entirely correct about their criticism of XWD as professional design tool, but they are wrong to dismiss it so readily.

XWD is very much an enabler - it allows those without (or even with) HTML knowledge to produce websites very easily and with some design skill they will have a professional look and feel. Inevitably these sites tend to have a XWD feel about them- simply because they use the features that XWD supports.

In a professional sense, many XWD users charge clients for sites produced with XWD and their clients are very happy with them. These aren't the same kind of professional sites that JA might produce, nor are they the same clients that would be attracted to JA.

JA and other professional web designers can command good budgets for their work because of the design flair they bring and the flexibility of the web designs they produce. In return for this clients are more demanding about the end result (perhaps in both design and functionality), so a tool like XWD is totally outclassed in this environment.

In the XWD world professional clients will have smaller budgets and expectations, so XWD fits in perfectly for them.

So I would say that XWD is indeed a professional tool but doesn't suit the environment of a high-end design studio, where page designs are done using photoshop or illustrator and then translated into html using dreamweaver (really hand-coded).

Recently I was at a design studio where comment was made that a client web campaign for US$ 30K+ had an inadequate budget, so I hope you can see that JA is entirely right about such an environment and XWD (before anyone gasps at the figure - you might be surprised at how much work these campaigns involve for corporates and the changes required mid-project).

XWD is a great enabler - it brings web design to the designer with little time to invest or interest in learning HTML. In the hands of a skilled designer it can produce great designs. In the hands of practitioner it can produce good usable work. In the hands of some it produces appalling designs that are pleasing only to a select few.

Professional tool? Yes it is, but at the low end of the industry. It will never compete with the likes of JA and an Adobe workflow, but then again there are a ton of clients out there who could never afford to engage JA - either financially or even perhaps artistically).

XWD brings web design to the masses and enables web professionals to pick up clients with low budgets. I have used XWD to produce some pages that a client would never have afforded if I had to spend much time on them with dreamweaver.

I hope that's helpful and I hope that professional web designers who sneer at what XWD does might like to cut it some slack as an enabler for those who don't work in professional design studios with good budgets..

[Odat]

Maybe the new version doesn't have any new drawing tools, and it has some new web stuff, but it also has a ton of small enhancements to work flow and stuff that's not directly web related like the new Object gallery. I think we can fairly safely say that at least part of the reason the web stuff was enhanced was because it was readily available code that had already been written, so why not leverage that into your flagship product?

Is the real upset here that they've come out with yet another version with no drawing tools, or is it that they've called this version 5 but it doesn't have enough super awesome new functionality to justify being called 5 and should really be 4.5 or something?

Sometimes the major version number increases when there's no apparent outward change in functionality. What you're seeing there is that there has been a ton of work done behind the scenes to re-architect how the internals of the software work, so that making those new awesome features is possible.

As an end user, you don't see any change, but as the guys developing the software, the core of the whole code base is now fundamentally different, and needs to be a new major revision so that work on new features can progress while still keeping the old code base around for bug fixing and support of that version.

As much as people may not want to admit it (or even intend it), going on the internet to complain that some company that makes products and sells them hasn't met up with your own personal visions for what they should have done does come across as taking things personally. That's just the nature of online communications where we can read what you said but not the spirit in which you wrote it.

[ss-kalm]

Well said, Paul.

[haakoo]

Why does adobe always appear as the standard of things?
Because they started out in a new market and provided versions for schools
and now these students can only work with these standards?

But on the other hand we want open software for office tools and such and we booh to Microsoft?
And adobe laughs with every buck coming in.
And here we are complaining about some tools available in other programs.
(drawplus X3,realdraw,inkscape)
use them all and you still have a cheaper workflow than with adobe bloat.

In the end the person or company that makes what the client wants at a decent price wins(the client doesn't give a r** a** about how)

[pauland]

I should say that in general the Xtreme upgrade is dissappointing from a tools perspective and while there are some nice touches (as a long-time moaner about the layer handling it's great to see that get serious attention - didn't go far enough though) it's not a release I'm hugely excited about (I already have the web updates in XWD). So, on a tools front - could do much better.

I guess I'll upgrade when the trial expires though.

[posterart]

Xara 5 tryout loads and runs fast to Windows 7 RC. Thing is W7 looks like a Fisher Price toy, Xara 5 looks the same as 3.2 and extra cash to upgrade, don't care about web design, is that what I pay for? Back to Xp and 3.2 to draw, never figured out that layers box thing, using Illustrator to long! If you want W7 and Xara 5 you are full steam ahead with Uncle Bill looking over your shoulder!

[pauland]

Why does adobe always appear as the standard of things?

snip

In the end the person or company that makes what the client wants at a decent price wins(the client doesn't give a r** a** about how)

Now that Adobe is established, interoperability is really important with SOME clients, who may be providing assets in an Adobe format and may expect to receive assets in an adobe format. For these clients, they will expect you to conform or they will go elsewhere. In these situations not being able to use or produce Adobe assets will raise question marks over your suitability as a supplier.

Naturally for some clients where you are a one-stop-shop, they often don't care, as you say.

Paul

[haakoo]

Point taken Paul,as will I.

I think in a market economy where customers want something that looks great and is treated professionally even with a cheap tool at lower cost wins and if you play it like a pro the customer will return and gives you a good reference.
This means you are the pro and not the guy with the degree and the high cost programs that takes forever to learn,let alone work.
This might take some time but it may change their attitude,as they know now that there are other cheaper tools that make things as good as the adobe thing.

Oh BTW did you know that you can apply LE's to multiple objects on different layers and still have it be separate objects on separate layers.

[posterart]

A long time ago we learned Adobe stuff, PS 4, Ill 4, etc., then we worked with printers who still run old broken-down apple systems. With all that in our brains we follow COJ-church of jobs-a long line back to the intern days! To adobe we go, cmyk, oh who cares!