Version 5.1 Launched

[morphonius_821]

From what I've written and from this CMYK thing and other things on this forum I guess people have started to expect much more than Xara is able to give them... maybe at some point we really thought Xtreme could be as powerful as older brothers (Corel and PS)...

That depends on your definition of power...
Obviously the big boys have crossed all their "t's" and dotted all their "i's"...
Insofar as there is a truckload of stuff in there and more than a little bit for everyone...

But to use an analogy this can end up feeling like your doing your day to day driving in your Winnebago.
Does Xara's "Vehicle" need to have a portable toilet and kitchenette? (ie. no one can tell me Corel's expand in every direction strategy did not stymie revolutionary developments to the core of their app....)
(Don't get me wrong the CMYK thing has my vote...)

The way I see it is that Xara is kinda more like a sports car.....I.e no crap, fast render, responsive onscreen UI, Real time, exciting....
This is where they need to spend their money......i.e making the UI more onscreen, faster, more responsive and flexible.
ie make what is awesome about extreme more awesome.

(I can understand that they may want the web app to up to a certain standard and that merging these to apps could save money and optimize resources ETC so perhaps i may take back my last comment....but only if they don't totally drop the ball on the vector front.)

And to see 90% of a new version to be comprised to web stuff is more than a little troubling.
When the same money could have seen spectacular things happen UI wize, building on the muscle already available here.

And i do get scared that they may be "digging in" as I think when an app gets to a certain size and things start getting "tacked on" left right and center that your app is probably at the point where its evolution on a fundamental level has ceased.
As the more things they plug into the same "core" the harder it gets to change anything (let alone anything fundamental) about it with out risking undoing much of what you have done.

I fear they are happy to have a platform that is in certain key aspects more advanced than the big boys and so are concentrating allot of energy on their feeble extremities.... but I would rather them make their big muscles even bigger......Xara on steroids please.

[kinetica]

People keep forgetting that Xara is not an independent company. They have their masters at Magix HQ to please.

[ankhor]

People keep forgetting that Xara is not an independent company. They have their masters at Magix HQ to please.

Well I know what Magix policy is, bring out a new version every year (atleast)
And put some new gadgets in it.
And with magixcleaninglab that was the weirdest stuff just to have
something new so they could sell it as a new version.
So you just waited an extra year, to get the real new stuff.

[sgiff]

Wow, the new layering object manager features are really a huge disappointment... One of the main reasons for adding a decent layering system is to be able to export to Photoshop with layering that is compatible. The only way to create something close to the way "ALL OTHER" apps handle layering is by creating multiple groups under a layer. Unfortunately when you export to Photoshop it just merges everything under your Layer as one object so while the new layering may be somewhat useful under Xara, it actually is useless and an annoyance if you plan on exporting to Photoshop. This is what happens when devs try to be innovative. When you have a system that is used by everyone else out there stick to what works, don't try and be different!! Furthermore you can not name groups which I can not figure why they chose not to allow that. Another annoying thing is that if an object is selected in a layer that is collapsed it doesn't high lite the layer that it is in so you have to look at the bottom of your screen to see what layer it is in then go find it in the list which if you have a lot of layers is really annoying. I can't believe they would leave it like this. Very disappointed with this version.

[Odat]

Another annoying thing is that if an object is selected in a layer that is collapsed it doesn't high lite the layer that it is in so you have to look at the bottom of your screen to see what layer it is in then go find it in the list which if you have a lot of layers is really annoying.

You can click the "Find" button in the object gallery and the tree will expand as needed and show you the selected object(s). Presumably it doesn't expand things as you select them so that things don't slow own like crazy in documents with a lot of objects in them.

Unfortunately when you export to Photoshop it just merges everything under your Layer as one object so while the new layering may be somewhat useful under Xara, it actually is useless and an annoyance if you plan on exporting to Photoshop.

This sounds like a limitation of the PSD export filter, not the object gallery.

One of the main reasons for adding a decent layering system is to be able to export to Photoshop with layering that is compatible.

Where was this mentioned? I don't remember seeing this in the new feature lists anywhere.

[sgiff]

I never said anything about a new feature, I said that if they are going to implement a new layering system they should make it work like every other nested/foldered layering system out there so that for people that actually use this software in a production environment can use it with other apps.

[handrawn]

room for improvement, yes; there's always room for improvement, however it is better than it was

I agree with Odat - the xtreme PSD filter is most likely the cause of the flattening

[behzad]

Wow, just the improved illustrator import/export deserves a big praise.

[ss-kalm]

... One of the main reasons for adding a decent layering system is to be able to export to Photoshop with layering that is compatible .....

Sorry, but in my opinion, better layering was wanted for easier control of independent pieces of the drawing, the same as applications like AutoCad use layers. Absolutely nothing to do with exporting to Illustrator or Photoshop.

[sgiff]

Sorry, but in my opinion, better layering was wanted for easier control of independent pieces of the drawing, the same as applications like AutoCad use layers. Absolutely nothing to do with exporting to Illustrator or Photoshop.

Well that's your opinion (nothing more) and your welcome to it but it does not represent the people who use this program professionaly nor does it make sense from the standpoint of doing it in such a way that is more intuitive and simple overall which time has proven that a simple nested folder structure works and works well. Plus there is a whole thread of people that agree with me on this.