Some ideas, wishes and observations......

[RAMWolff44]

1) If an object has a shadow previously applied to it you can't add another shadow if it's grouped with another object. I think this should be changed to allow for shadows to be applied even if previous objects in the group have a shadow applied to it.

2) Also, if a group has a shadow applied to it you can't ungroup the group without that little popup telling you need to remove the shadow first. It would be nice to have this changed, so if you want to ungroup a group that has a shadow applied then ungrouping would simply remove the shadow and then ungroup the group.

3) No way to save created fills, I really think this needs to be implemented in Xara X1, it would expand it's user friendlieness! I also see no profile options for self created fills which I think there should be a way to have an automated profile created for these self made fills.

4) An Object Gallery. When an object is created it's information is auto added to this gallery and the object would be completely editable from this gallery in case it's buried under a bunch of other objects. So if you need to change a bevel, shadow, contour, line, fills or even reshape the object. The object would be selected and stay selected so you can work on it without concern of accidentally selecting another object by mistake. An added idea would be to have a preview window pop up to the side of the Object Gallery of the selected object and all other shapes in this preview window would be made transparent by default with a aded slider to make them solid to see how the changes look to the user. I figure if Xara X1 is making use of XML then this sort of functionality should be more easily available??

5) A way to cause fills to follow curved paths.

6) Instant 3D lights and bump maps that are fully editable.

7) Since thumbnail viewing seems to be wanted so much, maybe consider expanding the functionality of XPE in the stand alone version to browse your folders and if it comes upon a .xar file or any other Xara Ltd native program file's a proper thumbnail would be created showing what's in the file, then if double clicked on the appropriate program would be launched and if it was an image file then the main XPE editor would come in to play!! That WOULD be cool!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif It would be a way to TOTALLY emliminate all this hassle of browsing Xara Ltd. program files. Maybe Charles could just include this program with Xara X1, Xara 3D and other more major program offerings as an added bonus? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Other than that, I'm pretty darned satisfied with this package, more so than any other on the market and I have them all!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[RAMWolff44]

1) If an object has a shadow previously applied to it you can't add another shadow if it's grouped with another object. I think this should be changed to allow for shadows to be applied even if previous objects in the group have a shadow applied to it.

2) Also, if a group has a shadow applied to it you can't ungroup the group without that little popup telling you need to remove the shadow first. It would be nice to have this changed, so if you want to ungroup a group that has a shadow applied then ungrouping would simply remove the shadow and then ungroup the group.

3) No way to save created fills, I really think this needs to be implemented in Xara X1, it would expand it's user friendlieness! I also see no profile options for self created fills which I think there should be a way to have an automated profile created for these self made fills.

4) An Object Gallery. When an object is created it's information is auto added to this gallery and the object would be completely editable from this gallery in case it's buried under a bunch of other objects. So if you need to change a bevel, shadow, contour, line, fills or even reshape the object. The object would be selected and stay selected so you can work on it without concern of accidentally selecting another object by mistake. An added idea would be to have a preview window pop up to the side of the Object Gallery of the selected object and all other shapes in this preview window would be made transparent by default with a aded slider to make them solid to see how the changes look to the user. I figure if Xara X1 is making use of XML then this sort of functionality should be more easily available??

5) A way to cause fills to follow curved paths.

6) Instant 3D lights and bump maps that are fully editable.

7) Since thumbnail viewing seems to be wanted so much, maybe consider expanding the functionality of XPE in the stand alone version to browse your folders and if it comes upon a .xar file or any other Xara Ltd native program file's a proper thumbnail would be created showing what's in the file, then if double clicked on the appropriate program would be launched and if it was an image file then the main XPE editor would come in to play!! That WOULD be cool!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif It would be a way to TOTALLY emliminate all this hassle of browsing Xara Ltd. program files. Maybe Charles could just include this program with Xara X1, Xara 3D and other more major program offerings as an added bonus? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Other than that, I'm pretty darned satisfied with this package, more so than any other on the market and I have them all!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[MEB]

May i add some ideias too?
- Improve the layer Gallery to support layer folders so we can organize our drawings better [the hierarchy would be like tghis: Folder layer, Layer, objects (inside layer) with drag and drop support between all three "classes"]

- Add ability to save fonts used in the document inside the XAR file as an option
(this will avoid font reinstalation/ windows reformat troubles)

- Gradient Mesh tool to turn Xara x in a top notch application (sorry, i can´t resist to request this feature again)

Regards http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif
Miguel B.

[RAMWolff44]

Good ones Miguel, and of course this is a thread I started so folks could discuss and add to the 'wish list'. With Xara X1 released some of the major bugs and some wishes were taken care of.

In my wish list I think the only thing that's not jibbing with your wish of an expanded Layer Gallery is the objects area. JohnR and I both discussed this idea to length and then I just added in this newest previewer as the user is altering the selected object. So the only other thing I can think of is to simply expand the functionality of the Layer Gallery and forget the Object Gallery. That was always one of the areas that always confused me, I could see that there were layers but there were no objects represented within each of the layers so I never invoked it very often because I'm not one to use layers all that much in my vector works (different story when using Photoshop though and I'm very comfortable using layers in Photoshop because the layers and objects are all inclusive within that dialog and you CAN mostly edit that object directly from the Layers dialog as long as that layer is selected workibg without to much bother with other objects being selected by mistake and if so it's easy enough to turn them off untill your finished editing)

So my No. 4 could be turned into a more fully functional Layer Gallery instead of another seperate Object Gallery. I think Charles had some interest in improving this area in that same thread that JohnR and I were bouncing around ideas, so that's a good sign!!

I'm sure which ever one gets implemented then the objects would be drag-n-drop'able and the hierachy that you mention makes allot of sense to me as well!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[raynerj]

I would double think the previewer window if I were you Richard... When I first read that suggestion I thought of the old bitmap editor with the thumbnail. Kill the preview window... Leave that to lesser programs...

I would love to be able to "bend a fill". Then I could really attempt drawing hair...