Xara Designer Pro 6 Launched (Xara Xtreme 6 Pro)

[jyoung]

Ok I clicked the buy now button on the Xara site and went partialy through the upgrade process and like Grace it was $84US which works out to about the purchase price of WD6. That makes me feel better. Now I have one last question before I download the trial Why dosen't Xara just say that there is a discount?? It would have saved a lot of confusion.

Now I'm going to download the trial and see if I will upgrade. Some of the new features sound very useful, I just have decide if they will be $84US useful

The update price for me showed $99 - I guess I don't have the magic touch or something.

[haakoo]

That's a shame. You'll be missing out on one of the best releases in years.

Sorry,
Fail to see the real nifty and great add-ons in the new version

Hans

[Xhris]

Yes, the great new features in this aren't as obvious as a new toolbar tool etc. So many little things that have been asked for are in this version. I'm making some videos demonstrating the new features which are probably too subtle for most to notice, and I'll announce it when it's ready (there's a lot to record).

[Egg Bramhill]

the new features which are probably too subtle for most to notice

That's very condescending Xhris. I'm sure the majority of members are quite capable of grasping any new additions.

[haakoo]

Thanks Eric,

I tried out some of the new features besides the html-tools as I don't and never will use Xtreme/Designer for websites.

To me there are no earth-shocking additions that justifies €89 to upgrade

Hans

[philt]

Looks good! I'll probably just go ahead and buy it as I have everything else. But I'm learning I think. If they come out with another WD upgrade, I'll wait for the XPro version. Seems like just yesterday that I ponied up for XWD6 and now it's gonna cost me another pony. Minor complaints though, this new XDP6 seems pretty exciting, having just scanned Gary's workbook intro.

[handrawn]

I'm glad that Xara appear to be building and developing on what they have

the freehand drawing tool now seems worthy of its name - and hopefully the new engine will enable this to be taken further

the new transparency type 'enhance' I see being very useful for coloring

solo mode and other 'layer gallery' improvements welcome

I have a cupboard full of hand held drawing tools, I probably use half a dozen of them regularly, and they are the ones that have been developed to the point of excellence

I don't see 'vector' [or any other graphic] software drawing tools being much different myself.....

[gwpriester]

Bill - I know you spent a ton of time perfecting the castle icons and they turned out really well (kind of retro--the castle). Thank you once again for your considerable talent and dedication.

For those of us who use Xara products for professional work, I cannot tell you what a bargain you and I are getting. Consider what you would pay for Illustrator and Photoshop, or CorelDRAW.

But more than the price, Designer Pro 6 gives you some really powerful tools. You get all the web design power of Web Designer combined with the drawing and transparency capabilities of Xtreme. The addition of bullet and number lists along with search and replace, and coupled with the text tool advances over the last few releases of Xtreme, and along with a pretty strong implementation of PDF import and export give you a darn fine DTP application that can do many things that Adobe can only dream of doing.

If you are a hobbyist, and many users are, this is still a lot of computing power for a pretty fair price.

Everything is relative to be sure. But I for one am so glad that I don't have to use Illustrator (except occasionally as a pass through filter). And with the photo editing tools, I make fewer and fewer trips to Photoshop.

[steve.ledger]

What he said

[haakoo]

That's just the point Gary,

You still need Illustrator or Photoshop as a pass-through program.
@Steve(handrawn) for drawing and coloring ArtrageStudio3 or even DrawplusX4 is better.
For webdesign if I may be so blunt take a look at the new features in WYSIWYG-Webbuilder version 7 http://**********.com/files/394057250/wb7_features.zip

Hans

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