Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6

[MarciaB]

Well, after reading all the posts I think I won't upgrade and just wait for the cd...

[Dilaco]

My topic now almost seems unrelated to the original thread because of the tech support issue covered above. However, regarding Designer 6’s new features:
I think the improvements to the freehand drawing tool, and to the brushes are noteworthy for those of us who use Xara mainly for artistic expression (as distinct from web design or photo editing). I am appreciating some of the new features mentioned in the promotion material, such as the new sketch mode which allows for fast freehand line drawing without Xara connecting the lines automatically when they are drawn close together, and which doesn’t form a Shape when you close the line. But I am also discovering things that don’t appear to be mentioned in the promos (at the time of writing anyway): e.g. now the colours of the brushes (airbrush, watercolour, crayon, etc.) can be changed before you apply the brush stroke instead of having to edit the colour afterward. Another thing that doesn’t seem to get much of a mention is that if you don’t like Designer 6’s darker GUI colour, not only can you change it back to Xtreme5 style (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S as a lot of people now know), but you can drag a colour from the colour line onto the pasteboard to make the pasteboard any colour you like. You can also change the page colour by dragging a colour onto it. I think these are significant new features.

[steve.ledger]

Another thing that doesn’t seem to get much of a mention is that if you don’t like Designer 6’s darker GUI colour, not only can you change it back to Xtreme5 style (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S as a lot of people now know)

This is not an officially supported feature so will not have been mentioned by Xara.

Your following point (page/pasteboard colours) are mentioned here:

Summary of new features in Xara Designer Pro and Photo & Graphic Designer v6
(*This link has appeared in my signature since the release of v6)

Better page color and background support i.e. you can color the pasteboard separately from the page. More WYSIWYG results
By default the 'page color' in Web Designer maps to the website HTML background color. The default is white so your whole web page background will be white. You can drag any color onto the page (the white area) to re-color this. However if you drag a color onto the pasteboard area (outside the visible page area) this allows you to create separate backgrounds for both the page and page surround. Whereas with previous releases of Designer you had to draw rectangles to create a colored page on a different colored background.

[Dilaco]

Thank you Sledger
The reason I didn’t see the pasteboard colour feature is because it’s under the “Web Improvements” section, which is not my category of interest. I would have thought it would be under “General Improvements” or some other less specific category? Also I thought that some other users might not be aware of this feature because in the entire thread on this forum – subject “Poll: which user interface do you prefer” - no one mentioned that if the dark background was annoying or straining your eyes that there was the simple remedy of changing it by dragging colour of choice. If there was mention of the improvement to the brushes colour editing, I guess I overlooked this also. But hopefully if someone reading this thread didn’t know about these features before, they now do - which is why I posted.

[tomh]

Fuss,

Xara has a relatively small user-base compared with XP. That might explain why nobody else seems to have encountered your missing icon view problem on 32-bit XP. XP has millions of lines of code, and has countless unfortunate interactions when certain software combinations are found. Combine this with the potential for mistakes or unusual actions from users and installers, and you will understand why solving problems is not always straightforward. Personally, I have always marvelled that the design of XP seems to allow for a fix to anything! I have also always found Xara Support to be prompt and, eventually, effective. BTW this doesn't mean that XP is rubbish; the sainted Linux also has its instabilities, as does its cousin Mac OS X.

Missing thumbnail preview is quite common. If it happens again, try the link http://www.the-pc-guru.com/Thumbnail...eview_does.php. This offers three solutions for XP, all seem to be based on the assumption that file associations in Explorer are somehow not working properly. The first uses standard commands to fix possible Registry errors. The second assumes that a faulty Internet Explorer is wrecking things - nothing new there then! The third provides a couple of simple scripts to fix file associations in the Registry.

If these don't help, search for other solutions on Google. But make sure that you only use those devised for XP! I suggest also that you try to acquire an elementary understanding of how Registry works. Then you will have confidence in examining it, or in at least using free software to automatically fix simple inconsistencies - Ccleaner or Glary Utilities are both good.

Good luck!

[Markku]

Well, after reading all the posts I think I won't upgrade and just wait for the cd...

When is the CD coming?

[steve.ledger]

Please see:
► http://www.talkgraphics.com/showpost...78&postcount=4

[Markku]

Please see:
► http://www.talkgraphics.com/showpost...78&postcount=4

Thanks.

[StevenWWinters]

When is the CD coming?

The Photo & Graphic Designer 6 CDs arrived in stock yesterday and we have started to clear the back orders. Designer Pro is due in stock tomorrow, so not long to wait now!

http://www.xara.com/us/outsider/july10/

[MediaGuy]

Goodie