Some Adobe CS5 features that I'd love to see in a future Xara

[pauland]

As much as I respect Xhris, I find this is a silly thread. Why are we comparing a sports car with a boat, which is basically what this is all about. One is a vector program and one is a pixel editor.

It's difficullt to see which is the vector program any more.

Xara .. the vector program/bitmap editor/desktop publisher/web publisher.

In the context that Xara software is manipulating bitmaps and has incorporated what were Adobe-specific features (content-aware scaling, etc), I can't see any silliness with Xhris giving a heads-up to Adobe features and suggesting their inclusion in Xara products.

The next release might even include a sound editor for flash animations... ;-) (that's tongue-in-cheek, but I'm sure some people would be delighted).

Thanks for posting it Xhris.

[pauland]

I am only asking this as a non-Xpert, "Why is it that more vector tools are not being developed?"

Well, they are but not as a main focus any more. it's all about the price sensitivity of the target market and the target market wanting a design tool to handle everything - bitmaps, multi-page documents, web sites.

Not ideal for those who want more sophisticated vectors, but wonderful if you want to make websites on the cheap without any HTML skill.

[highfrontier]

... One is a vector program and one is a pixel editor.

That's the point though, many people don't want to be limited to vector art in one app, and bitmap art in another, when Xara have even now shown it's possible to get very close to a functioning hybrid design app.

[ss-kalm]

.....when Xara have even now shown it's possible to get very close to a functioning hybrid design app.

I don't think that it is very close, I think that it is a functioning hybrid design app.

[highfrontier]

I don't think that it is very close, I think that it is a functioning hybrid design app.

Fair enough... but I'm hoping the day comes when I won't need that keyboard shortcut I've got set up for sending images out to photoshop.

[pauland]

Fair enough... but I'm hoping the day comes when I won't need that keyboard shortcut I've got set up for sending images out to photoshop.

Probably better tell Xara what you need in Photoshop that Xara doesn't do.

[StevenWWinters]

Vector vs. Bitmap: Like "the Terminator", this topic just won't die.

See quotes from the horses mouth...

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showpost...39&postcount=6

[pauland]

"For example Live Effects, was originally estimated at about 3 months works, no great architectural changes required. 14 months later we had it done to our satisfaction."

I think that for a lot of people, Live Effects are never used.

[Soquili]

Steven is there some secret that is required to follow the source forge links in your linked post?

Your linked post is nearing an age of 5 years. Many things seem to have changed since then.

Paul I agree, Live Effects are used when answering posts about them. I can't remember using them for any original drawing of my own.

[GroWeb]

Hi all;

It's been a while since I was active in these forums. My ideas below are meant only to add thoughts to this discussion, and not as any sort of definitive or conclusive points. Nor are they intended to refute anything brought up by anyone else.

I think that for a lot of people, Live Effects are never used.

This is an interesting point, especially when one considers why this might be the case. First of all, I suspect the same thing could probably be said of quite a lot of the tools in Xara.

It would enlightening to take a survey of all the people who use Xara, to find out what they use it for. I suspect there would be an extremely wide variety of responses. Even in these Xara forums (which attract enthusiasts, and thus are probably not statistically representative of the whole Xara market), there are a lot of different uses of Xara represented. There are cartoonists, photo-realistic artists, newsletter editors, website designers, photo hobbyists, product designers, and package designers, among others. Some are professionals, some are hobbyists, some use Xara at work but not even as artists, etc. And each, according to their needs, uses a different subset of the tools that Xara has to offer.

Xara appeals to a pretty diverse market segment, and particularly to people who do not want to spend piles of money on their software, while still wanting to do a full range of graphics and design related tasks, with a fast, powerful and highly accessible program like Xara.

Vector vs. Bitmap: Like "the Terminator", this topic just won't die.

Isn't this a somewhat curious dichotomy? I mean, it's all computer assisted graphics and design. It's all mathematics. It all displays as bitmaps while we are working on it; it all becomes bitmaps on the way to the printer; and a lot of it becomes bitmaps on the way to the internet, and displays as bitmaps once it gets there. The ways of working with bitmaps versus vectors remains somewhat different, but there is a definite convergence happening as computer graphics technology evolves. Vector applications, in particular, are doing a load of bitmappy things that used to be thought impossible in vector graphics (masking, selecting, feathering, blurring, etc., etc., etc.). I think the dichotomy can be somewhat misleading, and that it may have arisen primarily for historical reasons rooted in the way computer graphics and design capabilities have developed.

In any case, I am very happy with Xara's flexibility (among other qualities), even though it has tools in it that I rarely use, and even though there are things it does not do that I wish it did.

Regards,
Glen