Flash and Xara

[Klaus Nordby]

On www.xara.com there is now a little Flash animation for Webstyle 3. Is it ironic - or tragic - that NO current Xara product can produce this Flash animation? They create graphics software - and have to buy Swish or Flash to make this sort of advertisement for their own products! Is that proof of how much Xara Ltd. is behind the curve, or what? (XaraX has only static Flash, Webstyle has no Flash output, although Xara3D 5 will have some form of Flash.)

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

[Klaus Nordby]

On www.xara.com there is now a little Flash animation for Webstyle 3. Is it ironic - or tragic - that NO current Xara product can produce this Flash animation? They create graphics software - and have to buy Swish or Flash to make this sort of advertisement for their own products! Is that proof of how much Xara Ltd. is behind the curve, or what? (XaraX has only static Flash, Webstyle has no Flash output, although Xara3D 5 will have some form of Flash.)

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

[stlewis]

and say to Xara - it is *essential* that v2 has support for this.

Like, I guess, many, I will be buying the full Macromedia MX suite - including Flash - because they are no longer offering a Dreamweaver/Fireworks pairing, and to have two you might as well have the lot. BUT I want to continue using XaraX - and it would therefore help if Flash filetypes are handled.

www.bricksandbrass.co.uk

[gwpriester]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Is it ironic - or tragic - that NO current Xara product can produce this Flash animation? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If I am not mistaken, (and I have not seen the Flash movie you refer to) Xara 3D 5 will export Flash movies.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

[Klaus Nordby]

Gary, since I wrote "although Xara3D 5 will have some form of Flash" it would seem I am aware of this. But X3D5 is not available now! And the lack of Flash animations from Webstyle and XaraX remains a sad fact.

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

[gwpriester]

I cannot disagree with that, Klaus.

Maybe there will be support for Flash movies in the next release of Xara. It would make sense, don't you agree?

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

[Klaus Nordby]

Obviously. And animation aside, XX's SWF support for static images is now *totally* without ANY export controls. Just look at Illustrator 10's SWF export - compression options for bitmaps, curve accuracy, etc. XX's SWF export is as barebones as is possible - probably a last-minute addition.

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

[dalel]

But I don't see that happening.

If done properly, it could make Xara unbeatable as a graphics app.

Are you talking about a full Flash/Swish capability, with timeline, events, actions, etc., or just automatic export of a gif-style animation built in Xara, exported as an swf Flash Movie?

Do any other graphics apps have the capability to do this, export a gif-style animation as a Flash movie? That would be quite a feature! It would however be limited, and would not have the flexibility of a full featured Flash app.

Dale

Why, I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir, because I’m not myself, you know...
- Lewis Carroll

[Egg Bramhill]

I can't understand your argument. XaraX can't create MS Word documents either. Nor should it. I would prefer to keep Xara a lean dedicated vector program, with a wide variety of export options. Are you seriosly suggesting that Xara should come complete with time lines and Scripting options? If you want to create a Flash file then use Flash. If you want to create great vector images use Xara. The swf export from Xara is excellent, with most graduations exporting very well indeed. The only option that I would like to see enhanced is a possibilty of exporting the layers between the 2 applications.
Egg

[Sheff]

Xara needs more added functionality (read not bloat). If it becomes more practical to use other applications, then why should we use Xara?

Or better stated, as it becomes more IMPRACTICAL to use Xara, why continue using it?

It's easier to use Flash to create flash files. Unfortunately, Flash vector objects don't behave like any vector objects in any other application.

If you have to spend an equal amount of time converting Xara art into a usable object in Flash, then I'm inclined to just use Flash, with all it's quirks and weirdness to do the whole job from the start and cut Xara out all together. I hope that someday Xara will do animation, but realistically, I don't expect live scripting.

Animation and sound is pretty much all you need for those intros to websites that people skip over anyway. Anything beyond that, I would hope that Xara would be able to export small swf animations that you could add sound to in Flash.

If I have to do a job that has to be delivered as a layered Photoshop file and it takes me several hours to convert Xara RGB png's to Photoshop layers, then why use Xara when I could do the whole job in Photoshop?

If I have to create a pdf with CMYK files that I have to use Photoshop and Quark to make, then why use Xara?

The only reason I use Xara is because, I'm familiar with it and I like the interface, but it's lack of compatibility with other programs makes it a pain for me and my clients to deal with. How many times have you had to explain Xara and what it can do?

No client cares about Xara. All they care about is the quality of your results.

If you can deliver what they need when they need it, then you've done your job.

Xara is in dire need of many, many improvements as well as fixes to existing bugs. I use Xara frequently and I'm not ashamed to say it, I need these improvements and added features.

You have to make a choice between the learning curve of programs which do what you need or wait for Xara to get with the program and patch their app or announce a new version.

Maybe another year from now when the next version of Xara comes out, I will have learned to do everthing I need to do in Flash and Quark.

Sheffield Abella
sheff@sheff.com
www.sheff.com