Xara Designer Pro X9 Released

[Craray]

The new FX plugins and text flows look nice!

[DigitalJeweler]

I personally like when a software company keeps trying to improve their product. It shows forward progress, hopefully. What really irritates me however is the VERY LAME grace period of approx 30-60 DAYS...6 Months would be a much more customer friendly position. I just upgraded both Designer Pro and WD Premium in April and now get the intro offer of only $99. Really? That's horrible for continued customer loyalty. I finally bit the bullet upgrading, and with no indication that there was another release around the corner...

That's just very poor ways of doing business. I like the products and want to be excited to use them but the upgrade game is starting to get old....Take a hint from the folks over at Pixelogic, creators of ZBrush. They have had free upgrades for life and have a very healthy and thriving customer base and always pushing the boundaries with meaningful/powerful upgrades.

I posted a similar concern on the FB page, wonder if that will get deleted?

Mark

[csehz]

I will also buy and why (beside of the fact that I love the program and would support the programmers efforts anyway):
- CSS3/HTML5 support so code instead of bitmaps for some page elements
- Background erase
- 64 bit support
- Support for DOCX files
- Photo heal tool
- Retina display
- new widgets
- not especially for use, but like to learn from new templates

I evaluate this year maybe it was a direction to clear the product scale for the company, and simply there was no too much resource for innovative steps. Which is anyway not true fully as that list is quite long for new functions, maybe not so spectacular because each area got something.

That is new and not sure in positive direction, that finally the Designer Pro became "just" a summary

[Big Frank]

maybe not so spectacular because each area got something

i think that's the main point - each area except drawing

[Scotty]

Hi,
Just purchased the new Designer ProX9 and downloaded 64Bit version and the 32Bit version (for the plugins), now I am wondering when the program ships will it
contain both the 64B and 32Bit versions?
Jim

[PeteS]

Yes Jim, both the 32 and 64 bit versions will be on the CD just like with Web Designer Premium.

[DigitalJeweler]

Will someone address the upgrade grace period window explanation?

[Acorn]

...but hey, simplicheck gained a whole checkbox to itself.

Acorn

[csehz]

...but hey, simplicheck gained a whole checkbox to itself.

Acorn

+1

[geoff99]

I've been checking daily since the 1st of July for the upgrade to DPX9 and was surprised to find out about it in the Forum not on the Xara website. As I am upgrading from Version 7 I expect to find lots of goodies to keep me occupied for the foreseeable future. I was surprised at some of the negative comments though I expect I might well have a few moans when I catch up over the last 2 releases.

One point that was raised that I do agree with is the upgrade notice and the cost - I think 90 days would be a pretty fair notice and around £69 for the first 30 days after launch would be a good incentive to upgrade (and a nice "thank you") for the loyal users who been with Xara since its "Corel" days.

I suppose the fact that Xara now belongs to a large multinational company rather than the original founders means they will want to milk the cash cow on a yearly basis as they don't have the link to the customer base that the original team had, its just a thought.

Here's another thought how about a live video "chat" with the Boss and maybe the lead developer discussing future developments and why not have a "Wish List" competition with the top 3 getting included in the next release - a bit radical but what do you guy's think!