Xara Designer Pro X10 Released

[Fred C]

...more detailed info in our release notes @ http://xaragroup.magix.net/designer-pro/notes/

incorrect link

[katemoir]

Oh. Sorry about that, I thought the Release Notes always redirected to the new ones! Try http://www.xara.com/designer-pro/notes

[katemoir]

I’m sorry many of you sound disappointed. We concede there was not a lot for our illustration users in v9 & 10, but our priorities were different because there were some issues – such as RWD or fixing 32 bit plugins - which simply had to be attended to, and these were big development commitments (RWD amazingly so, as it turned out). There were not the same glaring fix-or-die weaknesses in vector features. Plenty of suggestions, yes, but no consensus on ‘must haves’. We understand that means that many illustrators will understandably decide not to upgrade this time, and we have to live with that.

For v11 we are considering illustration again. You might not all value SmartShapes but one of the reasons we added this feature is that we could use that vector technology for future features that might be more interesting to you. I can’t give you any commitments at this stage, no final decisions have been made for v11, but I can definitely say that we have no policy to drop illustration.

One more thing I’d add; TG has a concentrated core of illustration users which doesn’t quite reflect our total audience. That means you maybe don’t get the sense that I do, sitting here, that similar numbers of owners are making equally impassioned pleas for us to add new web, page layout and photo features. Our surveys suggest that a typical Pro owners uses all of them – we have after all promoted it as a one-stop graphic design solution for many years! Plus we have a new project in the works too, directly related to and hopefully guaranteeing the long term future of Camelot (the engine that drives the whole Designer suite) which has been taking our resources for over a year. All of this we try to balance, at least over the life of several upgrade cycles. Nothing has been abandoned (but we are throwing more people at it!)

[csehz]

Thanks for your comment Kate, I appreciate it as probably not easy the coming out after so depressed feedbacks. Your details take at least the things into more understandable context.

A little bit better also for my spirit because finally upgraded as always.. But after starting the XDPX10 to investigate the newer functions, just still was sitting and not believing that really I bought it? SmartShapes and those insert Font Awesome Symbols?

But reading you so maybe there is hope and good luck for those developments then

[jon404]

Kate, perhaps in aid of throwing oil on the troubled waters, you could add more vector Smart Shapes at no extra cost, as quickly as possible, to the online Content Library. You could get them made rapidly and inexpensively in Bangalore or Hyderabad. Beyond that, I don't know. Will try to think of DPX10 the same as my Mazda Miata, which in 2012 was in its 23rd year of very careful product improvements.

DPX10 will be my last Xara purchase. Am older now, and getting back to just sketching with pen and pencil. Please pass along my thanks to your programming team for all their years of work on Xara, and let them know that it really was a Godsend back before I retired, and still a pleasure to use now, all that Font Awesome and Photolooks stuff aside.

Yours, Jonathon Donahue

[daniel78]

Every time there's a new Xara release i get briefly very excited (because I love Xara!), but for me this has been the most disappointing feature list yet ( i pretty much use Xara only for vector illustration/design purposes) . I'm actually still running v7 (!) having seen very little of value in v8, or 9 either (the vector "painting" tools, looked *kinda* cool, but i doubt i'd ever actually use them seriously). So i guess i'll be skipping this one too. I'm not really one to abandon software just because it seems the developers have neglected it (at least in the areas i care about) - after all, it still works great for what i use it for. There are a lot of things that could be improved though, and many features lacking compared to competitors. I also can't deny that with each underwhelming update, i think more and more about giving the latest versions of Illustrator or Corel Draw another shot.

I'm always hesitant about spending money on software, but Xara is something i use *a lot*, and is one of the rare cases I'd happily throw money at updates, if only I could convince myself they were even remotely useful to me. (I'd list the 1000 minor things that would constitute "useful", but they've been covered many times by different people in the wishlist threads)

[MarcT]

Thanks for the heads up Kate.

(but we are throwing more people at it!)

Throw them hard!!

Marc

[mwenz]

I’m sorry many of you sound disappointed.

Well sound and are disappointed are two separate things. I do appreciate what must have been a difficult post to make. I thank you for making it.

...There were not the same glaring fix-or-die weaknesses in vector features. Plenty of suggestions, yes, but no consensus on ‘must haves’. We understand that means that many illustrators will understandably decide not to upgrade this time, and we have to live with that.

As for the bolded part of the quote. There are simple reasons for that. It is because XDP has long languished in updating, fixing and enhancing its vector capabilities. The various lists would be shorter and more concise if there was steady, gainful advancement in the vector capabilities. Not that there can be actual consensus, but the only real way to rank needs among a small subset of your customers (us here at TG) would be for members to be able to vote/rank individual requests in a massive poll type of system. Probably impractical to do such a system. But with so many areas/industries affected by vector capabilities in so many different ways, there cannot be true consensus. there can be steady improvement and enhancement, however. This is different from web authoring enhancements/capabilities where there is not such a broad spectrum of needs.

I don't know which list(s) you read, but yes, there are obviously items that need fixed, need updated, need...whatever in the vector side of things too. An easy for instance. Have you ever done packaging design or known someone who does? One needs to put crop marks, die lines, cut lines in the page area. This feature alone keeps people who do packaging design that I have recommended using XDP from using XDP for this. Why? Because the "Print on all plates" does not hit a PDF and it is a hassle to make such marks hit all plates. The simple solution is to do what every other design application on the planet does and that is use a special named color (Registration) to appear on all plates. This applies to the screen printing work I do as well.

Further, the biggest deal to me is the library for PDFs y'all use. As far as I can see on their web site (I could have easily missed it, though), they do not support PDF/X-4 and XDP really needs to do so. One of the things in XDP that can (and does) fail at is the flattening of transparency when creating the PDF. Things can go terribly wonky and the PDF is not fit for purpose. Why is this a big deal? Because a design application is only as good as its PDF creation. If XDP cannot reliably output what one can design in it, what's the point? I consider this pretty much a fix-or-die weaknesses.

The list of features, or the lack thereof, is a big deal IF Xara desires to grow its market among people doing vector work. Build it and they will come.

...Our surveys suggest that a typical Pro owners uses all of them – we have after all promoted it as a one-stop graphic design solution for many years! Plus we have a new project in the works too, directly related to and hopefully guaranteeing the long term future of Camelot (the engine that drives the whole Designer suite) which has been taking our resources for over a year. All of this we try to balance, at least over the life of several upgrade cycles. Nothing has been abandoned (but we are throwing more people at it!)

Surveys can say a lot of things depending upon how questions are asked and of whom.

Again, I thank you for making this post I am responding to. I wish Xara and its employees nothing but the best. My motive in writing this is because I do care what becomes of XDP, now and in the future.

I shall await version 11 and see what the difference a year makes.

Best regards, Mike

[angelize]

Thanks Kate, for putting things into perspective for us. And you know, I've been spending some time delving into the Photo looks plug in and it actually is a useful addition to the program. Having the ability to run all my plug-ins in the 64 bit version is a great time saver for me and I appreciate the work that went into making that happen.

[KIR23]

I discovered Xara in 2005 and had been astonished a lot that time of how much time effective the work in Xara was against Adobe products: both Photoshop and Illustrator. Everything quicker, easier and non destructive.

But since that time an industry I work for (game development) changed quite a bit and developed new requirements. Photoshop adapts, not a lot, very slowly, still a lot behind of current necessities, but does adapt throughout all the years. Xara seems like focused on web design things only.

Surprisingly I have never seen a web designer who work in Xara , and we have a lot of them usually since half of games are subscribing based nowadays. Only people I saw that use Xara are folks who does game interface and content, mostly illustration/texture work.

If I would only see a single small feature that would do my work a little bit easier, just something very insignificant and simple, I would gladly pay the upgrade price.