Wish List for V12

[jvila]

I'd like to see whatever features that are added to be adjustable in the workspace instead of in proxy boxes. Xara had its beginning as a very strong alternative to CorelDRAW because stuff like gradients and transparency were performed live on a drawing, and actually, versions later, CorelDRAW copied Xara.

But the Live Filters in particular are difficult to "perform art" within.

Perhaps take advantage of the Context menu a little better (it has a lot of irrelevant commands as it is, not exactly a "{context" menu) to provide range, amount, and other stuff you need to do in proxy boxes by dragging sliders. Put it in the workspace, don't stop a creative process because the UI isn't designed to accommodate artists, who, back in the analog days, just reached for a kneaded eraser or a photo blue pencil, done deal.

TIA,

Gary

Completely agree Gare, the best thing of using xara is you don't have to move a slider and see the effect after click ok, live behave is the most impressive feature.

[xtom]

I'd like it if xara auto sorted installed fonts so you can easily browse through just serif, sans-serif and script fonts, and a checkbox to make a link with no underline.

[mwenz]

I'd like it if xara auto sorted installed fonts so you can easily browse through just serif, sans-serif and script fonts...

This would be difficult to accomplish and would be error prone. Most all methods to do this now rely on accurate panose information in the font. Which is often not present or inaccurate.

Which is why I use a font manager to organize my fonts and only keep fonts activated that I need.

[xtom]

Error prone is ok so long as it gets say >90% right. I was thinking maybe some kind of image analysis could be done as well so it could take a few different characters from the font and check if there are tails on the ends or not, if it's mostly straight, if it's mostly bendy/scripty and this coupled with info stored in the font it could do a decent job at auto sorting them. There's lots of fancy graphics stuff going on in xara already so I would think it would be in the realm of possibility. It would only would have to this sort on first program install or when a new font is installed. It could also allow the user to manually sort them if need be.

[ad1066]

A workaround for merging layers:

1. Lock all layers except the layers you want to merge.
2. Select all.
3. Group. All the objects will be moved to the topmost layer before grouping.
5. Ungroup if necessary.
6. Delete extraneous layers.

Though it would be nice to have one button that does all that.

-- Ben

[gwpriester]

Toggle between curly quotes and tick marks. There is a time when you need tick for dimensions and curly quotes for quotations. You need both, not one or the other.

[Nick K]

5 easy things I would like to see added to 12
1. When you upgrade it sees the previous version and imports the settings, default page size, arrangement of tool bars, options etc. (it's annoying that this has to be done everytime)
2. Why after all these years is there no option to inverse the curved corners on rectangles (it's available on Artworks thanks MW)
3. When using the fonts menu, if you are looking for inspiration, why is it that when selecting a font and going back to the menu to search further it puts you back at the near top and not where you left off ?
4. With a modest tool set and huge monitor is there any sense in collapsed tool bars?
5. A replicate tool for tessalation of objects where it is desirable to have X x Y repeated objects (again see Artworks ) with editable repel widths or patterns - I have not seen how to do this easily

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Nick and welcome to TG. Artworks! You're going back to the early 80's. Great software from CC. The thing I miss most about was that Artworks saved Undo operations in the file, so if you re-opened that file you could still Ctrl+Z (Undo) edit's you'd done several days, weeks, months previously.

[Nick K]

Thanks,
Artworks is still going by Martin Wurthner - he has added some useful ( sadly not available on Xara ) tools, though I have to say the GUI is looking rather old now
thankfully Xara still imports Artworks EPS and Drawfiles so I only use AW when quicker to do so
Yes that would be another good feature which could be offered on a file by file basis (eg. if you want to have the undo cache saved with the file.. click here)

Nick K

[metal4ever]

I used the Trial version of Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 11. The trial expired. I think this program is good and easy to use.
I have only one wish. I often create Mockup graphics, and in Photoshop I can create a couple of rectangles in perspective view. In Photoshop I can draw intelligent smart objects, than only I have to do is double click on that object and it opens another window. In that window, I can paste a graphic, and fit the rectangle. When I save it, the pasted image (or a vector graphic image from illustrator) appear in the original mockup graphic on the prevous selected intelligent smart object. So, I can draw and make a perspective a lot of objects, and save the mockup graphic for any later use. I don't have to draw new objects for my mockup.

But anyways in Xara I have to paste again and again the new graphics in the mockup and make them perspective. Fox example, when I finishing a new visiting card or other graphic, I want to see in mockup about few minutes later. In Photoshop I can use over and over again my latest mockup graphic and the new graphic paste is easy.

Do you see a chance that my problem will be solved in a future release? I want to buy this product, but for me it's a big problem.
Sorry for my English, I'm not speaking it well.
Thanks.