Wish List for V12

**pauland** · 19 March 2016, 11:12 AM

Yeah, but it sucks at web publishing.. ;-)

**mwenz** · 19 March 2016, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by pauland

Yeah, but it sucks at web publishing.. ;-)

Now that's funny!

And just think, because of the X number of people that feel cheated by Serif stopping development of WebPlus (other than any future needed patches) and are jumping ship in a too-soon, knee-jerk reaction, Xara's sales of WebWhatever are going to skyrocket...

**Gare** · 19 March 2016, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by Albacore

...the beta version of Affinity is out now for windows.

Don't throw your copy of Xara Designer out just yet! March 19th, 2016, there's a billboard that says beta testing is still weeks away.

What I don't understand is why Affinity's Marketing Director only let two, perhaps three at tops, artists show off their work. Clearly, there's someone who excels at watercolor style landscapes, someone who does shiny cartoonish scenes, and someone who draws cars.

You take a look at Xara's gallery and there is a breadth of expression that is only rivaled in the here and now by CorelDRAW's splash screens in X8.

The most important overall suggestion I have for v!2 is to keep the toolset balanced. Not too much web features, not too much time spent in a rev cycle for trivial stuff, definitely improvements over the current tool set. Look at how in Affinity and Illustrator you can change the width of a stroke at any given control point. Gimme that in Xara and you can put the Profiles Gallery away, totally.

Click image for larger version.

Name: Width-tool.jpg
Views: 98
Size: 23.7 KB
ID: 112208

This makes designing glyphs for a typeface much less of a chore.

As part of development, I'd love to see less dependence on converting things, such as the new brush strokes, to bitmap. It's frustrating not to be able to work with vectors as vectors, things like breaking a custom stroke into its components, as we can do with converting text to shapes.

I'd like to see the Eraser tool actually erase and rearrange control points, not mask the areas you erase. Similarly, I'd like to be able to paint with an angled brush to attain calligraphy stroke whose core is the path segment I created, not a "dead" shape that obliges you to try again.

**pauland** · 19 March 2016, 12:39 PM

Gary, Xara software is as good as it is and the Affinity software is an up-and-coming kid on the block.

I don't see any need to diss the software - it's been very well received on the Mac platform and I think they are seen as a solution for designers that don't want to tread the Adobe line.

Xara/Magix are never going to be in that position.

**mwenz** · 19 March 2016, 12:43 PM

The line width thing at points was likely borrowed from Illustrator. But yes, pluses aplenty on that being rolled into XDP.

Affinity is pretty new. There'll be more videos, more sample illustrations, etc. But really, how many do they need?

**pauland** · 19 March 2016, 12:59 PM

The price point is so low, people will just give it a whirl.

Anyway, we should have some respect for who's forum this is. This is quite OT.

**mwenz** · 19 March 2016, 01:02 PM

Yes, and no, Paul.

Few things in software are "created" from a vacuum. Most functions are borrowed from present or past software. It's OK to mention the other software, at least in that context.

**Gare** · 19 March 2016, 01:03 PM

Originally Posted by pauland

Gary, Xara software is as good as it is and the Affinity software is an up-and-coming kid on the block.

I don't see any need to diss the software - it's been very well received on the Mac platform and I think they are seen as a solution for designers that don't want to tread the Adobe line.

Xara/Magix are never going to be in that position.

Um. Paul: first of all, this is a Xara-owned forum, and although we seem to be free to discuss almost anything we like within socially-acceptable boundaries, this thread is a wish-list for Xara version 12, and as such, I thought I was being appropriate in making suggestions about the future version, while at the same time acknowledging albacore's post about Affinity Designer.

Second: is bringing up the fact that a lot of Affinity's campaign graphics seem limited to three designers considered to be dissing the product? I'm dissing their advertising and I stand by my remark, Paul. What attracted me to Xara, being a CorelDRAW Annual Contest finalist, was the diversity of images they showed as part of advertising.

Third and lastly, I'm not a "switcher". I see it as idiotic to throw away one's current tools when a new, fancier tool comes out. I still use CorelDRAW...no sense in wasting investment time learning it, I have several version of C4D and competing programs on my hard drives...I add to my current toolset. I don't woo and then dump something that serves a valuable purpose in my work.

I'm not being PC here. I was one of the first people to sign up for the Affinity Designer beta.

My Best,

Gary

**Gare** · 22 March 2016, 05:59 PM

1. Give us a way to unrotate a roted object. Be able to set the rotation of the selected, rotated shape to Ø.

2. The Mould tool more or less obliges you to then switch to the Shape Editor tool because for the life of me, I can't use the Mould tool to reshape an object. Can you alow us to use the Mould tool much more easily for editing the mould shape?

TIA,

Gary

**Albacore** · 23 March 2016, 10:00 AM

+1 for improving what you can do with the Mould Tool. Also in post #273 you mentioned the "variable stroke width profile" in the brushes set +1 for that as well. That would be a huge step forward if is was vector even when you change the line to a shape. Mind you I don't know the numbers that buy Web Designer but if the number that post here at TG represents the buying public then the ratio's would mean the tool set development would be set for them not the drawers that request here.