JUST RELEASED! Xara Designer Pro X365

**Jimi King** · 06 July 2016, 04:20 PM

I'd appreciate an answer to my post earlier regarding the purchase price. I'm told I can upgrade for £75. So I'd like it to be made possible to actually do that please and not the £91 ($118) that I'm subsequently asked to pay when I attempt to check out.

**ss-kalm** · 06 July 2016, 04:33 PM

Jimi. You should be able to change the $ to £ in the dropdown box at the top (although I don't know about the invoice) ... That may correct the problem. It shouldn't be giving you $ in any case. Check you're on the EN not US site.

**handrawn** · 06 July 2016, 04:39 PM

it may default to the us site if your computer is set to US or you have your location 'hidden' in your browser/computer in which case I'd do as keith suggests

**Jimi King** · 06 July 2016, 05:10 PM

I'm on the UK site all the way through to the very final click. Then it loses the "en" in the URL and tries to charge me dollars. I've gone through the "switch to UK" routine twice now and it always ends up the same way.

Update: Tried it with Chrome and it finally worked. It doesn't work on Firefox.

**Acorn** · 06 July 2016, 05:11 PM

If you do not renew, after a year you get to keep your original purchase and its bug fixes in perpetuity.
If you stay on the original machine or deactivate and reactivate on a new machine (to a total of 2) within the year, you get to keep the year's previews.
If you deactivate and reactive or are forced to re-install out of the 365-day Update Guarantee period, then you will revert to your original purchase and its bug fixes.

If you choose to use the new features of the previews and do not renew then if you revert to your pre-preview state, you have the problem that on opening a design file with the preview features and probably just because it was at a later version, the application will list all the things it does not recognise or can no longer handle and so your design may no longer work.

I would call this ransomware, but that is my opinion that I will find hard to justify as I have yet to get to that position.

Outside of the guarantee, you then lose all access to the on-line content.
You can download all the templates and design resources to your local machine but you need to then back it all up. This is over 2GB of data.

To compound this sorry state, Xara has removed the Find... button from the Local Designs gallery for no stated reason.

I would call this crippleware if I have to guess the folder and location of some 5,000 items.

Despite asking about the status of earlier versions that use the On-line Content Catalogue and the Xara hosting service (free and in beta) being maintained, Xara have not responded.

I would call this unaware.

I this the product and its direction are great (for web design) but the purchase model ("this is not a subscription") is flaky.
Xara suggested it addressed the drop in new purchases before a major launch, affecting revenue. Revenue for the rump who update will still be in the Summer. Marketing to get new purchasers throughout the year will have to be phenomenal.

I just hope the expected quarterly releases have better DTP, font and vector handling.
Perhaps we can rename the seasons: Font, Web, DTP, Vector?

As to the name of the application. Today, I have mine displaying Xara Designer Pro 360 as a countdown to renewal or bail day.

Acorn

**The Alien** · 06 July 2016, 06:07 PM

This version seems to offer too little innovation for me to upgrade.

What will they name the next version though? Xara Designer Pro X365 2?

I hope they won't go the same way that MS went with their Office 365 product and add subscriptions

**Jimi King** · 06 July 2016, 06:28 PM

Anybody know how to change the splashscreen? The bitmap is not in the usual place.

**csehz** · 06 July 2016, 06:48 PM

Version X11 contained the Magic Bullet - Looks in Live Effect Tool:

Click image for larger version.

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The new version V12 does not have that however was very good, what is the (theoretical) substitute of that? Or maybe possible to have it also in X12 somehow?

**Jimi King** · 08 July 2016, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by Jimi King

Anybody know how to change the splashscreen? The bitmap is not in the usual place.

Anyone?

**mwenz** · 08 July 2016, 10:23 PM

Originally Posted by Jimi King

Anyone?

Just create a design, export it as a BMP, name it splashscreen.bmp and place it in the subfolder named bitmaps under the application folder.

That's it. Xara applications have always had an internal version to display in the absence of the external one. Evidently the external one just isn't being shipped/installed.

Mike