Goodbye Xara

[ernie-f]

Hi at all,
very interesting discussion.

Last Year I thought the same. I bought a Mac and make a description to Adobes CC (a CS6 I own). I started work. The publish company i work for give me a 4 day goal to do the work. I must say I'm firm in the adobe software world and it will be a little for me do the job, I thought! I ha'd to do 40 e-book covers in this time!

I allways thought AI is slow on my PC, but on the Mac (it's cost was 3.400,– € with the Xeon-Processor) it was the same!?!
I stuck arround and couldn`t find in the right flow.
I remember the lightness of Xara and its fast working but the PC was sold on ebay. What to do?

Parallels! That's what I need. And so i had to pay again. Xara DPX10 runs on Parallels so-so. I remember on Affinity Designer, and once again I paid. In this version (I don`t know which) useless.

The End of this (I wrote it in in other thread, I think XDP X11) i sell the Mac an bought an PC-Workstation and (at this time new) XDP X11.

Last week I updated to X365/12/X10 or what else. Many thinks I wish for my work I would needed are still not implemented but I'm lucky that Xara goes on. And maybe the pressure of Serif with it's Affinity Suite helps Xara to make the right dicission and listen/read it's users and there wishes.

That I have the possibility to create my Website or my customers is for me a great plus. And realy, for me as graphic designer is 89,– € to spend for an update not the world. Fo AI CC I must pay 70,– €/month. I need PS and Acrobat Pro, without this software no prof. publishing with Xara.

The last week I played with Affinity for Windws and here the same like in the Mac-Version, in comparisom to Xara useless. To much thinks like text handling, typography, wrong PDF-Import, multiple pages … and … and … are missing. But there are a few thinks what Xara is still missing, one of the most missings in Xara is a prof. colour management and PDF-Preflights for prof. output.

The missing Vector-Tools, they be found in othe sotwares I wouldn't name here.

Servus Ernie

[pauland]

Quite a journey, Ernie.

10 e-book covers a day. Wow!

[Gare]

Herculean effort, Ernie, just Herculian and Odyssyian!

I gues you are goal-oriented and if something doesn't fit your assignment, you refer to it as "useless"? I sort of like Affinity Designer. And I like Xara a lot more than Illustrator, but then again, I use these programs for things different than you do. It would take me at least a month to do 10 book covers.

Hats off to you,

Gary

[ernie-f]

Yeah Glare,

Your' allways right. I don't think Affinity or other Serif stuff is useless. But in this constallation for me was/is it useless.
And to finish it I attache a screenshot showing a drawing I do with Affinity Designer and the same one with XDP X12/365.

In Affinity Designer it tooks three times the time I need in Xara. Not why I must search for tools or remeber the shortcuts but while it tooks to change my workflow and Affinity is beta. Maybe it will enrich my work in future.

How You, I allways enjoy with Expression 3 and it works fine on Win 10 allways.
So I see it too, there is not the only one tool. but Xara makes my thinks faster. On my website You see examples of these book-covers.

If I/You not fast enough for do this kind of jobs in Germany – You're out. There is an other to do this and for less money.

The designers world is a Fool-House!

Servus Ernie

[gwpriester]

Ernie - Brilliant! Software in the end is nothing more than a tool. So the trick is to find the best tool or tools for the way you work and that let you do your best work.

[ernie-f]

Yes Garry, that's it, only a tool.

We designers have a bunch of tools to do our work. But there is one tool, I'll say the jewel (not the gral). And this tool we love and hate.

It's Xara. My experiences, if I'd know there is no compromise, show that I'm an old man who search the wonder. But the wonder isn't there, not at Serif, not at Adobe, not at Corel and not at Xara.
But we all waiting for it.

XDP do all the things I wonna do. It does it fast and, because I know about colourmangement, I get prof. results.

Otherwise if I look around and count my money what can I get for the bugs?

Isn't it incredible what I earned from Xara for the bugs? Have anyone calculate it with other offers from othe companies? I'll stay to Xara.

I found it over now five years and it help me to grow. I agree that not all is o.k. with Xara/Magix. But with other companies too.

And finaly I hope Xara read herein and make respond to us users whether professional or amateurs.

If I'm in flow, the next thing is Magix. As known as the Amiga-Factory in Germany they stay only for Hobyists. The video pro software except.
If they will be a equivalent provider then is know the right time. I hope the model 365 will bring us the jewel, maybe in small pieces but at the end of the year it's a mgic.

I know I'm a dreamer but without dreams the people will die.

Thanks for reading my deutsch-english.

Servus Ernie

[digitalphaser]

Hi Ernie,
excellent covers. But I doubt that the creation of such covers in Photoshop will require more time than with Xara. ??? What I saw are photo-based artworks. Xara is not capable of professional manipulation with photos. I can not imagine photoshopping without precise color, shadow etc. controls, without the possibility of warp transformation of the raster objects and more and more...

I love Xara but I also have a large and consistent Xara’s critic.
In 80% cases I have to jump to other software. I do not have a lot of requirements. But. For me it is still a mystery what prevents to do finally reliable vector brushes, vector pattern fill, advanced font control. Mesh fill and color management sounds for Xara in general like science fiction. AI, CD, Serif DP have these and more features for many years.

The Xara’s speed is a myth too. I have a workstation with nVidia Quadro and 32Gb RAM. I do not remember the freezes of Photoshop or Corel. Xara doing it regularly.

Xara is a comfortable and easy program, but it is hopelessly outdated. This is the main point of my criticism.

Yes, 100EUR/year is nothing. But for what? How parallax and other rubbish help me create a professional product?

[ernie-f]

Hi digitalphaser,

You are right, without Photoshop I couldn't do all the work.

On my website are only th e-book cover. What I forget is that I have to create the corresponding cover for the print version of the books. And here is Xara light years faster and intuitively then Adobe products. CorelDraw, now in the X18 version is still slower then Xara. For me is there nothing on the market what can compare with Xara to do my work faster.

Her is an exampel:


For the book content I use a special typesetting program „TangoStudio” or sometimes Indesign or Serifs PagePlus, depending on the content.

The freezing issue I had with my old workstaion Dell with AMD Phenom (Bulldozer) and 16 gb RAM. I look in the Taskmanager and see that Xara need the full power of only the first core, the other 7 cores had go to sleep. This in mind I buy a workstation based on Intel Core i7 CPU Skylake and one on Core i5 CPU Skylake both with 64 gb RAM. Now is Xara using all cores and since I hasn't freezing problems with Xara or any other programs.

From Bavaria, servus Ernie

[digitalphaser]

Ernie,
I do not like to discuss the computer. I can say only one thing. Hardware of my i7 64-bit system optimizing for graphics performance, rendering and 3D modeling. I had no freezing cases with other software. Even resource-intensive programs(CAD modeller, subdivision and sculpting soft) are running flawlessly.

My XDP11 hangs pretty often. For example today. I tried to convert a grunge vector brush to shape. Result: blured full screen interface and timeless loading spinner.

Yes, this brush was quite difficult. But I think, that the 3D model with 10 millions of polygons require a lot more resources than vector brush. It is a fact.

Sorry, but XDP11 does not create the impression of a stable version. Every day I use this program and I'm pretty well aware of the weaknesses.

MfG aus Berlin

[RichardPM]

I too am saying Goodbye to Xara after a good many years of buying their bi annual interface upgrades.
The final kicker for me is that despite an extensive description, complete with examples, pictures and pdfs, Xara "product support" has done nothing to fix a very annoying problem in the Print control when using some Brother printers. I was made to feel that it was my fault or even my unpaid job to do all the debugging for them, even though each time I sent some details in, replies indicated it was more or less ignored.
I tried pretty much the same thing in Affinity and lo and behold, no problems.

I also asked why it was impossible to have default setting saved as global options rather than on a page by page basis, to be told "that is the way it is"!. Had they actually pretended they were listening and even say, offered a nominal discount on next 'upgrade' for the many hours of my time spent explaining this vexing issue, it would have been much much better customer support.
I saw that about a year or so ago they were advertising for programmers so assumed this was to do a careful rebuild of the programme and fix up a number of other very longstanding glaring errors, omissions and oversights. There is so much that could be simply done to further develop, improve and make this programme a real winner, but instead, they are just milking it.

I am also happy to say that Affinity is cheaper than a Xara upgrade and does all I really need. I anticipate that they might be more responsive to user comments, too.