Goodbye Xara

[vkenner]

So, please; VKenner, stay! So please, Xara, keep in touch with you real users. And so please, all members of this forum, be loyal to your choice and this community. Help each other, give advice and let the software be what you are ...

Michael,

thank you for your words and your opinion on the development of Xara Designer.

I want to express it once more. My intention in my first post was not and is not to bitch against the software and absolutely not against the forum. I highly value and respect it's members and the way they discussed so many topics over the years.

But I wanted to state that I came to the conclusion that Designer is being developed in a direction that is not of interest for me right now. I emphasise that the original core of the program as a vector tool that also handels pixels is very good and I will keep using my version 11.

If Xara/Magix came to the conclusion that the current direction is the best way to reach new users and increase sales to pay the bills this is absolutely ok to do for them. I'm just not going along.

And that's exactly why I'm in this discussion here about leaving Xara, romancing Affinity Designer and frankly, some remarks that remind me more of brand loyalty or a bad marriage rather than a designer picking out tools for an assignment.

Gary,

interesting you read my reference towards Affinity as romancing. Written word is so much open for interpretation. I decidedly mentioned this program because I want Xara to see that other developments by other companies are recognised by their own users.

And speaking of a bad marriage. Even if I like the program the lack of development (with vector tools) over the last two years indeed made me feel a little frustrated. And thus you found a good metaphore for my decision to split up ;-)

All the best,

V.

[iamtheblues]

I make a conscious effort to avoid contentious threads, or those which could potentially fall into that category. This one hasn't gone that way...yet, so before it does,
I'd like to say that the Super Moderator (Floating) writes a lot of common sense about Xara and brand loyalty in general. Like Gary, I tend to pick Xara Designer from my toolbox as first choice,
no matter what the project might be. Alongside Xara I'd also use CorelDraw, Illustrator and Inkscape, if I feel that something can be accomplished more easily with the tools that Xara doesn't have.
The way things are now with varying subscription models, which I abhor, I shall more than likely stick with the version numbers of most of the graphic software I own and only upgrade if a must-have feature appears in a newer version of any of the above-mentioned.
With the addition of Affinity for Windows there seems to be a shift in my perspective. Whilst it isn't perfect, it is cheap, and with my future finances being unknowable with Britain's exit from the EU, as a Spanish resident, I will have to rein in the horses of expenditure for the foreseeable future, so Affinity may be the way forward for me.
Of course, this doesn't mean that I have to forsake the software I already have. Between them all I've got a lot of choice. But gone are the days of anticipating the next Xara or Illustrator releases, the cost is unjustifiable to me (and the subscription models just too complicated to bother with). But at around €50 or so, Affinity is cheap and if the version improvements are tempting, I shan't sweat too much at splashing out for a new version.
Bob.

[JokeArtist]

Another year and another 'No New Proper Glyph Support for OpenType Fonts' ... absolutely unforgivable in this day and age for a graphics application.

So I'll stick with x9 thank you very much. Xara will not be getting any money from me until they sort this one out.

The can 'Fi' right off as far as I'm concerned (proper designers will get this little joke).

[ankhor]

I just took a peak again, new version, new model of purchase, and I find not much vector in it, so I wait again, until it does, the wait has been long, and will be even longer now, I guess..

[hseiken]

Just tried Affinity. It had some cool features but it lagged heavily with a tablet in comparison to Xara. I didn't find anything about it really new or inventive either. It has some stuff Xara can do but streamlined into buttons, but overall, it seems like it's trying to steal Illustrator users who've never really experienced a cleaner interface that's less cumbersome since there's a lot of Illustrator-isms in the interface that I noticed (and don't jive with in the first place lol). I think I'll stick to Xara if for nothing else than I don't like Illustrator's toggle method of fill/stroke editing when compared to the more on-the-fly-context-sensitive way that Xara handles it...and the lag factor too. If I was to point out something it can do that Xara can't (at this time) do, that's use the photo effects bar on vectors shapes with no photos attached to them. Affinity got around the 'feathering' concept in Xara by using a photo guassian blur/sharpen slider as if every vector was a photo. I'm pretty sure Xara could hook the photo bar up to vectors already with a couple lines of code, but it's not like it's a deal breaker between the two programs feature-wise.

[handrawn]

interesting - I didn't find any lag, in fact I found it fast..... [using cintiq 13]

[Squeaky]

Jumping on the whole Affinity thing. The reason it excites me is that it has native CMYK support. I really REALLY wish Xara had that. For print work it it pretty necessary especially if working with other non-Xara users.
That said I like the web direction of Xara Pro. I'm thinking it may well be useful to make web comics. (I could do with horizontal parallax though.)
To sum up. I don't think I have ever been able to work with just one piece of software. Use what works. The more the merrier. :-)

[MarcT]

a lot of Illustrator-isms in the interface that I noticed (and don't jive with in the first place lol). I think I'll stick to Xara if for nothing else than I don't like Illustrator's toggle method of fill/stroke editing when compared to the more on-the-fly-context-sensitive way that Xara handles it..

Absolutely, what a subtle time saver!
Right-clicking for line color or drag-copy is awesome.

And to name a few others :

Selection not based on visibility but by stacking order (also like illustrator).
Not being able to use an external bitmap editor.
No Object Naming.
Arranging objects up/down in the stack is also based on stacking order, Xara considers only the objects "overlapping" the target.

There's a lot of those details

I must be unlucky but I've experienced stability issues, bugs and export problem with affinity.

It does have some awesome features though, round corner are amazing (the corners remains editable even after object rotation).
Also using levels on vector objects is quite nice.

Marc

[mwenz]

Marc, as regards an external bitmap editor, Serif's Affinity Photo can open Affinity Draw's files and vice versa, as well as pass back and forth the drawings.

[hseiken]

@marcT: I'm hoping the corner tool (apparently it's lifted from Freehand MX from a million years ago?) makes it's way into xara as an add-on smart shape type at some point. While it's not necessary for me to need it on every line I draw, I do find that tool useful in some situations.

@handdrawn: I'm running both with a wacom something another (they just bring out the same damn pad with new drivers and new name every 4 years, but it's just an 11 x 8 tablet) and a Lenova ThinkPad with all the trimmings cira 2013. My guess is that for some reason it's expecting finger and I can't get it to not expect that. I noticed the same thing in every program before I turned touch off in Windows10, but for some reason, it's back with Affinity. I know it's not affinity specifically, it's how it's handling the inputs or checking status of the OS or something quirky like that. In terms of actual editing, yes, the display engine was on par, maybe a little faster than Xara.

@Squeaky - I think I informally asked for CMYK color separations. That said, it still has option to spot color with CMYK values, it's just clunky compared to something like Illustrator where it's aimed toward final delivery of a document in CMYK rather than just building it's swatches. It goes hand in hand with that rasterization preview filter button. It's nice so you don't have to render out first to check what your vectors look like as raster.