How do you feel about the 365 Program?

[gwpriester]

Mike W. I prefer not to get into a discussion or debate. And Albacore, not the right place for a feature request.

Let's keep focused and hear from as many members as possible to give Xara a projectable idea of the acceptance of this marketing concept.

[browj2]

I think that I was the first to announce this new program on TG having lived through it with other Magix programs before it was announced for Xara.
At the time, and the bottom line, Xara came up with a new version with new and improved features and that if you wanted it all, you had to purchase/upgrade to get it. Xara had some new features that I definitely wanted and needed, so I upgraded. I did not upgrade because there was the possibility of getting some future, unknown features. I am wondering if anyone else purchased based on future unknown features; I doubt it.

Xara/Magix at the same time proposed the infamous 365 program which you all know about and in which Xara would or may release new features early - in advance of a new version (and there would be no new versions), thus giving you something that you would not normally get by simply upgrading. And they said that you could keep any new features that came out after you paid for the upgrade, so long as you did not have to reinstall the program. You did not pay for any features that were not available when you paid - you paid only for the features that were available at the time of payment. Getting new features afterwards, over the next year, was a bonus, that is all. This was clear to me. Secondly, if Xara/Magix only came up with some minor, not really useful features over the course of the year and a user did not want to lock them in by paying for the next year, then it was simply a matter of not paying. Wait until there is something that is useful. This is basically the same as it was before.

Therefore, the message to Xara/Magix is simply,
1. You came up with some good features and I want to lock them in so here is my money for the next year; or
2. You did not come up with anything that I want to keep, I am disappointed and thus I am not paying you any money until you have something that I want.

As for me, so far Xara has not come up with anything new that I want since I paid. If they do not come up with something enticing between now and the anniversary date, I will not be renewing. I will keep on using the "version" that I purchased.

So that you know, on the Magix products, there have been some products that have been substantially upgraded over the course of the year, and others that have received only minor upgrades. The best examples are Movie Edit Pro Plus (MEP) vs Video Pro X (VPX). The former had a very nice upgrade with interesting new features. The latter did not even get these new features, only a few features that really have no impact on me. In fact, Magix has even been way behind in fixing known bugs in VPX but has fixed most of them in MEP. So, as with Xara, I am disappointed. I expected more.

John

[hseiken]

Most of my problems with Xara P&GD are beyond their control (i.e. tethered to the very weak visual C interface, with nonsense back-end updates that break everything due to this stupid MSV140.dll junk).

That said, things that Xara itself did wrong in this release:
Catalog/smart shapes is very workflow killing. Without it in the default flyout and being tied to the internet, what's the point of that? I'm personally sick and tired of everything being 'always on' and 'always downloading/updating'. This is a waste of my resources, personally and the actual menus now, again, are cumbersome and don't flow at all with the existing paradigms they set up the rest of the program to fall under. In other words, it looks like they took a box that holds everything just nice, then duct taped a cell phone to it and called it 'modern connectivity'. Sorry, but it doesn't work for me.

The things I do like that were added were the knew quick photo editing tools, specifically x-filter. I didn't think I'd use it much, by oh my, it works really nicely with photo temperature to get all kinds of nice color edits quickly.

My wishlist:
Get rid of the color plugin selections under effects: I feel these are so generic they should be built in and not external with their own interfaces that don't match what Xara does. In fact, I feel that a lot of the 'generic' things in the plugins effects should be built in and accessible via the regular photo editing tools. How they implement it, could be disasterous based on how their catalog has morphed into something that I don't use at all despite the fact some of the smart shapes are really nice. But that interface...the strongest point of Xara *IS* the interface and workflow and it seems based on my couple of years using it, they don't have anyone with a clear vision adding these tools in, so they all feel like a room of cats that the end user has to herd up. I mean, if I wanted menu after menu of time wasting, I'd just use Illustrator tbh.

So first and foremost, I'd like to see a more unified experience that relies less on on menus and reconstitute the flyouts. The ones that are there are excellent, so there's no reason new features can't be fit into new flyouts. As long as the selections are thoughtful and careful, less *IS* more. Just filling in checkboxes to compete with software that is popular is how to lose focus and get stuck in 'feature creep'. We don't need a lot of this stuff the way it is. We need the stuff that's in there to not feel alien.

So overall, I'm just 'meh' about it all. I still think Xara is the fastest tool to get from idea to finished vectors and has(had, rather...what happened to the old raster tool where you could draw pixels?) decent photo/raster tools, but if they keep down this path, there's going to be absolutely nothing to incentivize following them with upgrades any further, imo. I think this is a huge fallacy of software in general: Knowing when to quit. Upgrades end up being more combersome and hype and 'features' can only get you so far. In the end, once something is perfect, you don't mess it up by going further. I'm sure anyone who uses photoshop would agree with this, since CS4 was the last time anything useful was added, yet every week, there's a 'new upgrade' to that too, which doesn't do anything for the end user except make them wait for the program that should immediately launch have download a gig of useless nonsense. Don't let Xara fall into this...it's painful.

[GiddyupGilbert]

I love X365 as I have with all my upgrades. However, Magix support is poor and because of that I've almost bailed and gone with Adobe. Though the pricing for me is a bit steep what the hey they have everything imagineable for a graphics person.

[Sadler]

I just upgraded my work PC today (14/11/2017) and the Xara documents that I was editing only last week now give this error:


I'm now in the strange situation of having XDP at home still with the 365 updates and my work PC without today.

"Check for updates" encourages me to update but then I'm told, after the install, that my subscription has run out and that I should exit. I then have to uninstall Xara to install the previous version (12.4.0.47404 DL x64 Nov 8 2016).

I have bought Affinity Photo and Designer both of which were recently updated to version 1.6
Their updates are more interesting to me than Xara's (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/ind...have-launched/)

That said, I've been with Xara for a looooooong time and its proving difficult to leave. A colleague recently berated me for sticking with Xara (for fear of change she said!) but I came from being a Corel fan before Xara and have tried several alternatives in the meantime - it's a testament to Xara that I still use their program and still advocate it to friends, family and colleagues.

Before today you might have categorized me as indifferent.

[Boy]

I have bought Affinity Photo and Designer both of which were recently updated to version 1.6
Their updates are more interesting to me than Xara's (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/ind...have-launched/)

Interesting new feature in Affinity: New light user interface option.
Hopefully Xara reintroduces (officially) the light UI again.

[amccullg]

New forum user, folks, so hello to all of you.

I first got into this 365 program by accident - I didn't realize what I was paying for (subscription services were still new at the time for software). I didn't realize that this was going to be a "pay for the updates" kind of thing (nor that you evidently, by the content of this thread, can't keep the updates either). I am not a very heavy user of Xara - in fact, I upgraded this time around primarily with an idea towards getting into the program more and seeing if it's worth doing. I work for a trophy shop at my day job and doodle for practice and skill sharpening in Corel Draw on my own time. No one - and I mean NO ONE - in my circle of graphic designer acquaintances uses or has even heard of Xara. So I got a brand new laptop for Christmas and decided to install the latest Xara. Immediate and wholesale confusion followed as I realized I had to go to another company's site (Magix) to get it, and my Xara login did not work there (although the login page at Magix seemed to indicate that it should) so I had to create a new Magix login. Fine, got that sorted. Realized there was a newer version than what I had, paid the upgrade fee, and installed it. Immediately dismayed that the installation program wanted to dump extraneous programs onto my machine (Music program? PC Maintenance program? All I want is the graphics program!) and started unchecking things to let the install continue. Quickly realized once the program opened that there's this whole new "online content" thing being pushed hard front and center, which appears to have a bunch of predesigned templates to download. Swell. Also quickly noticed that there's no support for very high-resolution screens (my new laptop is 3840x2160) so all of the UI in this newly-updated program is FUZZY. Then noted that there's still no support for OpenType features - you can use them but how to access the extra characters? That was the same issue I had in my OLDER version of the program (ver. 12) and this is 15 - and it's still not fixed?

I'm tending to think that this Magix thing was a horrible idea and I'm not seeing anything spectacular thus far in the upgrade. I don't care about "online content", per se - but basic things like being able to work with type is important to me. I can't say I'll pay for anything else going forward.

[Jonopen]

...Wait until there is something that is useful [then upgrade]. This is basically the same as it was before...

Agree. If nothing significant is added through the year, then why change to the 365 marketing model? To me it just complicates and confuses things and make end users wonder what exactly they buying into. It seems to me Xara expecting extra sales from previous users with expired licences that have since bought new PCs or had a disk crash?

[handrawn]

... expecting extra sales from previous users with expired licences

maximise the revenue stream that was suggested when 365 was launched as I recall, like tying the program to a specific computer as in OEM OS

it is now 10 years to the week, quite possibly the day, since I joined TG - a lot has changed, a lot more must have changed since members such as Gary P joined the fore-runner of TG the name of which I forget

but I don't ever see Xara talking in advance about possible features [let alone public betas as serif are doing] - this 365 model will actually bring that into focus and exacerbate it should it really turn out to be a damp squid squib [actually I rather like the idea of a damp squid, that at least makes sense... ]

[browj2]

I believe that the main reason that Xara/Magix gave at the time was that it would help even out the revenue stream over the year, rather than having a huge spike of revenue when a new version came out. New users would have renewal dates one year from purchase, so this would work with new users. Existing users would likely have the anniversary date not longer after the date that the new version came out when the 365 program started, so there would be a spike. But it would be less pronounced over time, especially with those who would not renew at the anniversary date for whatever reason but wait until later. I can understand this, but Xara and Magix have to understand that their loyal customers expect useful new features during the year.

Here are a couple things that have gone wrong on the Magix side. In a patch for Movie Edit Pro (365), they forgot the update selection in the menu. If you have turned off the news button, you don't see the message, will not get a patch or new features, and you will be displeased and refuse to renew - you would never get any new features even if you did renew. For MusicMaker, Magix issued the 365 version in March of last year, I believe, with new features, and then came out with more new features and content in August. That was when I upgraded to the 365 version. Since then, Magix has released the following new "feature:"

"Customize your version of Music Maker Premium with more than 100 Soundpools, high-quality effects packages and over 20 software instruments. Log in to the Store directly within the program and add new content in a few clicks."

There is a tab for Instruments, one for Soundpools, and one for the Store. Under Store, you have all of the Soundpools and packages that Magix is trying to sell you. So the new feature that you got was more advertising for new content that you could buy. Really!

Imagine the cry of outrage from Xara users if the content that Xara added over the last year showed up adverts to purchase it.

As for me, my main use of Xara is making masks and graphical overlays for Magix Video Pro X (or Movie Edit Pro) by using the feature within the movie editor that opens Xara in animation mode and then brings the result back into the video editor. One can reopen the object from the video editor which opens Xara, to make changes. Almost works perfectly. I showed Magix 2 bugs several months ago that have not yet been fixed and it looks like they won't be: 1. Clicking on the button to return to the editor causes Xara to crash (not always the first instance, but happens consistently with the third instance). The work around is to use the menu of the upper right X. Stupid of Xara/Magix to not have fixed this. 2. Using an art brush brings a non-functioning XAR object into the movie editor. Trying to reopen it causes the movie editor to crash. Without a fix for these, there is no point for me to renew.

John