Expiration of Designer Pro

[handrawn]

no argument with that mike... it's just interesting, and historically in keeping, that xara should have given that sort of thing priority as an implementation feature, didn't mean to imply it was a bad thing....

[mwenz]

It is actually "easy" to implement. Windows can pass that information along with the rest of the font info. It's a matter of pushing that info into the variable.

It came about from me making a casual comment of "too bad XDP cannot display the human readable names" type of thing. Next thing I know, it's in the release.

As far as I can see, the basic implementation of these two OT Features has been implemented in a basic manner--if these features (ligatures & stylistic sets) make use of contextual look-ups, they fail to work. But to be fair, ID still cannot fully utilize certain contextual look-ups either. QXP can to a certain extent. Of what I have and use only CD and AD can truly use full OT Features. Even AD has an issue with certain features, like small caps/all caps (CD doesn't). It's not that they do not work, it's just that a certain person convinced the person implementing these features at Serif how they should work, which is technically incorrect (non-separable).

It's all a work in progress for every company. Some are just further down the implementation path than others are. Xara got an extremely late start in the OT Feature support. But if they choose to add some new support as they go back and work on existing support with each iteration, they can at least surpass Adobe products in a few years...if the will to do so is there.

[handrawn]

yes xara is like that if they can help, they will - long ago I asked for a means to supress node visability when drawing in the freehand tool - it never made it to the UI, but a registry fix was made available and is still there

but that was years ago - there is still no fill an un-enclosed space tool; still no colour to transparency ramp - I sincerely hope you do not end up waiting years for the typography requirements that you would like...

to save time I started using other apps that can do the things I need in one go, and now I mostly only come back to mark up the pages [in the artistic sense] 'cos the UI is really great for that with soft grouping etc

[dutchim]

$129 for the renewal... Up from $99 how it used to be.

Is it worth it? Tough one...

[browj2]

Perspective. Went out for supper and show at the Jazz Festival last night. Took along a 35$ bottle of wine to a BYOB restaurant. Supper was 100+tip$.

The wine was good, but which lasts longer, the Xara upgrade? Or the bottle of wine?

[mwenz]

Perspective. Went out for supper and show at the Jazz Festival last night. Took along a 35$ bottle of wine to a BYOB restaurant. Supper was 100+tip$.

The wine was good, but which lasts longer, the Xara upgrade? Or the bottle of wine?

A closer to the point perspective.

If one doesn't need web stuff, a software by another company is sub $50 and it will not take too much longer for it to be more capable in a broader sense than XDP. It's already more capable for most of what I make. Whenever their layout software hits the market, it will be far more capable than the seemingly defunct Page & Layout Xara application.

It's past time that Xara gut their product lineup and reconsider their pricing structure.

Dinner and entertainment it ain't. For me it's a livelihood.

[handrawn]

I agree with mike

all I do with xara can be done in affinity which is a lot cheaper - I still much prefer the xara UI, but the more I use affinity the more I get used to it.. and the UI features of XDPX11/12 are still fine for me,, no reason at all to upgrade any further, and I don't see any stuff coming down the line to pull me back - it really would have to be something significant that was not covered elsewhere...

on the subject of dinner - that's not really relevant to me either - I might as well trade dinner against theatre [which for me is work related], or holiday against a new garden shed [which is another ongoing investment] - what matters is the overall expenditure budget, and xara does not fit in the moment [I hope you did enjoy the wine at 35 a bottle bought out though - city prices I assume ]

@dutchim it should be offered at 99 when you get close to the end of your renewal - but maybe xara have not done the right thing in only offering this from within the program upfront ? - on that basis too late for me now, I bought on the 4th last year and it is now the 5th - I shall install xdpx365 fresh later and see what exactly it is that I still get ...

EDIT - now I am directed from the porgram link to an upgrade of 139 as I expected.... wil reinstall later...and before I do that... just to note that clicking on the design gallery 'more online' buttons, or the 'content catalogue' takes me straight to the upgrade page at 139 as well...

[handrawn]

thinking further on this bottle of wine comparison.....

last time I bought 'expensive' wine was back end of last year in Central Liverpool - Chateau Pape... in the resturant 23.95 GBP a bottle - I can only assume if you are paying more you are in a high cost of living area, with wages to match... I might pay more in London, but not in the north of england... not willingly, I'd be going into the wrong sort of places...

you can't expect xara to adjust their prices on this basis of regional variation... but I think affinity have a better grasp of the realities

[iamtheblues]

Going slightly more off-topic, for which I apologise, 15 years ago when I still lived in the UK I would expect to pay £10.00 or so for 3 bottles of halfway decent wine in a high street chain of off-licences. Today it is still like going back in time as I can pop in to any Día supermarket and pick up a bottle of Marques de Caceres Crianza for €7.45. I'm neither gloating not pitying, it's just the way it is.

Software companies can (and do) charge what they like and I imagine that Magix/Xara have taken a hit with their Xara product range, which is exorbitantly priced. Karma, payback, you can call it what you like, but the customer is still king and will vote with their feet, (if I'm using mixed metaphors, please forgive me) and the result will benefit only Serif in the short to medium term.

Magix/Xara can do as they please, but the rumblings of discontent are increasing on TG and before too long there will be just tumbling tumbleweeds and web comments.

The only good thing to arise from this self-inflicted debacle of their own making is that Xara/Magix can concentrate on software for dummies, whilst the rest of us can stick with the iteration of the software that we have paid for and get our improvements from Affinity. It's not exactly Win/Win, but I will settle for that.
Bob.

[haakoo]

At least they could have offered some new features to make the transition to this 365 sc*m,sorry scheme,more tolerable.
But even that isn't do-able.

Price increase should relate to feature increase,not third party blabla

@Bob,you're right,merely software for dummies.

Hans