The future of Xara

[bembelembe]

Hello.
As mainly Freehand and occasional Illustrator user, I have high hopes for future of Xara releases. For certain, all Freehand users that I know and who tried Xara are thinking to migrate to Xara rather than Illustrator. However, there are some features that Freehand users cannot live without and stuff that Xara "lacks" - interface, handling with colors, more flexible multipage etc. I'm sure that there has been talk of those features before so I don't want to repeat.

Now what I wonder is if there will be soon any new version of Xara and will it satisfy Freehand users needs?
I'm talking of big number of those users that are not satisfied with migrating to Illustrator and looking for more functional and fast application. I really hope that people at Xara are aware of that.

Aside of Freehand-Xara stuff, does anybody know of some details of Xara's roadmap?
Is there any wish list, beside occasional forum posts where we can write to Xara programmers?

[gwpriester]

Welcome to the Xtreme Conference

Xara is not Freehand and Xara is not CorelDRAW and Xara is not Illustrator. It is Xara Xtreme.

There are many features unique to each of these other programs and there are many features unique to Xara Xtreme. This is life.

The most successful users learn how to make the software do what they need it to do and learn to work around a software's shortcomings.

If you do a search on this site for wishlist or wish list, you will find dozens of previous posts, some of these quite extensive, in which many many things have been requested.

Xara has done a pretty good job keeping Xara up-to-date and adding new features. But one of the things that has always made Xara a great product is it does not try to be all things to all people the way that some other products do. It is lean, mean and very fast. Those of us who have used the product over the years really appreciate this.

If you visit the Xara Gallery on Xara's website or visit the Featured Artist Gallery at The Xara Xone I think you will see some pretty incredibly art and graphic design creates with this humble little application.

I'm not trying to sound petulant.

Gary

[MarkMyWords]

I understand entirely your wishes bembelembe, but Gary's advice is pretty much on the mark. Nothing wrong with making your needs and wants known at all, infact I'm very interested in what others want from Xtreme, but it will take time and a pretty strong demand for new features to be implimented. So whilest it is fine to ask about future versions and even suggest features, we have to just get on and work with what we have, right now.

[Josie]

Good question. Although wishlists and suggestions occur here quite frequently, I am curious what is the general mood on the current state of things. Time for a new survey? Can you describe at most 3 features that would radically add to the way you work, significantly improve your productivity or that would enable you to abandon using other additional software in favor of Xara?

My 3 are:
1) support for OpenType, i. e. access to all OpenType font's glyphs.
2) advanced text functionality: specifically paragraph styles including word and letter-spacing management; at least basic search & replace would be also helpful
3) some automation: copying/moving/rotating objects in increments (equivalent to FreeHand's Transform panel); and in DTP area, master pages and page numbering come first to my mind, perhaps.

There are more, of course, but these alone would let me do more types of projects in Xara and not be dependent on specialized layout software. BTW I actually know people who use Xara instead of Word and PowerPoint. Is it not great ? J

[remi]

BTW I actually know people who use Xara instead of Word and PowerPoint. Is it not great ? J

I wouldn't recommend this. Xara Xtreme is not a word processing application...

Remi

[Albacore]

I don't think Josie knows FH that well. What FH mx does well it is very stable, has a great text engine, has a good export function in PDF and can copy & paste well from other apps. Its palettes are also good but its interface is a pain and takes getting use to and that's why I use Xtreme rather than FH.

I would like to see Xtreme take the align palette from FH and a few of its tools and we would have a killer app for at the moment our only development in the tools over the recent years that we use has been Live Effects.

I also agree what Gary states each package has its strengths and weaknesses and work around and it is up to the user to get to know the software first without trying recommend that it change to suit certain users. I have been very impressed how Xara listens to its users and delivers its improvements to their recommendations and they should be congratulated for that.

[StevenWWinters]

Personally, I think that bembelembe's input is particularly invaluable for Xara. If indeed there is a sizable user base of an orphaned application that Xara could win over by incorporating features (not already in Xtreme) but are consistent with their vision for the product, why shouldn't they want to hear that and evaluate it. The recent interface changes (which some no doubt feel a step backwards) to accommodate Illustrator users is merely their reasonable attempt to gain market share without drastically changing the focus of the product. In a market dominated by two 800 pound gorillas, I think it especially prudent that Xara be sensitive to the input of potential new users. When new features are suggested, among other things, Xara must continually evaluate:

1. Is this consistent with the product direction.
2. Is it already in the product and if so can it be done better.
3. Is it economically viable to add or change.

Clearly, new users often are unaware that what they want to accomplish can already be done in Xtreme (and perhaps more efficiently) and that is why this forum is so great. And I can understand that "wish lists" become wearisome for regular participants here. But, at the end of the day, if you are happy with what Xtreme is today and don't like what it becomes, well then you can keep using what you already have, can't you. :-)

[Ted Eggs]

Many, many moons ago Computer Concepts (Xara) wrote what they called a document processor; 'Impression 2'. I still have my copy in the office! It was written for the old BBC Archimedes.
How much time, effort and energy would it take to rewrite it for today's machines to satisfy the constant demands for a Xara family publishing application?

Ted

[remi]

It needs 5 minutes, not more (...to download Open Office or buy MS Word or another immediatly available software package for such purposes). Why should a software company starts to invest time (=money) into the next (unlucky) word processing software? Nobody needs that. Nobody would use it. Nobody would pay a developer to do that. No customers would buy such a thing. The market of such applications is saturated.

Remi

[dflock]

I think that bembelembe makes an interesting point - Adobe bought Macromedia and have decided to, essentially, abandon the Macromedia Freehand product in favour of their own product - Illustrator.

This leaves Freehand users with an eventual choice - switch to Illustrator or switch to something else.

Would Xara be interested in putting in any effort be become the 'something else' of choice for ex-Freehand users, or not?