Xara Xtreme verison 4

[pauland]

Anyone out there with me on this ?

Absolutely. First impressions count.

What is the Repel feature that is offered in Xtreme 4 ?

If you position an object over some text and set the object to 'repel' the text in the box will flow around the object (though it doesn't always seem to work for me).

Paul

[DiscoMike]

Thanks much for your input Paul. I did see an example of that in this thread, orange button with surrounding text, but I wanted to make sure.

Sounds like a great feature to have which would be useful for web and illustration graphics.

[Xhris]

...The best interface I seen in a graphics program is Microsofts Expression Design...

We have to be a little careful when we talk about what we mean by good UIs. There are two separate issues here that are being compounded and confused: a) the UI's functionality, and b) its superficial appearance.

Regarding a): Xara has the most intelligently designed UI out there for functionality. It's minimalist, compact, efficient, and totally unintimidating (relative to the competition); no dialogue clutter, gratuitous menus or floating palettes.
Regarding b): Yes, Expression's interface is much more aesthetically appealing on the gloss front. But what's more important, style or substance? Obviously the latter; Expression's UI is relatively poor on the productivity side.

This is not to say it would be unwelcome for Xara's interface to be sexed-up, which is what I think people are really asking for, specifically, regarding the UI.

[pauland]

This is not to say it would be unwelcome for Xara's interface to be sexed-up, which is what I think people are really asking for, specifically, regarding the UI.

Exactly.

[Charles Moir]

Completely agree guys. Now if we could only find a really good icon designer who can create really classy minimalist icons designs. It's very, very difficult.

We could quite easily, and seriously considered this for 4.0, make the icons monochrome, which makes them seem a little less toy. In fact we did this for XPE, and I think these looks better, but there are other opinions about this internally.

[a4hire]

Charles, I am sure that there are a lot of people here that visit these forums that could do the icon design for you. Just announce they get their icons used in the program and maybe a free copy of the software. Maybe a contest. Im sure that you would get hundreds of designs to look at.

eye candy is nice but personally I do not care. As long as the software works then the same old UI works for me.

[steve.ledger]

For my vote. Xtreme UI suits me perfectly.
I don't require a new skin to increase my workflow or the fun in using Xtreme.
I'm certainly not reminded of Windows98 when I use it.

(Though I have to say I love Adobe Lightroom, though horse for courses right?


For ugly UI's, spend over $AUD2,000 on CADLinks Signlab, considered by many pro sign shops as the industry standard, feast your eyes on retro'UI, button clutter, and non smoothed vectors...

[Xhris]

Completely agree guys. Now if we could only find a really good icon designer who can create really classy minimalist icons designs. It's very, very difficult.

We could quite easily, and seriously considered this for 4.0, make the icons monochrome, which makes them seem a little less toy. In fact we did this for XPE, and I think these looks better, but there are other opinions about this internally.

What about asking Centaurus--the guy who does www.iconka.com and also uses Xara? The website states GUI develppment as it's target audience. He's even got a new video available.

[steve.ledger]

Completely agree guys. Now if we could only find a really good icon designer who can create really classy minimalist icons designs. It's very, very difficult.

Check out Centaurus' work (www.iconka.com)
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=31601

haha - Xhris beat me too it !..

[DiscoMike]

Thanks for everyones input. Although I am not endorsing anyone to jump ship from Xtreme to Expression over UI, my feeling is that Expressions UI is extremely easy to grasp.

I did not have enough time to evaluate which is better on both the graphics side and most useful UI - Xtreme or Expression Design. The biggest impression I had about both programs in the limited time frame available was the UI - Expression Design wins me over. On the graphics implementation, I found Expression to offer more special effects right out of the box, but both seem comparable when it comes to creating graphic shapes.

I have a very hard time creating an Aqua Sphere, whether using Illustrator or Photoshop, due to its intimidating user interface. To create a circle requires reading several chapters in the program manual. You can create shapes and add effects right out of the box with Expression Design or Xtreme - thanks to its intuitive design layout.

Anyone is free to comment their oppinion on which is the better program - Expression or Xtreme. Do I dare include Illustrator or Photoshop in this conversation ?

Xtremes UI is also intitive, which is a big reason why Xtreme is very easy to use and why I purchased it, but I would like to see it polished and more up to date, which I see it's on the wishlist of the Xara community. I do believe if the UI is updated, not by cluttering it with more icons, but by updating the icons and adding an eye-candy 21st Century look, Adobe Illustrator Users would be giving Xara Xtreme a very hard look when they plan for their next software upgrade.

Another wishlist I have for Xtreme is that it incorporate have more 3-D capabilities, like incorporating Xara-3D version 6 into the program. Is there any justification on why Xtreme (or any vector program) should not incorporate 3-D capabilities in their program ? I cannot think of any. It would seem that it would make any vector drawing program, such as Xtreme, a more complete package.