Xara Designer 6 - The Look?!

[amoore]

Change just for the sake of change isn't worth much. It needs to be an improvement. For me, the dark UI is a major step in the wrong direction.

I've never had a problem with Xtreme's interface getting in the way of my work. Instead, it's boosted it, made it easier. It's always been a joy to work with Xtreme's interface.

Not so with the dark skin. My eyes hurt from strain after a fairly short time. I find it much harder to read on all levels. Even the help file is tough because of the lower contrast. And it's depressing. The only thing I like about the dark UI is the way the swatches on the color line pop, but that's not enough to overcome the physical discomfort.

Two other apps I use have dark UIs. Both of them are more attractive implementations than this one. Even so, I keep going back to older versions or alternative apps with lighter interfaces to get most of my work done.

[jimhanus]

Soquili,
I agree, it's also out of step with my other apps, and I have too hard of a time trying to remember what the icons do, even in large icon mode. I have to squint on some of them to see all the detail. I'll stick with the old interface for now.

Jim

[handrawn]

we should have choice - no more to say really...

[jon404]

Strongly recommend Amoore's Alt + Shift +Control + S to bring back the light gray interface. Far easier to read; small dark type on a light background is always better than the reverse. Other than that, it's not bad... some good running changes but nothing so drastic as to require a heavy new learning curve.

[jclements]

Post a survey on the UI color.

[Nostaw]

Yep a poll would be interesting

[BONES]

For all those who object to the new UI scheme, let me point something out. SMPTE, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, published a spec on UIs for working with colour many years ago. It has informed the UI design of the biggest and best applications out there - Autodesk/Discreet Flame, Smoke and all the lesser products in their range, from Combustion and Toxik to 3DS Max and now Maya, too. It's not about what looks pretty or cool, it is about a working environment that encourages you to get the best results.
If you work with colour every day, your whole Windoze theme should be set to similar, unintrusive mid/dark greys with low contrast [light grey text over mid/dark backgrounds]. Why? Because the environment affects your perception of colour and the SMPTE standard is designed to minimise those effects. Working within a bright UI like Xara's will tend to make you create images that are too bright and/or over-saturated. They may also make it much harder for you to see the detail in bright areas of an image, limiting your ability to get the best possible result.
The first thing I do whenever I get a new version of Xara is to create a new default template with a page that is 60% grey. Unfortunately, the page surround has always been too bright but at least Xara has always grabbed my Windoze theme and my toolbars have been dark. [I specifically don't work with Aero because it is simply way too bright for me to be able to do good work.]

So suck it up people, Xara's new UI will allow you to do better work and will certainly have Xara being seen as a more porfessional application by people who do this kind of thing for a living. If only Adobe would wake up, everyone would get it, although with the new bitmap tools in Pro 6 I will probably never have to bother with Photoshop again. At least After Effects has adopted a proper UI scheme, because I need that to earn a living [it still sucks, though].

[Soquili]

Bones all studies provide the answer that the people paying for the study want it to establish as being "best". Surveys limit the choices so the greater number of responses are what was desired to begin with.

If the darker UI causes eye strain and other irritation it simply causes the user to not want to use the application.

Individuals are not guided by what some corporation say is best for them.

[BONES]

It wasn't a "study" and it wasn't anything to do with a "corporation", it was a bunch of experts putting their heads together and coming up with a specification that makes sense. That's the thing, think about it for just a minute it it is blindingly obvious that it makes perfect sense.
Just because it doesn't happen to agree with what you're used to doesn't make it anything less than completely valid. It's an opportunity for you to learn and grow as an artist, why you would be reluctant to do that is quite beyond me. After all, there are no valid technical reasons for the old UI, it just happened to conform to old Windoze standards that stopped working when Vista was released, with Aero. Do you really think Microsoft are the people who best know what UI colours you should be using to do your work or would you rather take your lead from the guys at Xara, who seem to have a clue or two about what they are doing and have the backing of one of the most repsected expert groups in the industry? I know where my money is and responses like yours simply show that this entire topic is being driven by fear of change.

[steve.ledger]

I fully support the new UI.
I suits me.