Xara Designer Pro X9 Released

[masque]

Must admit its left me feeling a little deflated. Web Designer features we new about and expected, similarly Page Designer features all present and correct.
Its a bit like an album with three songs on it. One a slightly remixed version from the previous album plus two singles which you had already played enough for them not to be that exciting anymore. The Beatles never put singles onto their albums.
I'll still buy it for the 64bit remix but I had been hoping for a little more excitement and features to play with; a couple of new songs at least.
Derek

[Big Frank]

i bought it anyway
like you for the 64 bits but not the drawing bits

[gwpriester]

I have merged two separate threads into this one.

Kate's announcement with links is post #4 http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...ro-X9-Released

[csehz]

It seems the 4 products on the product scale was more important than a really unique Designer Pro version. That became the summary of all products rather than providing something additional. Probably some marketing thing again

[mwenz]

Well, well, well. A rather anti-climatic announcement. "Newness" that ain't new, "features" that rate a yawn, not a Yeah!

Someone should catch a clue at Xara. First a sub-set of features released as a new application (at least it had a proper announcement) and now an update to a good vector application that doesn't build upon, enhance, nor introduce new vector drawing capabilities.

What exactly is Xara Designer Pro?

[Grenou]

I bought Designer 9 when it came out, I am very happy with the new tools. The healing brush is a-m-a-z-i-n-g and works a treat.
Why the complaints?
Does it diminish one's status having to be on a par with the less expensive Designer 9?

Very silly (shaking my head in disbelief)..
:-)
Grenou

[gwpriester]

Very silly (shaking my head in disbelief).

I'm with you on this one, Grenou.

[Big Frank]

I bought Designer 9 when it came out, I am very happy with the new tools. The healing brush is a-m-a-z-i-n-g and works a treat.
Why the complaints?
Does it diminish one's status having to be on a par with the less expensive Designer 9?

no, it's a feeling of having been forgotten

[mwenz]

Why the complaints?

For one, how many requests in Dear Xara are for actual enhanced or new drawing capabilities versus what we now know is XDPX9?

It isn't silly being disappointed in nothing new, improved or enhanced as regards vector drawing capabilities. If there had been one, count it one, improvement (for instance the pen tool) it would have mitigated the issues. If there had been one new capability (say vector brushes), there would have been hand-clapping instead. If there had been one enhancement (say all the properties of an object being in one place where those properties can be changed) it would have been good.

Add to those "for instance" examples above just some of the dozens upon dozens of other improvements, enhancements or new capabilities that have been in threads for a dozen or more years, and there would have been exclamations of praise.

Get it now?

Mike

RE the healing brush. This has been a core function of bitmap editors for decades. For me, in a vector editing/creation application, it rates "who cares."

[csehz]

I will also buy and why (beside of the fact that I love the program and would support the programmers efforts anyway):
- CSS3/HTML5 support so code instead of bitmaps for some page elements
- Background erase
- 64 bit support
- Support for DOCX files
- Photo heal tool
- Retina display
- new widgets
- not especially for use, but like to learn from new templates

I evaluate this year maybe it was a direction to clear the product scale for the company, and simply there was no too much resource for innovative steps. Which is anyway not true fully as that list is quite long for new functions, maybe not so spectacular because each area got something.

That is new and not sure in positive direction, that finally the Designer Pro became "just" a summary