Wish List for V12

[sbudda]

Hi, I would like objects to be able to stick to the top when they are scrolled past and also to set the beginning point for sliding items (objects)

[Gare]

*sigh*

The request for new web page features appears to outnumber the requests for art features by about 5 to 1 :(

-g

[pauland]

Maybe the artwork features have reached near perfection?
Maybe the web design side needs the most work?

.. or maybe Xara is now primarily about web design as far as it's users are concerned.

It is kinda sad.

[Gare]

Revert to Saved off the File menu!

Please?

How much coding would that take?

It's not an overlapping feature, not even with the Backup feature; it saves time when you've irrevocably screwed up previous work.



TIA,
Gare

[Ron Duke]

*sigh*

The request for new web page features appears to outnumber the requests for art features by about 5 to 1

-g

Not necessarily an indicator that Xara is used more for web purposes. It could be that the artists are less vocal and need to comment and request more. POSSIBLY!

[mwenz]

Not necessarily an indicator that Xara is used more for web purposes. It could be that the artists are less vocal and need to comment and request more. POSSIBLY!

On Xara/MagixTricks knows the installed user base for each path (web/graphic design). But I would reckon that design itself runs into fewer issues than the web authoring side of things and hence fewer members on a forum even needing aid, therefore fewer requests for stuff added.

But the design side lacks fundamental features available elsewhere. My pet peeve is OT feature support as everyone by now knows.

The screen shots below come from a test file. There are two-letter codes representing OT Features. In a font, features use four-letter codes. Once all possible features are turn on for a given font that the application supports, those two-letter codes will turn into their respective four-letter OT Feature codes.

First up is XDP X9:



Because Xara applications do not support OT Features, all one sees are the two-letter codes.

This is from an application that costs about $120 though I have never actually seen anyone that has to pay that price. Install the free version, put up with the nag screens when one exits the application, and sooner than later one gets a decent offer. Upgrading once one owns a license is pretty inexpensive.



The few two-letter codes one sees in the above screen shot are the OT features it does not support.

I want OT feature support, dang it. I want it implemented well, easy to access the typical OT features one uses when designing (like CD, not like other design applications).

I want real multi-column text frames.

I want color management.

I want grayscale image in and out support.

I want the ability to color images with Pantone--duo- and tri-tone would be icing on that cake. At least support the import/export of such images and retain the spots.

I want, well, I want...

Mike

[Gare]

I want OT feature support, dang it. I want it implemented well, easy to access the typical OT features one uses when designing (like CD, not like other design applications).

+10 on this one. What's the point in even buying an Opentype font if you can't access the upper range glyphs? I bought the entire Avant Garde set from ITC, including the ligature glyphs, actually especially for the upper register fancy stuff, a la:



Please let me play with a 3rd party expense, within my favorite design program!

I want grayscale image in and out support.

Except for printing, this is not a deal-breaker IMFFHO. Even P'shop occasionally lets you use 256 indexed color as a substitute for Greyscale.

I want the ability to color images with Pantone--duo- and tri-tone would be icing on that cake.

+5 on real color management, ICM profiles, the whole 9 yards. How can you ensure or even take a ballpark whack at colour consistency if you don't adopt a standard? Heck, if Adobe is so detested around here, use the Munsel color standard or something. Any standard is better than none. I pull vast amounts of my remaining hair out trying to paste from P'shop into Xara, which presumes sRGB, always.

Duotones? Neat idea! +3, as long as Xara Designer is going to go camping in the pixel realm (3D extrudes, new strokes brushes, all the effects), you might as well go for broke and adopt a Duotone press model. That you can easily convert to RGB so a nice tinted image can be exported to PNG or whatever instead of EPS.

Thanks for piping up as a Print Guy, Mike.

Printing isn't dead.

It's just an alternative to cursive writing.



-g

[iamtheblues]

As a (fairly) disinterested observer I don't really worry too much about what Xara improvements appear in which particular order, I must say, however that posts #237 & #236 above this post are probably (no, make that definitely) the two projects that the good folks at Xara really should concentrate on as a matter of utmost priority. Pretty basic omissions, both of them, but if fixed, could turn Xara Designer Pro into a truly pro program.
Bob.

[mwenz]

RE grayscale.

This is a topic/cabability that affects every designer of print matter in businesses that have pay-for-click bizhub types of print devices. Which is a whole Lotta businesses judging from the post's concerning the same at Adobe's and somewhat Quark's forums (easier to do in QXP). It takes Acrobat version 9 or, as of a few weeks ago, Acrobat DC to convert the PDFs. Version 10 and 11 broke the ability to do so.

And as long as Xara is playing around with expanding print stuff to do books, it will simplify book submission to the POD print establishments and provide a better conversion of rgb images for the same.

Mike

[Gare]

Mike, you're sort of—but not precisely—preaching to the choir here. :)

What's the phrase? In for a penny, in for a pound?

Why not use that as a business model, specifically for future iterations of Xara Designer?

Don't just dabble with bitmaps in the program...embrace the data format! Press, color management, the whole shmear, as they say of cream cheese put on a bagel in Manhattan (:) )

The same with drawing tools. Let me select an object using any drawing tool by pressing ALT or something to toggle. The Shape tool is so very close to a Do Everything Tool..make it a complete tool for a future version.

Get the Extrude tool to allow user input for type of bevel. Same's true of the Brush tool: let me create my own profiles.

And that Extrude tool really needs standard coordinates in fields for rotation. This Angle 1 and Angle 2 jazz doesn't work, never has. Use X (left to right), Y (Top to bottom),and Z (rotation directly facing the artist) as input fields, and then you have an intuitive and outstanding feature. Corel and Adobe already have a mature extrude feature; has been that way for years.

If something seems like it should be a vector process, make it a vector process.

Then you have something to shout about, to cripple Illustrator's throne (to mix metaphors), something that absolutely demands the word "Pro" in its name.

And thanks, Bob. :)

I wouldn't bother to be critical if I didn't love this product.

"Tough Love" you might say.

My Best,

Gary