Page & Layout Designer 365?

[mwenz]

Irritated? Restless? Those terms both work for me. There are a couple other, less friendly terms I use myself.

[Boy]

Restless for what, Egg?

[Acorn]

Irritated? Restless? Those terms both work for me. There are a couple other, less friendly terms I use myself.

+1

@Xara
I truly expected an Agile delivery mechanism with Sprints of no more than 4 weeks.
We see little of a prioritised Backlog or a features list or even a bug fix list.
Just knowing there was some velocity would be useful.
Do you need a Scrum Master?

Acorn

[Egg Bramhill]

Restless for what, Egg?

The OP's original point was that a lesser version of the software would now suit his needs. However it appears it isn't any longer going to be produced. Only hints, no confirmed future product paths.

I, and almost all TG members to my knowledge reading these forums fail to understand Magix's marketing of the Xara software. Previously I purchased Xara Xtreme (or whatever it's latest iteration was named). It was relatively cheap & it was fast and it came in one variety.

Magix then took over and split the product into at least four variants of the same software (all confusingly named). Never understood this marketing strategy. Also difficult to respond to a question on TG due to software versions.

One brownie point I will give Magix is at least the software was at least annually updated. I recall a period when Xara seemed to go through a very long period (2 years + ?) without an update. [Close to Death ?]

Between times we've had promises of an Apple version that died a death.

We've had promises of API access (Of which I understand zilch) to create JS apps. Hello, is there anybody out there?

Xara Online..... Best I can say is yawn. Where's the development? It's at a snails pace.

Xara is no longer lightning fast, it's a very very mediocre software compared to it's competitors.

Like Blackpool rock, break me in half and I have XARA written all through me but Xara's loosing the plot, becoming yesterdays technology

[mwenz]

It was once common for 18 to 24 months between upgrades. Corel just switched this year going forward to yearly upgrades, for instance. Adobe though all CS versions was the same. With CC came promises of continual updates that was largely non-existent until recently. And those quicker updates are often a yawn, too.

The software universe has changed. And not all is good for the consumer.

[letsgofishing]

I came across Xara Web Designer in 2011 and was very happy with the freedom allowed for designing web pages - coming from a graphic design background.
In the past, I'd always used CorelDraw, which IMO, is a much better graphics/layout programme than P&LD - BUT - I often had hassles with it hanging and it became a real PITA to use. About 3 years ago I bought P&LD because I didn't want to pay for designer pro/extreme seeing I already had Web Designer.
I feel that P&LD could be "upgraded" a bit to encompass some of the features of Designer Pro to make it a better design/layout programme, without conflicting with the total suite.
Some of the features that I would like to see from designer pro are: support for multi-core processors, 64 bit version, keep with next paragraph, keep lines together, auto Table of Contents creation, art brushes, line length and area information, shape painter/ shape erase add bitmap tracing as well as improving fitting text along a curve (Xara, PLEASE look at Corel for this).
I enquired from Xara if it would be possible to get an "upgrade" price to Desgner Pro seeing I have both web designer365 and P&LD 11, but was told no.
For me to ditch both these and pay $300 for some of the features that are lacking in P&LD just doesn't make sense.

[Boy]

The OP's original point was that a lesser version of the software would now suit his needs. However it appears it isn't any longer going to be produced. Only hints, no confirmed future product paths.

I, and almost all TG members to my knowledge reading these forums fail to understand Magix's marketing of the Xara software. Previously I purchased Xara Xtreme (or whatever it's latest iteration was named). It was relatively cheap & it was fast and it came in one variety.

Magix then took over and split the product into at least four variants of the same software (all confusingly named). Never understood this marketing strategy. Also difficult to respond to a question on TG due to software versions.

One brownie point I will give Magix is at least the software was at least annually updated. I recall a period when Xara seemed to go through a very long period (2 years + ?) without an update. [Close to Death ?]

Between times we've had promises of an Apple version that died a death.

We've had promises of API access (Of which I understand zilch) to create JS apps. Hello, is there anybody out there?

Xara Online..... Best I can say is yawn. Where's the development? It's at a snails pace.

Xara is no longer lightning fast, it's a very very mediocre software compared to it's competitors.

Like Blackpool rock, break me in half and I have XARA written all through me but Xara's loosing the plot, becoming yesterdays technology

Thanks Egg, this really clarifies your earlier statement. I agree with most of your points but also would also like to add that I still really like XDP. The thing that’s most exasperating about Xara to me is their lack of communication. There are some really nice guys working at Xara who, from time to time, respond to posts about specific issues users are dealing with, but you can never be sure if they’ll be around the next time.

Over the years many of the TG-members have clamored for more and better communication by the Xara management but the few messages we have received from them were mostly non-committal and quite often even defensive.


Another telling example of the lack of communication is Xara’s response to Gary Priester’s thread “How do you feel about the 365 Program?” He started it on February 3rd and in the following months there were 196 replies and 10,399 views, placing it somewhere in TG’s all-time Top-15. You would think Xara would consider this valuable input and would, at least, show their appreciation but we haven’t heard anything from them, except for the few, initial replies by Kate Moir that I experienced as mostly wary. The thread more or less bled to a silent death.


In the absence of regular and open interaction people become ‘irritated,’ ‘restless,’ ‘exasperated’ etc. Or they simply stop posting. Or walk away altogether. At regular intervals we have waves of frustration and indignation going through TG due to the lack of feedback about where Xara is headed, when bugs will be fixed or when announced features will become available. Right now we seem to be at the beginning of another one of such waves.

[tonylondon]

I think there is no demand for it because it doesn't provide enough features to persuade enough users to switch from tried and true desk top publishing programs like Indesign or Page plus.

To true, Angelize. It seems to be a catch 22 situation. Xara hasn't put sufficient funds into developing PLD so nobody buys it. Nobody buys it so Xara can't justify putting the funds into developing it. (Although I did buy a copy once!) Like Charlie now, I rarely use the web features but I go on paying for the flagship program because, apart from the web features, Xara is so easy to use.

[iamtheblues]

... Like Charlie now, I rarely use the web features but I go on paying for the flagship program because, apart from the web features, Xara is so easy to use.

Well, no offence meant Tony, but Xara must be eternally grateful to people like your good self and Charlie among others. I cannot fathom why anyone would keep on shelling out hard-earned cash for a product that you only use a small part of, when money could be saved by buying the cheaper option that doesn't have the bits you don't use anyway. I have to admit to being somewhat bemused! Xara must be counting their lucky stars... unless of course they have some compromising photos...

[tonylondon]

Well, no offence meant Tony, but Xara must be eternally grateful to people like your good self and Charlie among others. I cannot fathom why anyone would keep on shelling out hard-earned cash for a product that you only use a small part of, when money could be saved by buying the cheaper option that doesn't have the bits you don't use anyway. I have to admit to being somewhat bemused! Xara must be counting their lucky stars... unless of course they have some compromising photos...

I guess the answer is that there is no single cheaper option of Xara which has all the bits I use. Or perhaps I am just too lazy to change?