Thank you and good bye! I'm no longer Xara's target audience.

[jens g.r. benthien]

I totally disagree with your post. It makes no sense.

It makes sense because Xara is still not available for the Mac. If it would be, I'd go for it.

The Mac is a very important platform for illustration and art work, so I really wonder why Xara is leaving this opportunity for others who can't even get close to what Xara can do.

I could cross upgrade most of my Win applications, in most cases with the identical serial number. ArtRage, PhotoLine, Photomatix Pro, Adobe Acrobat, LZ, VueScan, etc. Some are not (yet) available for the Mac, like Rhino (but the beta is already running), NoteTab Pro (I'm using Text Wrangler now which is close), Cinema 4D XL (version 7 doesn't run on Mac OSX and an upgrade to the latest version is too expensive and doesn't make sense to me for my purposes) and - you've guessed it - Xara.

Worst of all: I can't even open or convert the Xara file format to any other format like PDF <sigh>.

So I'm currently using Intaglio which is more finger cracking than something you can work with. Except for Acrobat I refuse to install any Adobe products because I don't like to adopt my work flow to that of some weird software engineers.

A life without Xara leaves a huge gap. But obviously that's the price you have to pay if you switch to a superior OS.

[pauland]

A life without Xara leaves a huge gap. But obviously that's the price you have to pay if you switch to a superior OS.

I think not.

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/guide/windows

[esanabri]

Paul I totally agree, I have moved on to MAC and the first thing in my briefcase was XARA!

I do believe the the greatest thing a man or a company can do is to broaden the horizons of the "common" person...

all of the "professionals" that can't do "miracles with artwork" are few and far between... but us the "hobbiest" the people who are improving our media with a powerful simple to use and AFFORDABLE program like Xara, these are the people that by the thousands are making a difference...

so to those who moved on I say good bye, there a 1,000 new ones who will replace and enhance our lives with their contributions...

[Bob Hahn]

Next week I will have owned my iMac for 1 year now. I really enjoy my Mac and I see no reason to switch back to a PC or own a companion PC.

Currently I'm still using Xara on my Mac by running the free VirtualBox with Windows XP.

But this has been a year now for me doing this and I would like to stop the need to boot up XP in order to run Xtreme. Just as I made the switch from PC to Mac, I'm starting to look at other options out there in graphic software. I still love Xara Xtreme, but other Mac users aren't going to install Windows XP on their Mac in order to run Xtreme.

Apple software is easy to use and designed that way. Bundled programs like iMovie and iWeb, make it very easy for the home user to edit movies or create web sites. To me, Xara Xtreme is very much like a Mac program but created only for the PC.

The number os OS X users is smaller than Windows, but still that's millions of potential Xara users being turned away.

I'd like to see Xara Xtreme succeed, but I too like to succeed. If Xtreme can't venture to the Mac, I may look in seeing who else is out there and then my turn to the dark side would be complete. Come Xara. Join me. Together we can rule the galaxy!

[jens g.r. benthien]

I think not.

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/guide/windows

I've already mentioned it in another post: why should I install a superfluous operating system on a stable and reliable system? Even Windoze XP Pro for which I have a licence needs more space on the hard drive than the highly performant OS X.

I wouldn't build a shabby Ssangyong engine into a Ferrari - would you?

[handrawn]

@EOBET Good luck... I wish you well - there are lots of things I prefer illustrator for, and lots xtreme, but this ground is trampled flat, no need [for me] to revisit

I really like the drawing - the style is one I know well, and am very fond of

[pauland]

I don't think Magix is the right kind of company for the Mac - they clearly have an agenda to chase the mass market and that doesn't really fit with Mac development, nor are they chasing the design professional, which would again score for a high percentage of mac users.

Running windows on the Mac is a second-best option, but it is there and seems to work perfectly. I think Xtreme 5 is a bit of a watershed in Xara development and continues the mass-market strategy that Magix is following.

[tonylondon]

eobet voices many of my thoughts and I wish him well. As the content of the program has changed, so has the content of this forum, such that I have very little to contribute any more.
I continue to use Xtreme but I'm not upgrading any more.

[philt]

Eobet and other professional illustrators may unwittingly be settng Xara up as a straw dog here. The complaints and criticisms he and others raise are valid--e.g. need for more advanced vector tools like mesh fills, tracing tools, masks &c. But considering Xara's history and size the company have made good businss decisions.

Eobet says he is no longer Xara's target audience. Well, I think it would have been a mugs game, still would be, for Xara to try going head to head with Adobe, say, because this would require more resources and market share than they have. Instead Xara have sensibly put their efforts into building outstandingly good products for lower and mid-range users with a view to building a strengthened position for themselves in that market. I also know from hanging around the TG forums for quite a while now, that there are plenty of Xara users who are top-notch professional calibre graphics persons. So....

Xara's 'target audience' must include many like me who whatever their gifts and skill levels can't afford or else don't need highly sophisticated up-market tools like those of Adobe. For these users Xara is a gift. Xara's loyal and expanding user base suggests that they are on the right track.

XWD is a good recent example. Its of limited use and value to professional web developers who must rely on ASP.NET or some such in their work, no question. But XWD has still been a big hit. Not out more than a couple months or so and now, Xara having tested the water, already integrated into Xara 5. Sure, Xara might else have put their money into more and advanced graphical tools, but I'd bet XWD has helped Xara gain popularity and market. I hope it's being reflected in their bottom line.

If so its my guess that eventually, and maybe even sooner than later, we'll be seeing some of those advanced graphical tools that many have been asking for, maybe even see a product that can begin to compete with Adobe. Meantime let's hope that Eobet and others like him keep an eye on Xara and revisit these forums from time to time.

[BONES]

A life without Xara leaves a huge gap. But obviously that's the price you have to pay if you switch to a superior OS.

In what way is MacOS superior to any other? Do vendors write suprerior drivers for their hardware? No, Apple write all the drivers and often do a very poor job of it. Is it more configurable for particular needs? No, in fact it is far less configurable than any other OS. Is it more stable? No, not one little bit. IN fact, in my experience it is far more difficult to resolve stability problems that do arise than any other OS.
Overall, Apple provide computers that could, at best, be described as pro-sumer. Anyone who wants to rely on a computer to do anything even remotely challenging to their system would be crazy to buy a Mac, especially in this industry - their graphics drivers are simply appalling for anything but the most basic applications. They thrive on the ignorance and blind loyalty of their user base to perpetuate this myth of superiority. Give me a budget and I will build you a PC that will be superior in every way to a similarly priced Mac.

I'd like to see Xara Xtreme succeed, but I too like to succeed. If Xtreme can't venture to the Mac, I may look in seeing who else is out there and then my turn to the dark side would be complete.

You will fail in this endeavour unless, like the OP, you are happy to spend an order of magnitude more money. As he points out, InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator make Xara redundant. What he fails to mention is that as part of Adobe CS4, you will be up for anything up to two grand to replace $250 worth of Xara.
From his description, it sounds like Illustrator would make a great companion to Xara for tracing stuff, I gave it away as a bad joke at v8.0, except that it costs several times more so you tend to want to use it for everything. I would question the value in that, because unless you spend most of your time tracing, you'll save up more than enough time doing other things to offset having to fix up traces manually now and again.

I've already mentioned it in another post: why should I install a superfluous operating system on a stable and reliable system? Even Windoze XP Pro for which I have a licence needs more space on the hard drive than the highly performant OS X.

WinXP takes up 2.3Gb on my HDD. Even though I am running a 64Gb SSD, I find that a perfectly acceptable size for something that does as much as an operating system. I have also only experienced a single OS crash on WinXP, in more than 6 years of use. In more than two years I have never experienced a single crash under Vista on my work PC, which cops far more abuse than my personal workstation. Now, I will concede that Vista takes up far too much disc space for my humble SSD, or I would be using it for sure.

I wouldn't build a shabby Ssangyong engine into a Ferrari - would you?

You'll find most Ssangyongs run Mercedes engines, as they were formerly owned by Daimler, which is a perfect illustration of the kind of ignorance upon which most base their decision to buy a Mac.
In any event, there is not so much as a single component in a Mac that is not also available for any PC user. OTOH, there are almost limitless PC configurations unavailable to a Mac user. I'd suggest a more apt analogy would be why buy a Ferrari if all you are going to use it for is commuting to the office? To take it step further, I'd liken Windoze to a Bentley Continental GT - all the driving pleasure, speed, performance and style of a sports car but if you need to pick the kids up from school or put a week's worth of groceries in the boot, you can do that. The price you pay is a bit of extra weight but it's more than offset by what's under the bonnet.