Doesn't work for me, guess it's the image limit then. It's now 30.000 px square (-ish) I think. I need bigger pictures! (And pdf doesn't work on my images as well, so that is not an option).
Printable View
Not Surprised
Adding flippin wingdings to it rather than fixing the type engine with is way behind the times and doesn't support opentype features ... then I'll keep my money too. I would have paid £80 for that alone.
Way to make Xara look like a 90s app. Wow! New templates.
I suspect there's no one there that actually knows the code of the render / vector engine any more at Xara ... so they keep bolting stuff on top rather than getting under the hood and improving the nuts and bolt of the vehicle. Xara now reminds me of this:
Sorry but I'm another disappointed long time user.
Simply can't justify upgrading as there are no significant new features.
I love Xara. I'm intimately familiar with its toolset and so continue to resist 'having' to learn a new application, but the the omissions are really starting to outweigh the comfort of it being my go to package :(
As long as the roadmap for Xara's flagship product (Designer Pro) is simply to add the new bits from its consumer-type products ('Web Designer' & 'Photo and Graphic Designer') then I doubt if we're going to see much in the way of ground-breaking new features that pro users will appreciate.
You thought that XDP new feature list was disappointing? Just look at the 'exciting' new features list for Page & Layout Designer 10 which was launched the day before with no fanfare...
Yes that's right, they added an insert menu and some icons which are free anyway.. But for only £9.99 upgrade fee it's not too bad a deal.
Sorry Xara, but once again I see nothing worth an upgrade. Not a single new useful feature for me during last 5-6 years.
And this could arguably be called a bug fix.
What is most disturbing about this lacking update is that it clearly shows where Xara/Magix's priorities are and (disappointingly) where they are NOT. The trend of bells & whistles (bloat) rather than a focus on polishing their core product makes me pessimistic about the future of this product. I'm still happy enough with XDP9 and will continue to use it for the foreseeable future. But, it's a shame that my attention will now be focused on looking for alternatives rather than anticipating exciting developments here.
The features that made this program great are now being ignored and make this program grate ;-)
You are absolutley right, that Dear Xara section is just comical after that.
Anyway there can be reasons that a company decides to not develop further, sure can be several business and technical scenarios. Just in this way that should be expressed/announced somehow and not playing with the emotions and pretending this dearxara thing
'Fraid I won't be upgrading either. £80 introductory upgrade offer for nothing I want. Given the minimal new facilities announced in the constituent packages so far I had pinned my fading hopes on dtp. To no avail. If there'd been only one valuable feature. Next year? I'm not holding my breath....
Oh. Sorry about that, I thought the Release Notes always redirected to the new ones! Try http://www.xara.com/designer-pro/notes
I’m sorry many of you sound disappointed. We concede there was not a lot for our illustration users in v9 & 10, but our priorities were different because there were some issues – such as RWD or fixing 32 bit plugins - which simply had to be attended to, and these were big development commitments (RWD amazingly so, as it turned out). There were not the same glaring fix-or-die weaknesses in vector features. Plenty of suggestions, yes, but no consensus on ‘must haves’. We understand that means that many illustrators will understandably decide not to upgrade this time, and we have to live with that.
For v11 we are considering illustration again. You might not all value SmartShapes but one of the reasons we added this feature is that we could use that vector technology for future features that might be more interesting to you. I can’t give you any commitments at this stage, no final decisions have been made for v11, but I can definitely say that we have no policy to drop illustration.
One more thing I’d add; TG has a concentrated core of illustration users which doesn’t quite reflect our total audience. That means you maybe don’t get the sense that I do, sitting here, that similar numbers of owners are making equally impassioned pleas for us to add new web, page layout and photo features. Our surveys suggest that a typical Pro owners uses all of them – we have after all promoted it as a one-stop graphic design solution for many years! Plus we have a new project in the works too, directly related to and hopefully guaranteeing the long term future of Camelot (the engine that drives the whole Designer suite) which has been taking our resources for over a year. All of this we try to balance, at least over the life of several upgrade cycles. Nothing has been abandoned (but we are throwing more people at it!)
Thanks for your comment Kate, I appreciate it as probably not easy the coming out after so depressed feedbacks. Your details take at least the things into more understandable context.
A little bit better also for my spirit because finally upgraded as always.. But after starting the XDPX10 to investigate the newer functions, just still was sitting and not believing that really I bought it? SmartShapes and those insert Font Awesome Symbols?
But reading you so maybe there is hope and good luck for those developments then
Kate, perhaps in aid of throwing oil on the troubled waters, you could add more vector Smart Shapes at no extra cost, as quickly as possible, to the online Content Library. You could get them made rapidly and inexpensively in Bangalore or Hyderabad. Beyond that, I don't know. Will try to think of DPX10 the same as my Mazda Miata, which in 2012 was in its 23rd year of very careful product improvements.
DPX10 will be my last Xara purchase. Am older now, and getting back to just sketching with pen and pencil. Please pass along my thanks to your programming team for all their years of work on Xara, and let them know that it really was a Godsend back before I retired, and still a pleasure to use now, all that Font Awesome and Photolooks stuff aside.
Yours, Jonathon Donahue
Every time there's a new Xara release i get briefly very excited (because I love Xara!), but for me this has been the most disappointing feature list yet ( i pretty much use Xara only for vector illustration/design purposes) . I'm actually still running v7 (!) having seen very little of value in v8, or 9 either (the vector "painting" tools, looked *kinda* cool, but i doubt i'd ever actually use them seriously). So i guess i'll be skipping this one too. I'm not really one to abandon software just because it seems the developers have neglected it (at least in the areas i care about) - after all, it still works great for what i use it for. There are a lot of things that could be improved though, and many features lacking compared to competitors. I also can't deny that with each underwhelming update, i think more and more about giving the latest versions of Illustrator or Corel Draw another shot.
I'm always hesitant about spending money on software, but Xara is something i use *a lot*, and is one of the rare cases I'd happily throw money at updates, if only I could convince myself they were even remotely useful to me. (I'd list the 1000 minor things that would constitute "useful", but they've been covered many times by different people in the wishlist threads)
Well sound and are disappointed are two separate things. I do appreciate what must have been a difficult post to make. I thank you for making it.
As for the bolded part of the quote. There are simple reasons for that. It is because XDP has long languished in updating, fixing and enhancing its vector capabilities. The various lists would be shorter and more concise if there was steady, gainful advancement in the vector capabilities. Not that there can be actual consensus, but the only real way to rank needs among a small subset of your customers (us here at TG) would be for members to be able to vote/rank individual requests in a massive poll type of system. Probably impractical to do such a system. But with so many areas/industries affected by vector capabilities in so many different ways, there cannot be true consensus. there can be steady improvement and enhancement, however. This is different from web authoring enhancements/capabilities where there is not such a broad spectrum of needs.Quote:
...There were not the same glaring fix-or-die weaknesses in vector features. Plenty of suggestions, yes, but no consensus on ‘must haves’. We understand that means that many illustrators will understandably decide not to upgrade this time, and we have to live with that.
I don't know which list(s) you read, but yes, there are obviously items that need fixed, need updated, need...whatever in the vector side of things too. An easy for instance. Have you ever done packaging design or known someone who does? One needs to put crop marks, die lines, cut lines in the page area. This feature alone keeps people who do packaging design that I have recommended using XDP from using XDP for this. Why? Because the "Print on all plates" does not hit a PDF and it is a hassle to make such marks hit all plates. The simple solution is to do what every other design application on the planet does and that is use a special named color (Registration) to appear on all plates. This applies to the screen printing work I do as well.
Further, the biggest deal to me is the library for PDFs y'all use. As far as I can see on their web site (I could have easily missed it, though), they do not support PDF/X-4 and XDP really needs to do so. One of the things in XDP that can (and does) fail at is the flattening of transparency when creating the PDF. Things can go terribly wonky and the PDF is not fit for purpose. Why is this a big deal? Because a design application is only as good as its PDF creation. If XDP cannot reliably output what one can design in it, what's the point? I consider this pretty much a fix-or-die weaknesses.
The list of features, or the lack thereof, is a big deal IF Xara desires to grow its market among people doing vector work. Build it and they will come.
Surveys can say a lot of things depending upon how questions are asked and of whom.Quote:
...Our surveys suggest that a typical Pro owners uses all of them – we have after all promoted it as a one-stop graphic design solution for many years! Plus we have a new project in the works too, directly related to and hopefully guaranteeing the long term future of Camelot (the engine that drives the whole Designer suite) which has been taking our resources for over a year. All of this we try to balance, at least over the life of several upgrade cycles. Nothing has been abandoned (but we are throwing more people at it!)
Again, I thank you for making this post I am responding to. I wish Xara and its employees nothing but the best. My motive in writing this is because I do care what becomes of XDP, now and in the future.
I shall await version 11 and see what the difference a year makes.
Best regards, Mike
Thanks Kate, for putting things into perspective for us. And you know, I've been spending some time delving into the Photo looks plug in and it actually is a useful addition to the program. Having the ability to run all my plug-ins in the 64 bit version is a great time saver for me and I appreciate the work that went into making that happen.
I discovered Xara in 2005 and had been astonished a lot that time of how much time effective the work in Xara was against Adobe products: both Photoshop and Illustrator. Everything quicker, easier and non destructive.
But since that time an industry I work for (game development) changed quite a bit and developed new requirements. Photoshop adapts, not a lot, very slowly, still a lot behind of current necessities, but does adapt throughout all the years. Xara seems like focused on web design things only.
Surprisingly I have never seen a web designer who work in Xara , and we have a lot of them usually since half of games are subscribing based nowadays. Only people I saw that use Xara are folks who does game interface and content, mostly illustration/texture work.
If I would only see a single small feature that would do my work a little bit easier, just something very insignificant and simple, I would gladly pay the upgrade price.
Mike W -- surprised by your note about the crop marks, I looked in the Help file and found, under Exporting PDF files > Commercial printing (PDF/X, 300 DPI images)... "Crop and printer's marks are included if these are switched on in the Print Options dialog in Xara Designer Pro X10." Any help? Not sure what I'm talking about here, since I haven't done any spot color work for years now. Am just assuming that DPX would burp out a set of PDFs, one for each color, all with your reg marks, if they were on the artboard?
Yes - I too am having to ponder this now. Interactive SVG-based content is where I need to be heading - really hoped Xara were on the same wavelength, as it would seem to be a natural fit with the (seemingly forgotten) vector drawing foundations that so many of us rely upon.
Quote:
As an HTML5 web developer, what I'm missing is good SVG support. I don't really want to, but - for today's use cases - I may have to: switch to Illustrator
Mike - Per Jon's comment, see attached.
Kate - Thanks for your response. The one really positive thing that almost all of these posts express is how much we all love the product. The message, if I might be so bold as to speak for the members who have posted here is get back to the basics. Especially in the case of Designer Pro. Give us professional features to augment the fine tools and features that are already there.
But there's a growing need for a Xara-like tool that can output interactive SVG-based web content - with proper vector-shaped (e.g. not just rectangular) hotspot zones that trigger actions/popup layers/sounds/etc - using the increased functionality present in HTML5.
Seems bizarre that Xara is at it's core a vector-based package, yet cannot adequately support SVG output within HTML5 when all of the popular modern web browsers can render this quite comfortably. This seems like a major disconnect between Xara's own capabilities and emerging opportunities to carve out a valuable and unique solution that would instantly appeal to a wide section of Xara's customer-base.
As a designer, I don't want to have to draw in one package, then write code (e.g. using something like Adobe 'SNAP') to make it interactive, then possibly another package to produce the finished web page. Instead, I continue to hope that Xara will seize the opportunities that are out there today - to excel again and not become a dumbed-down competitor for the 'Serif WebPlus' type of user (Serif products have their place - and it shouldn't be Xara's aspiration to emulate Serif's approach).
I will download the trial, if only to see if the pop-up layers issues (e.g. locking layers) have been progressed as hinted at by Rob in Xara support.
KultiVator-- DPX 10 will certainly let you make irregularly shaped hotspots, that you can set to go to ther locations, or to show popup layers, all that. Very easy and fast to do, without writing one bit of code. Just one thing -- when you start, make sure you make a new web page, instead of a new regular drawing. Then, when you right- click on that hotspot you drew (and made transparent), you can go to Web Properties and it lets you choose a from a bunch of different actions. Easy. As for HTML 5, I'm sure the code DPX 10 produces is HTML 5 compatible -- or, maybe putting it another way, anything you cook up will display properly in all the browsers.
On the other hand, if you are thinking of using HTML 5 for animation, good luck. Not ready for prime time. But check out Videoscribe... it might get you by if you can't use Flash...
l
Thank you both for your responses. It isn't actually about what I wrote, though Jon came closest with the bolded/italicized part of his quote above.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Other Gary
Attachment 102956
Is what I am talking about. In Illustrator, InDesign, QuarkXpress, PagePlus, DrawPlus, CorelDraw, etc., etc., those reg targets will be on all plates. This is because of using a color named Registration. Though one can also set an object(s) to also print on all plates. And I mean all plates, like Pantone plates.
So how does XDP do? It doesn't put those reg targets on Spot plates. To be fair, the issue is "Print" on all plates. And it does put those reg targets on all plates when printing separations to PDF, but only when the print to PDF is set to separations and not a composite print that does keep the spots separate.
There is no facility to have those reg targets hit the PDF on ALL plates when using the Export to PDF function, which every other application I mention does. See below...no reg targets on the spot plates. XDP needs to do this for both screen printing and packaging design. And while those are two industries I am involved with (more screen printing than packaging design) I suspect there are other industries this applies to. Heck, even having N-up business cards on a single sheet using Pantone colors needs this.
Attachment 102957
Mike
Yesterday I also saw like that but the general experience since then is that this plug in makes the XDPX10 slow and sometimes even bringing such message
Attachment 102960
Generally who accustomed to the speed of Xara it is rather painful to wait for its start. Hard to say anything without emotions, what can imagine there was some business decision to put this to the program but technically became a huge challenge for the programmers to balance it into relatively stable state. Because currently not reproducably stable that is sure
Just noticed that there is a new "feature" in the installer:
Attachment 102961
Not amused…
Kate
Thanks for the clarification and reassurance that XDpro will not be left to waste away.
I look forward with a little more hope and expectation to future releases.
Derek
Spot on! With good SVG support, Xara could be a useful tool for creating banner ads - just one example.
The main problem, however, is not lack of features. It's bad quality of Xara generated SVG. Years ago I reported a critical SVG export bug with Xara Designer Pro 7. It still has not been fixed! This means that I cannot use Xara to create content for my own Prezi like presentation tool: pres/v/g (source)
As I said before, Xara seems stuck in the 90s. Others are ahead, actually providing useful features for today's web designer. Illustrator offers great SVG support, dating back to the days that Adobe was competing with Macromedia's Flash. Inkscape is built all around SVG. Also, there is Google's Web Designer which I still have to try. It's all a pity because for vector drawing I feel most comfortable with Xara. Over the past weeks I was checking xara.com almost daily, eagerly looking forward to version X10, just to be disappointed in the end.
I think you've just confirm Kate's comment:
1) Mike wants a feature that's pretty niche (package designers)
2) KIR23 wants features for game graphics design.
3) Others want SVG with SNAP support.
If any of these were implemented 5% of 'Pro' user would be happy and 95% would still claim there's nothing for them.
Hi,
recently bought DPX9. Got the manual and CD just a few days ago. I am an absolute beginner and so far I think this programme is userfriendly, the support is great but...............I was a bit dissapointed having to buy an update so soon after purchasing PDX9. Can it be 3 weeks now? At the most? Despite that I really thought about investing again in this update but I was a bit taken a back because of the reactions about this update.
My first and foremost question is however why is not there a policy that new purchases include an upgrade if the upgrade is executed so soon after the initial purchase. I am very glad with the program and I think it has a lot that I consider very useful so my final conclusion is that I have value for my money but as I said, I would like to have seen a sort of guarantee for new buyers that include uppgrades for at least a short period after their purchase.
Hajeem
They say: "A 30 day money back guarantee is provided with all Xara products and so if you buy something and you're disappointed, then we will refund your money on return of the product."
So, I guess you could make use of that, and then simply buy the new version. Contacting support seems a good idea.
@ Mike W -- re spot color printing -- getting back to where I left off before full-color digital printing came along. This DPX 10 is strange. Made a test file, 2 pantone spot color boxes, and several words in black type. No matter how I set the File > Imagesetting dialog, telling it to make separations with crop marks, all that came out via Export to PDF was a single page, in color, with crop marks.
So then I sent it to the Adobe print driver, and this time it made the separations in b/w as you'd expect, but without the crop marks... even though Print Options was set to have crop marks (same as before with Export to PDF).
If I were doing a spot printing job, this would drive me nuts... like your silkscreening... or packaging. Although -- I guess you could take it on faith that all the PDFs had the art in the exact right place on each one. But there would be no way to quickly adjust the screens from a test print, without the marks.
What am I missing here? Off the top, it's really goofy...
Thanks for the post Kate - I am sure that most of the serious illustrators understand the commercial pressures that Xara is under, and it's good to know that the drawing side is getting on-going attention and will be the focus of the next update
For myself. I started with raster in the days before Painter was bought by Corel and what attracted me to vector was the ability to scale on screen and paste up pages in an object oriented way - in those days screen rendering in raster when zooming was bad news due to lack of effective antialiasing, well that's all more or less fixed now thanks to openGL, and modern 64bit computers with 64bit applications are far better at handling the large images too
it's got to the point where I can draw black raster line-art very quickly and expressively freehand, and if I want it vector then I use vector magic or similar; quicker and less faff than node pushing or using the freehand tool in xara and having to slow down so as not to confuse the screen redrawing and effectively 'falling off the bike' so to speak
the screen redrawing is the really crucial one for me - new layers on either side of current [is there another serious app that does not do this?], modern brushes, absolute nib sizes for shape builder/eraser, flood fill, nested layers, being able to see the rest of the drawing when editing inside a group, all the things I have supported would of course be useful as well and it good news to hear that Camelot is getting serious attention
disappointed this time as last time, yes - but looking forward to seeing what you come up with next time... but for now two versions behind I'm going to have to bow out
Hmmm. Being one of the "target" pro users - one who uses the product to design logos, create the graphics for website mockups for a client which I then export all the bits out of an create Joomla! templates, creating a few brochure-like things here and again, and occasionally needing to produce a quick and inexpensive non-updatable website - I still came here a bit disappointed that the Pro version ONLY includes the upgrades of the other programs and nothing "special" except the "whole" that those updates create.
More than likely, I will upgrade both licenses we use here because of the RWD features (don't really want to have to leave the application to go to the less-feature-filled WD program) and things like the color replacement, which we have to do often and as much as it has improved in past versions, I'm hoping this new version is a great step forward.
But I sure would like to see some focus on the creation and less bundled add-ons as features. A lot of software manufacturers do this without a lot of "core" change to the program, and it feels like a copout. When something is available stand-alone (like the font awesome stuff), it's underwhelming to see it as a "feature" of the new version on the main page and not just an item on the "by the way we also added this" list. Since I use these font-things in my actual coded sites, it's convenient for them to be easily accessible in Xara for the design phase, but hardly what I'd call a major feature.
And as cool as things like the new "shapes" that you can insert might be, they are limited to me, and scream "amatuer" a lot of the time. These are graphics that I'm only likely to ever use for a quick/cheap site, not for a custom designed Joomla! site. Again, interesting to have added in, but hardly a "major new feature", I think.
Getting some new blend modes, new abilities to create more complex and photo-shop-y images with those blend modes, some additional ways to manipulate gradients and transparencies, etc, would be great in the next new versions.
Well, well, well. Thank you for justifying inaction and being completely dismissive of Xara's users' desires who simply want some movement with enhancing, improving and innovating on the vector capabilities.
When version 8 (oh, wait XDP X) came out, there was the introduction of the eraser and shape builder tool...along with a host of other things people had asked for. The introduction of the text styles, photo manipulation, Pantone libraries were updated (does the new version use the version 2 palettes?), and heck, even being able to resize the darn color editor was handy. I upgraded from version 7.
Oh, Version 7? The live copies, editing inside groups (this could/should be improved), new snapping, tabbed document windows, etc. I upgraded from 6.
I began with version 6.
The short of it is that though the improvements and/or new features advanced at a snail's pace in some cases, they still happened and didn't make everyone happy--But they happened. And you and Kate get defensive and dismissive over users wanting even the above pace of development to happen? That is pretty silly, don't ya think?
While "my list" you quote and dismiss in an attempt to justify inaction is for a "specific industry," it really is fixing and or improving something Xara claims it does. And oh, like I said, I do more screen printing than package design. Both those industries need the same capability Xara claims to have (with the needed improvement of Print on All Plates hitting an exported PDF). Do you really believe screen printing is a niche market? That also is a silly thought.
Perhaps you and others with a few minutes to waste should review the What was new in previous version page at Xara.
http://www.xara.com/us/designer-pro/whats-new/older/
To sum up, even if Xara had made long-standing bug fixes and long standing usability enhancements, more people would have been happy in this thread. Add just the snail's pace of actual usable features, there would still be some grumbling, but not the extreme disappointment that is being expressed (by at least myself).