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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dilaco
The new realtime mode for the freehand drawing tool is the right idea, but what about the line wobbling around like that? Is this something that we’ll get used to or is it something that will become more and more irritating with prolonged use? Is there the option to go back to the old way of the nice stable blue line? I use the freehand tool a lot and this wobble could be the factor that will stop me from upgrading.
I didn't like it at first but I quickly got used to it. If you want to disable it there is a little Live Drag Indicator icon in the lower right corner you can double click. Then it goes back to the old non-wobbly blue line behavior. You can see a demonstration of this in my YouTube video Cartooning with Xara Designer Pro 6 - Part 2 around 0:55. But I wouldn't hesitate to upgrade as the freehand tool is now considerably better than it ever was in past versions, in my opinion, and has increased my productivity.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
the 'wobble' seems to be a result of the interaction of live drag and smoothing
so an alternative to switching off the live drag is to turn the smoothing slider right down to 0
mind you you then need a steady hand... :D
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Thank you Zeb and SJ. It is always reassuring to have the option of returning to the old familiar.
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Re: 6.1.1 versions released
Just wondering, as the licence key allows for three installs and I've already done one. Will this count as another install?
alanti
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Re: 6.1.1 versions released
No, don't worry. It means installation on three machines :)
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Re: 6.1.1 versions released
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Thanks. This is great software. Better than the rest.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
I love Xara, but there is still one huge feature which is missing.
OSX.
This software is too good to be a windows only software. WE WANT A MAC VERSION :-)
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
I'. actually a little frustrated with Designer Pro 6.
I love all my Xara products, particularly the Extreme Pro line. I always buy the latest, greatest whenever Xara issues new versions, which I did with Designer Pro 6.
Well, I got it all installed and now I can't get thumbnail views of any of my .xar files! I have to actually open up DP6 and even then I can't get a thumbnail view unless I actually click on every cotton-picking file! In previous versions (I tended to default to Extreme Pro 4, even though I have Pro 5 as well), I had instantly viewable thumbnail views so I could quickly and visually identify files I was looking for.
This is completely unproductive and time-consuming, to the point that I have uninstalled DP6. I'm hoping if I restore to an earlier version, I will again have instantly viewable thumbnail views.
If there is any fix for this, please let me know. Otherwise, I will have purchased DP6 for nothing because I can't use a product where I have to tediously open every darn file in order to see if it's the one I'm looking for.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Okay, I am really, really ****ed at this point... I just installed the program and have gone back to using XPro4, but the thumbnails have not been restored.
I AM NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS WHATSOEVER!!!! Xara, please get back to me on this. I need this FIXED!
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
I can get thumbnails. I'm using XP SP2. Not trying to upset you, just that for diagnostics your os and set-up might have something to do with it perhaps?
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Fuss, tell us more about your system please?
There used to be issues with 64bit OSes and Xara thumbnails (being a 32bit application), but this has been fixed with Designer Pro6, so you should have no problems under normal circumstances/conditions.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by
neodeist
I can get thumbnails. I'm using XP SP2. Not trying to upset you, just that for diagnostics your os and set-up might have something to do with it perhaps?
All I know is that before I installed DP6, my .xar thumbnails worked just fine and dandy and now they don't.
The problem is not my system, it's how the installation and set-up files of DP6 are configured. THEY did something to things on my computer, not me. It's not the computer; it's the Xara program.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sledger
Fuss, tell us more about your system please?
There used to be issues with 64bit OSes and Xara thumbnails (being a 32bit application), but this has been fixed with Designer Pro6, so you should have no problems under normal circumstances/conditions.
I am on Windows XP operating system, SP2, 32 bit.
Yes, I should have no problems. Yet the reality is that installing DP6 did something to something and now I have no thumbnail previews of any .xar files.
This is really ****ing me off. Like right now, I'm trying to find a freaking file, I don't remember what I called it or where I put it (it's not where I thought I would have put it), and I've been through the folders where I thought it would have been, but it's not there and because I don't have my freaking thumbnail previews, I can't freaking see any of my .xar files unless I actually click on every damn one of them.
Omigawd, I am so irritated it's not even funny!!!!!!
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Not sure I can help more than suggesting removal of All Xara products, doing a ccleaner reg cleanup and reinstalling v4?
Meanwhile, Dmitry's viewer software might assist you in finding your file?
http://xaraxtv.at.tut.by/xtvd.htm
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Thanks, Sledger.
I'm a little leery about messing with reg files. I've always heard that if you don't really know what you're doing (and I don't when it comes to that kind of behind the scene technology and stuff), it's best not to mess with them as you could cause greater problems.
When you say to do a ccleaner reg cleanup, is that a program or something? Because I would not know whatsoever how to do a reg cleanup and like I say, I would be afraid I'd do something to something that ended up blowing up my computer or causing other problems on top of this issue.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
PS: Do you know if any Xara staff actually monitor this forum. I find their customer support, such as it is, very vexing to deal with. I get faster, clearer, better answers on here, but if they're the only one who can solve this, I'm going to be an even more unhappy customer with them.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Quote:
PS: Do you know if any Xara staff actually monitor this forum.
Yes they do, daily.
Xara support until recently consisted of one very diligent staff member, though they now have a new support assistant in training to help cut down the waiting time.
I'm not trying to defend Xara Support in any way, they can take care of themselves - but as I am in the business of providing service and support to the public myself I know all to well how difficult keeping everyone happy can be.
I am an single owner operator of my small business and I have no desire to upset any customer, so I try to give the same importance to all. The reality is quite frustrating however and some customers simply want to be first in line all the time - it's quite a juggling act.
CCleaner is a well known and trusted utility which has never let me down over the years and literally hundreds of times I have used it.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
I'm a business owner myself and making excuses for inadequate or incompetent support is not a good answer. Not that I'm directing that at you. I appreciate your help a lot, truly. I just think that a company serving a large marketplace with millions of customers has a duty to have the proper level of support capabilities in place. Alternately, the programming coding, if it weren't so sloppy when it comes to cleaning up after itself in the first place, would resolve these kind of issues. I know as a loyal customer of many, many years who has paid them my hard-earned money, not to mention a business owner with my OWN clients to take care of, I don't appreciate having MY time wasted on this kind of **** either.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
fuss - the reality is that very few software companies offer support any more. Most do not even have a link where you can contact a real person.
Xara is a small company that like most software companies--large and small, relies on member forums like TalkGraphics to provide support for their products.
I do not think this is right, but on the other hand, if companies like Xara, built the cost of giving company provided tech support into the price of their product, you would be asked to pay more than most of us would consider paying. It is a balance of product integrity/features vs. support.
On balance, I think I would opt for a good product and muddle through the support issue.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by
fuss
All I know is ...... not me. It's not the computer; it's the Xara program.
Sorry fuss, but it is your computer, or it would have affected us all the same way. Doesn't seem like anyone else has the same problem, or someone else would have mentioned it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
fuss
I am on Windows XP operating system, SP2, 32 bit .....
Exactly the same as I am, and I am not having a problem.
What do you see in explorer if you navigate to a folders thumbnail view?
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Windows SP3 32 bit here, no problem at all with thumbnails. Have you gone to <view> and ensured that thumbnails is actually selected in your explorer window?
Sometimes people change things on themselves by accident.....
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Hi guys,
I don't want to throw fuel on the fire but I too have the same problem as fuss. I'm on Vista Pro 64 SP2 and as you can see from the attached I have no thumbnail view, only icons. I have XDP6. This doesn't bother me in the slightest because I haven't used Windows Explorer for many years as my image manager. I use ThumbsPlus and in that app I get proper thumbnail views of all my Xara drawings. However, I wanted to show that it wasn't just fuss who has this problem.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Karateed
Windows SP3 32 bit here, no problem at all with thumbnails. Have you gone to <view> and ensured that thumbnails is actually selected in your explorer window?
Sometimes people change things on themselves by accident.....
Um, what part of "everything was working fine and dandy until I installed DP6" didn't you understand?
It was the installation of DP6 that caused this problem. (And yes, my thumbnails are actually selected. I'm not a moron.)
Here's another kicker... I followed Sledger's advice and uninstalled all the Xara Xpro products, did a registry clean, then went to my XaraOnline account to redownload Xpro 4 (which Xara has always told me to do it that way instead of using the CD because that file will make sure I have any and all bug patches, fixes and whathaveyou that have been updated since the original CD was issued), did that and now my freaking product key doesn't work.
So I'm sitting here with no product and I've lost two days now of business work waiting for them to respond.
I am not a happy camper.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
fuss, listen to this carefully .... your attitude is appalling. We are all volunteers here, and if you really want us to try an help, lose the sarcasm etc. or you're going to end up with no help at all. Bye!
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Oh and here's the kicker, I installed a trial version of Xpro 4 and guess what? All the thumnail previews are working again. Of course, I'm still waiting to hear back from Xara to get this all sorted out since my product key for Xpro 4 that I own doesn't work and DP6 is of absolutely no use to me after buying it if the thumbnail views won't work with it.
Thanks again to Sledger for the useful, productive help.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Fuss,
No one was suggesting you were anything but an intelligent person. However, I have worked in support for more years than I can remember and the simplest things that people overlook often prove to be their undoing. I was just putting forth a possiblity that you overlooked this because it is so easy a step....mind loops happen when these types of problem come up...so it wasn't meant as an insult, nor should it be taken as one.
I totally understood when you said everything was working fine before the installation of DP6, but kindly do not take your frustrations out on people when they are trying to offer up help.
Up until someone else showed they have this problem, it appeared to be a setting related issue. It's good that beret shows the same problem, it proves there may be a bug and people can try to emulate your problem, so far I've not been able to and you may understand why I will not put any more effort in seeing why you have this problem.
Have a good day....
Quote:
Originally Posted by
fuss
Um, what part of "everything was working fine and dandy until I installed DP6" didn't you understand?
It was the installation of DP6 that caused this problem. (And yes, my thumbnails are actually selected. I'm not a moron.)
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Thing is Ed - Frank [beretgascon] has a 64 bit system, and as Steve [sledger] pointed out, there are known issues with thumbnails on 64 bit systems [not just with xara products either]
So far it is only Fuss who has issues on a 32 bit XP system that we know of
It is almost certain that it is something on Fuss's system that is causing the installer to fail to install correctly - this is a long way from saying the installer is at fault
And I think Fuss will have to come round to this way of thinking to make progress
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Totally agree......missed that Beret had a 64 bit system.....
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
I have Xara Designer Pro 6 installed ,Windows Vista home - 32 bit ,and I'm having no problem seeing the XAR thumbnails.
However, I did experience the very same problem when I upgraded from XX4 to XX5.
So I uninstalled XX5 and re-installed XX4 and the thumbnails were again visible.
I then uninstalled XX4 and reinstalled XX5, to test - no thumbnails.
So I re-installed XX4 over the previously installed XX5 and the thumbnails returned !
The last Xara program installed seems to trump the thumbnail format information.
So I suggest you un-install all your programs, install Xara Designer, then XX4 and you may find your thumbnails up and running.
- Andy
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Re: 6.1.1 versions released
Well, after reading all the posts I think I won't upgrade and just wait for the cd...
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
My topic now almost seems unrelated to the original thread because of the tech support issue covered above. However, regarding Designer 6’s new features:
I think the improvements to the freehand drawing tool, and to the brushes are noteworthy for those of us who use Xara mainly for artistic expression (as distinct from web design or photo editing). I am appreciating some of the new features mentioned in the promotion material, such as the new sketch mode which allows for fast freehand line drawing without Xara connecting the lines automatically when they are drawn close together, and which doesn’t form a Shape when you close the line. But I am also discovering things that don’t appear to be mentioned in the promos (at the time of writing anyway): e.g. now the colours of the brushes (airbrush, watercolour, crayon, etc.) can be changed before you apply the brush stroke instead of having to edit the colour afterward. Another thing that doesn’t seem to get much of a mention is that if you don’t like Designer 6’s darker GUI colour, not only can you change it back to Xtreme5 style (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S as a lot of people now know), but you can drag a colour from the colour line onto the pasteboard to make the pasteboard any colour you like. You can also change the page colour by dragging a colour onto it. I think these are significant new features.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dilaco
Another thing that doesn’t seem to get much of a mention is that if you don’t like Designer 6’s darker GUI colour, not only can you change it back to Xtreme5 style (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S as a lot of people now know)
This is not an officially supported feature so will not have been mentioned by Xara.
Your following point (page/pasteboard colours) are mentioned here:
Summary of new features in Xara Designer Pro and Photo & Graphic Designer v6
(*This link has appeared in my signature since the release of v6)
Quote:
Better page color and background support i.e. you can color the pasteboard separately from the page. More WYSIWYG results
By default the 'page color' in Web Designer maps to the website HTML background color. The default is white so your whole web page background will be white. You can drag any color onto the page (the white area) to re-color this. However if you drag a color onto the pasteboard area (outside the visible page area) this allows you to create separate backgrounds for both the page and page surround. Whereas with previous releases of Designer you had to draw rectangles to create a colored page on a different colored background.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Thank you Sledger
The reason I didn’t see the pasteboard colour feature is because it’s under the “Web Improvements” section, which is not my category of interest. I would have thought it would be under “General Improvements” or some other less specific category? Also I thought that some other users might not be aware of this feature because in the entire thread on this forum – subject “Poll: which user interface do you prefer” - no one mentioned that if the dark background was annoying or straining your eyes that there was the simple remedy of changing it by dragging colour of choice. If there was mention of the improvement to the brushes colour editing, I guess I overlooked this also. But hopefully if someone reading this thread didn’t know about these features before, they now do - which is why I posted.
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Re: Xara Designer Pro 6 and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6
Fuss,
Xara has a relatively small user-base compared with XP. That might explain why nobody else seems to have encountered your missing icon view problem on 32-bit XP. XP has millions of lines of code, and has countless unfortunate interactions when certain software combinations are found. Combine this with the potential for mistakes or unusual actions from users and installers, and you will understand why solving problems is not always straightforward. Personally, I have always marvelled that the design of XP seems to allow for a fix to anything! I have also always found Xara Support to be prompt and, eventually, effective. BTW this doesn't mean that XP is rubbish; the sainted Linux also has its instabilities, as does its cousin Mac OS X.
Missing thumbnail preview is quite common. If it happens again, try the link http://www.the-pc-guru.com/Thumbnail...eview_does.php. This offers three solutions for XP, all seem to be based on the assumption that file associations in Explorer are somehow not working properly. The first uses standard commands to fix possible Registry errors. The second assumes that a faulty Internet Explorer is wrecking things - nothing new there then! The third provides a couple of simple scripts to fix file associations in the Registry.
If these don't help, search for other solutions on Google. But make sure that you only use those devised for XP! I suggest also that you try to acquire an elementary understanding of how Registry works. Then you will have confidence in examining it, or in at least using free software to automatically fix simple inconsistencies - Ccleaner or Glary Utilities are both good.
Good luck!
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Re: 6.1.1 versions released
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MarciaB
Well, after reading all the posts I think I won't upgrade and just wait for the cd...
When is the CD coming?
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Re: 6.1.1 versions released
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Re: 6.1.1 versions released
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sledger
Thanks.
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Re: 6.1.1 versions released
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Markku
When is the CD coming?
The Photo & Graphic Designer 6 CDs arrived in stock yesterday and we have started to clear the back orders. Designer Pro is due in stock tomorrow, so not long to wait now!
http://www.xara.com/us/outsider/july10/
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Re: 6.1.1 versions released