Will lack of 4K be the DEATH of Xara?

Hello

I simply can't believe that after all this time Xara Designer Pro still doesn't have a 4K interface. >:^[


BACKGROUND
Look, I personally, like many people who are even remotely serious about graphics I have a large, high resolution screen. e.g. Mine is 4K. To get clear that's 3840 x 2160 pixels.

Now, in order for my other Windows applications to be usable, I have had to set the Windows (v10 x64) scaling to way beyond 100%. In fact 175% scaling is the smallest that I can work with on my 27" monitor. Sorry but if I leave the scaling at 100% then my entire system become unusable, with the text way, way, WAY too small to read.

At least once a year, for the last 5+ years, I have tried to give Xara more money by upgrading. But I refuse point-blank to pay for a horribly blurred interface. So I am stuck, still using Xara Designer Pro 10 which I bought in 2014.

XDP is now on version 16.3, but it still has a blurred interface.

WHY? No other applications that I know of still have this problem! The Microsoft Office Suite, all the Adobe packages (e.g. Photoshop, Illustator etc), Mindjet's Mind Manager, every little utility I use like FastStone Capture and GoodSync... even X1 Search who are barely awake regarding updates... ALL of them have pin-sharp menus and pin-sharp text & graphics everywhere you look.
But not Xara. Oh no... they know better. They know that we don't really need to see sharp graphics. No-no-no, what we customers really need are all kinds of bells & whistles...

WTF? What's WRONG with these people?

Look, I used to be a HUGE fan of Xara. I have used Xara since Xara Studio (1994). It used to be my all-time-favourite application.

But now I utterly despair. What am I missing?

J

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Originally Posted by shiphen

Hello

I simply can't believe that after all this time Xara Designer Pro still doesn't have a 4K interface. >:^[


BACKGROUND
Look, I personally, like many people who are even remotely serious about graphics I have a large, high resolution screen. e.g. Mine is 4K. To get clear that's 3840 x 2160 pixels.

Now, in order for my other Windows applications to be usable, I have had to set the Windows (v10 x64) scaling to way beyond 100%. In fact 175% scaling is the smallest that I can work with on my 27" monitor. Sorry but if I leave the scaling at 100% then my entire system become unusable, with the text way, way, WAY too small to read.

At least once a year, for the last 5+ years, I have tried to give Xara more money by upgrading. But I refuse point-blank to pay for a horribly blurred interface. So I am stuck, still using Xara Designer Pro 10 which I bought in 2014.

XDP is now on version 16.3, but it still has a blurred interface.

WHY? No other applications that I know of still have this problem! The Microsoft Office Suite, all the Adobe packages (e.g. Photoshop, Illustator etc), Mindjet's Mind Manager, every little utility I use like FastStone Capture and GoodSync... even X1 Search who are barely awake regarding updates... ALL of them have pin-sharp menus and pin-sharp text & graphics everywhere you look.
But not Xara. Oh no... they know better. They know that we don't really need to see sharp graphics. No-no-no, what we customers really need are all kinds of bells & whistles...

WTF? What's WRONG with these people?

Look, I used to be a HUGE fan of Xara. I have used Xara since Xara Studio (1994). It used to be my all-time-favourite application.

But now I utterly despair. What am I missing?

J

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While I am 100% (even 175%) behind you, I can use my Xara Desktop applications (XDA) without menus in most cases.
Menu selection slows down most workflows. Luckily, few options go down to the third level.

Even a small Toolbar and its Flyouts are quick and simple to remember. The Button Palette can be use to customise a specific Toolbar.

Most of the Dialogs are non-modal so can be kept open. You can do the same with the Galleries and even the Button Palette.
I have a second smaller second monitor at a lower resolution where I can park these windows and view "at scale".

I also use ZoomIt with its LiveZoom toggle. i use Ctrl+Alt+PageDown for left hand and Alt GR+PageDown for right hand as neither are use in Xara.

On the subject of Key Shortcuts, XDPX has the ability to customise these (Alt-U-H).
Most work out of the box and I am sure Ctrl+F (Bring to Front) is used by most as you quickly set up a cadence with Ctrl+F, Shift+Ctrl+F, Shift+Ctrl+B & Ctrl+B.

I, finally, have a Gaming Keyboard and use M2 > (G1 to G6) M3 > (G1 to G6) to set up common tasks. M2+G1 to open all non-modal Dialogs, M2+G2 to repeat Duplicate, ... M3 calls up support applications from the web or my PC.
I am sure i could get more out of it.

Finally, the mouse is the XDA's best friend. Left and right click select and drags with a smattering of meta-keys and a dash of Tool icons works miracles.
SmartShapes are in my opinion the killer to most good workflows I have developed. Text Inside breaks logic.

Hope this acts as a palliative until Xara reacts.

Acorn

Alternatively, get down to Currys and splash your £100+ upgrade cash on a nice 22” screen. Problem solved! ;)

And yes, sadly I do think lack of hi-res support is ending DPX as a professional graphics app.

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Originally Posted by Jonopen

Alternatively, get down to Currys and splash your £100+ upgrade cash on a nice 22” screen. Problem solved! ;)

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Obviously my Post needed TL;DR at the top...

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Originally Posted by Acorn

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I have a second smaller second monitor at a lower resolution where I can park these windows and view "at scale".
...

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Acorn ;))

Sorry your having a bad day. No one should stick to using one tool, feel free to invest in other programs. :2c

alternatively invest in a larger screen say 55 inch, then you might be able to read at native resolution 4K, although you will need to move your head a bit more

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Originally Posted by Acorn

Obviously my Post needed TL;DR at the top...


Acorn ;))

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Oops, I missed that line about your second screen. :rolleyes: Can’t say I always understand them, but I do always read your posts! ;) I’ve never used a two monitor setup before but can imagine it could be useful. Off topic, but do you happen to know if built-in intel graphics chips like HD Graphics 4600 support two HD screens without degradation to performance?

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Originally Posted by Jonopen

do you happen to know if built-in intel graphics chips like HD Graphics 4600 support two HD screens without degradation to performance?

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Short answer, yes it will work just fine.

Longer answer, dual screens work a lot better if they are the same physical size and resolution. I'm presuming the 4600 is laptop graphics and in Extend mode (1 image spanned over 2 screens) you may find it awkward dragging windows from one screen to the other. The keyboard shortcut in Win 10 to chnage dual screen settings is Winkey+P.

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Originally Posted by Chris M

Short answer, yes it will work just fine.

Longer answer, dual screens work a lot better if they are the same physical size and resolution. I'm presuming the 4600 is laptop graphics and in Extend mode (1 image spanned over 2 screens) you may find it awkward dragging windows from one screen to the other. The keyboard shortcut in Win 10 to chnage dual screen settings is Winkey+P.

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Hi Chris, thanks for confirming this and the potential pitfalls. Yes, it is a six year old laptop.

bear in mind, 'yes' is the general case - ie the chips will support it... that does not guarantee any given implementation will, always best to check the actual computer documentation before you buy anything

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Originally Posted by handrawn

bear in mind, 'yes' is the general case - ie the chips will support it... that does not guarantee any given implementation will, always best to check the actual computer documentation before you buy anything

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Thanks handrawn. A two screen setup was just a momentary flight of fancy. Thinking about it I don’t really have the desk space plus I still have my sights trained on getting a cintiq!

Just try it. You've nothing to lose.

I've use two screens at home and at work for years. I'd hate to go back to a single screen.

If you want to try it, borrow a spare screen from a buddy, or even buy an old one from a thrift shop. Apart from the screen (and maybe cable) there's no cost.

I used a 1600 x 900 primary screen and a 1280 x 1024 secondary screen for years until recently, and never saw any drop in performance.

if you want one Jono I can let you have an old 23 inch HD [1920 x 1080] - circa 2011, never use it since I got the cintiq, and it will get me in her good books as she considers it 'kelt' [clutter] - I'll cart it to Beverley, if you can cart it home ;)

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Originally Posted by handrawn

if you want one Jono I can let you have an old 23 inch HD [1920 x 1080] - circa 2011, never use it since I got the cintiq, and it will get me in her good books as she considers it 'kelt' [clutter] - I'll cart it to Beverley, if you can cart it home ;)

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Wow brilliant thanks S. I’ll be in touch, drinks on me!

my pleasure :)

This thread is the most depressing thing I've read all year.

Okay so given that the consensus view here seems to be that XDP is a dead duck for anyone with a higher resolution screen (read "almost everyone who is serious about graphics") what can any of you recommend that we use instead of XDP?

J

PS Out of interest, what do we think is the ultimate problem here? Is www.magix.com killing it off deliberately ? (i.e. much like Corel tried to about 10 years ago)

And have any of the original developers now jumped ship to start again from scratch? It would seem that that would be the only hope for poor old Xara...

I don't think Magix is killing it off deliberately, but perhaps they are killing it off unintentionally ...

i think the issue is that xara are now focused on web design and document design with a lot of emphasis on templates and other 'shortcuts' to make it easier for 'non-designers'

they 'parked' the desktop with magix so they could concetrate most if not all their effort on the cloud app(s)

if it were me in your position i would get a second inexpensive monitor and take on board what acorn (and others) have said (assuming the 55 inch option is not practical)

the learning curve may be easier than a new program since no interface is like the xara one

if that did not work i would look at affinity or corel draw - i don't know what you do but both have good and bad points - illustrator is overpriced in my view on subscription

that said i am not in your position because i have never limited myself to just one program... and i don't currently have the problem myself

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Originally Posted by shiphen

"almost everyone who is serious about graphics")

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BTW - i am not at all sure most of those, that serious, would have been using xara in the first place - i do animation, which is not always that forgiving, 2k is fine, i could work with standard HD most of the time

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the only hope for poor old Xara...

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again i think the company have made a reasonable commercial decision to go the way they apparently have - not without risk, but nothing is - but you can only spend so much on yesterdays product, no matter how good it is, if it is not a commercially sound venture - products come, products go, the company has to survive

To me, it's just so SAD. I have been using Xara since Xara Studio (c.1995)

I have always used XDP in intense bursts. I am mostly doing pretty basic graphics, creating shapes etc and occasionally doing things to photographs.

I love much about Xara including its speed and anti-aliasing... how transparency works... How easy it is to create shapes from lines and then use them to add & subtract etc from each other.

> products come, products go, the company has to survive

True. However looking again with fresh eyes, even ignoring the 4K scaling problems (making menus hard/impossible to read) there is still quite a LOT wrong with Xara's interface.

1. When you put an arrowhead on a line it finishes BEYOND the end of the line. [WTF?!]

2. When I need to be accurate, I spend my life turning the grid on and off from view, because when you zoom out it floods the screen with a sea of "+" marks. Techically correct, but not helpful! But turning them on/off is fiddly, with lots of clicks.

3. I also keep needing to change the way snapping works. Again doing so involves many clicks.

4. How "Scale Line Widths" changes the way snapping works is frankly bonkers.

5. XDP has a bug that when you change the centre of rotation of a shape it does idiotic things and the next shape rotates in some bizarre way (I forget the details).

6. "Lock Aspect Ratio" does something deeply irritating to the way the selection handles work, that is also VERY non-obvious to any novice users.

I could go on...

But my general point is that XDP needs an interface that is much more obvious to new users. I showed XDP to a highly 'computer literate' friend the other day. He's talented guy. He's done a fair bit of graphics in all manner of different applications. But he was quickly cursing and swearing at XDP.

Look, the fact is that interfaces have evolved since 1994 (!!) and Xara need to adapt. e.g. PowerPoint is much more obvious to novices. eg There isn't a quick and easy way to rotate an object by 90 degrees - even my mobile phone has that! - but instead one is forced to type the angle of rotation in manually each time. (And are most users really expecting it to default to ANTI-clockwise? Maybe... but I somehow doubt it!)

To me, the slow death of Xara is nothing short of a tragedy.

It sounds to me like Xara need a whole change of management ethos. Someone there needs to read "The Lean Startup" (by Eric Ries) and apply its principles of getting close to real new users.

Can't they just sell the whole thing to someone who at least gets the basics right?

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Originally Posted by shiphen

1. When you put an arrowhead on a line it finishes BEYOND the end of the line. [WTF?!]

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Xara might mntion Smart Lines. I wouldn't but it is part of the engine so won't change.

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Originally Posted by shiphen

5. XDP has a bug that when you change the centre of rotation of a shape it does idiotic things and the next shape rotates in some bizarre way (I forget the details).

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It is not a bug. In use, it does make sense.

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Originally Posted by shiphen

There isn't a quick and easy way to rotate an object by 90 degrees

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There is and it is intuitive. Ctrl+Rotate will lock to 90 degrees in steps of 45 degrees.

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Originally Posted by shiphen

To me, the slow death of Xara is nothing short of a tragedy.
It sounds to me like Xara need a whole change of management ethos. Someone there needs to read "The Lean Startup" (by Eric Ries) and apply its principles of getting close to real new users.
Can't they just sell the whole thing to someone who at least gets the basics right?

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Totally agree.

Acorn

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Originally Posted by shiphen

But my general point is that XDP needs an interface that is much more obvious to new users. I showed XDP to a highly 'computer literate' friend the other day. He's talented guy. He's done a fair bit of graphics in all manner of different applications. But he was quickly cursing and swearing at XDP.

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therein lies my point

xara are designing just such an interface - in the cloud, they don't have a lot of time/resource for other things

and your friend might well have found it 'trying', that's a learning curve, and it's not perfect but neither is anything else

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and Xara need to adapt

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the are !... in the cloud, like it or not

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And are most users really expecting it to default to ANTI-clockwise? Maybe... but I somehow doubt it!

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maybe this is an old CAD/CAM convention, i don't know... but in trigonometry if I remember correctly, by convention, anti[counter]clockwise is positive, and clockwise is negative, so if the person who designed it was a mathematician [or CAD/CAM possibly] that may explain it [I think it's to do with direction of travel towards positive and negative axis values and somewhat arcane to the mathematically challenged, I am sure Acorn will know]

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To me, the slow death of Xara is nothing short of a tragedy

It sounds to me like Xara need a whole change of management ethos. Someone there needs to read "The Lean Startup" (by Eric Ries) and apply its principles of getting close to real new users.

Can't they just sell the whole thing to someone who at least gets the basics right?

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Xara is not dying [I hope] maybe it's desktop is stagnating but that is because as I understand it, the commercial base that can return a margin on investment is wafer thin; it is too late - we all, them and us, have to move on

> It is not a bug. In use, it does make sense.
Personally I found it extremely counter-intuitive.

Here's what my XDP10 does:
1. I change the centre of rotation of Shape A, and rotate it.

2. Now I select Shape B, and it wants to rotate around that same point.
Personally 9 times out of 10 I don't want that.

3. But what I definitely do want is for Shape A to remember where I had moved its centre of rotation to, however Shape A has forgotten.

So is that genuinely how XDP is supposed to behave? I mean why when I change something does it apply the change to the next thing I touch but then immediately forget the change to the shape in question?

Sounds deeply counter-intuitive to me... but I digress.


> the commercial base that can return a margin on investment is wafer thin;
Yes there is always a learning curve for anything new, however some user interfaces are broadly intuitive and some are not. In its day 25 years ago Xara was way more intuitive than its competitors. But during the last 25 years, UIs have moved on. And users have new learnt conventions. But Xara has adopted almost none of them.

Either way, like I say I have been a fan all this time, but despite demonstrating Xara to maybe 10 or 15 people over the last 15 years, I don't think a single person ever liked Xara enough to buy a copy. And that HAS to say something!

> xara are designing just such an interface - in the cloud,
Can you say more - will it be a full-on replacement for XDP?

I really dont agree with the statement that basically says "the interface was intuitive 25 years ago and it hasn't changed so now it's not intuitive."

I still think that Xara's learnin curve is quite small. Everything is where I expect it to be.

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Originally Posted by shiphen

And that HAS to say something!

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this was always the case - some loved it, some hated it - and there was never the corporate base to establish it mainstream

in this respect I think, the company are maybe marketing the cloud app in the right way - maybe you should get out to one of the business conventions and bend the ear of a Xara Rep, should you be able to find one...

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> xara are designing just such an interface - in the cloud,
Can you say more - will it be a full-on replacement for XDP?

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I have no inside info but I doubt it, certainly not in the near future... but eventually it may be that the cloud app becomes downloadable, like Adobe, though not necessarily their subscription model, and the current desktop will fade gently away into the oubliette that is Magix' back catalogue - but that's just my feeling and current opinion

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Originally Posted by ss-kalm

I really dont agree with the statement that basically says "the interface was intuitive 25 years ago and it hasn't changed so now it's not intuitive."

I still think that Xara's learnin curve is quite small. Everything is where I expect it to be.

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We're going to have to agree to disagree on this.

All I'll ask is: Have you ever watched a computer-literate, Xara novice attempt to use Xara?

And if you say something like "yes lots of times, and they all absolutely loved and bought copies of Xara" how then would YOU account for Xara's commercial failure?

J

Wow. This thread is both enlightening and depressing. Though I’ve been using Xara for over five years, I still consider myself a novice. I don’t do commercial graphics work, but my business’s website. The idea that after investing so much money and time, the software may disappear because it’s not keeping up with the demands is frustrating.

I agree that too much is being done for the Cloud and not enough for the software itself. Many of us have no interest or use for the Cloud.

But it seems that perhaps the unfortunate trigger for the changes in the company vision of Xara began when it was taken over by Magix. From product development to customer support, things have declined.

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Originally Posted by gcellison

Wow. This thread is both enlightening and depressing. Though I’ve been using Xara for over five years, I still consider myself a novice. I don’t do commercial graphics work, but my business’s website. The idea that after investing so much money and time, the software may disappear because it’s not keeping up with the demands is frustrating.

I agree that too much is being done for the Cloud and not enough for the software itself. Many of us have no interest or use for the Cloud.

But it seems that perhaps the unfortunate trigger for the changes in the company vision of Xara began when it was taken over by Magix. From product development to customer support, things have declined.

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Once again, false information.
1. The naysayers have been saying for years that Xara is dying. It has not and likely will not.
2. Magix did not take over Xara. Magix does the marketing and selling for Xara, not product development
3. Customer support goes through the Magix support page, and then I would expect that Xara queries are automatically forwarded to the Xara support people.

Oops, poor customer support? I raised a ticket yesterday, Sunday, I have a reply with a solution today, Monday.

As for shiphen's comments, I have PaintShop Pro and I managed to figure out, after a couple of years, how to draw a line and write some text over a photo. It is not obvious as you have to create separate layers to do this. You can't just drag a photo onto the arranger and then draw or write text on it. With Xara, just drag in a photo, draw a line or write text - no layer problems, nothing mysterious. If a computer-literate new user can't figure that out, then I would say that that user is not computer-literate, as there is nothing simpler than this, or they are just looking for something more complicated.

Commercial failure? By what standard? The company is still there and still producing and upgrading its software.

As for the title of this thread, has anyone put the question directly to Xara? I don't have a 4k screen, but I do have a 2736x1824 screen on my Surface Pro 4, and Xara works just fine.

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Originally Posted by browj2

Once again, false information.
...
...has anyone put the question directly to Xara? I don't have a 4k screen...

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"false" is somewhat strong as no one is trying to promote alternative facts. There is a perception that with Magix on support, being German, having no UK Xara directors and Xara Cloud being GmbH, then with Magix responsible for packaging and putting lots of nag-ware options in the product, there is a belief that there is a strong Magix / Xara Cloud influence on the delivery of features and the rectification of bugs. Magix does not own Xara. [See P.P.P.S. below]
4k presentation of the XARA UI has been asked of Xara over many years and the response is that it is on the list...

Recently, I have Dear Xara'd asking where the TG interaction has gone. The response is deafening: https://www.talkgraphics.com/search....rchid=8170391; two months of nothing.

Acorn

P.S. 4k offering 3840 x 2160 pixels is 150% resolution of your Surface Pro 4. Xara icons are about 32px square and menu text is around 12pt. scale these down by 66.67% and see what you reading position becomes.
3840px could present 120 button icons across the screen; my Align and Standard Bars have about 35 icons so visualise the xara application having its controls in the left-most one third of the full screen.

P.P.S. I would implore TG Mods not to close this Thread but rather move it to the Dear Xara Forum and use whatever back channels to get Xara to re-engage.

P.P.P.S.
Charles Moir Blog - http://charlesmoir.com/about.htm -

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I sold Xara to a German public software company. Then started a new company 6 years ago doing cloud (web based) software.

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Xara Group History - https://www.xara.com/uk/history/ -

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In 2007 the company was purchased by the German multi-media company MAGIX. Xara continues as a separate company, but is now part of the MAGIX group and has seen rapid international expansion as a result. We have the same world class team of developers working on the design products that are our strength, but benefit from the considerable marketing and development resources of MAGIX.

Xara titles are now available under the MAGIX brand in German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian and Russian.

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Originally Posted by browj2

Once again, false information.
1. The naysayers have been saying for years that Xara is dying. It has not and likely will not.
2. Magix did not take over Xara. Magix does the marketing and selling for Xara, not product development
3. Customer support goes through the Magix support page, and then I would expect that Xara queries are automatically forwarded to the Xara support people.

Oops, poor customer support? I raised a ticket yesterday, Sunday, I have a reply with a solution today, Monday.

As for shiphen's comments, I have PaintShop Pro and I managed to figure out, after a couple of years, how to draw a line and write some text over a photo. It is not obvious as you have to create separate layers to do this. You can't just drag a photo onto the arranger and then draw or write text on it. With Xara, just drag in a photo, draw a line or write text - no layer problems, nothing mysterious. If a computer-literate new user can't figure that out, then I would say that that user is not computer-literate, as there is nothing simpler than this, or they are just looking for something more complicated.

Commercial failure? By what standard? The company is still there and still producing and upgrading its software.

As for the title of this thread, has anyone put the question directly to Xara? I don't have a 4k screen, but I do have a 2736x1824 screen on my Surface Pro 4, and Xara works just fine.

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I was responding to the thread up to that point and adding my observations. I didn’t mean to ruffle any feathers. I’ve done no investigation to know how well Xara is doing commercially, but I hope very well, as I (and many others) have invested much effort in learning it.

I’m glad your experience with customer support is good. For me, it’s been a bit slow (over a week to not until I sent them a reminder), and the answers I receive aren’t helpful. I find that I get much better advice if I post my question here on talkgraphics. And yes, the answers I got in the past from customer support were more helpful.

thanks Acorn for digging out Charles Moir's commments and the reference from 2007

it seems clear from this that Xara GmbH are the cloud, and 'Xara of old' is now part of 'a german software company', Magix presumably; that has been my understanding ever since Xara GmbH was set up, but the status of the desktop development ongoing has never been made clear here on TG :(

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Originally Posted by browj2

Once again, false information.

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sorry John, but if you have info that contradicts Magix owning at least part of Xara, perhaps you could share it ?

I recall Matt Bolton stating that 'Magix do not own Xara' but I am sure her was referring to Xara GmbH - no doubt if that is wrong he will drop by and put the record straight

Also I was very careful to stress that xara product never became mainstream, which is not a statement of failure in itself - lots of good apps are not, and that 'it' has now changed direction [again];

I would agree that is not 'commercial failure'

I stand corrected. I was going on the basis of what Matt Bolton said about Magix not owning Xara and missed the part about the Cloud part vs desktop. That said, I am sure that the Xara team has stated more than once that the Xara team, and not Magix, is doing Xara development and design, with Magix doing marketing type work. Maybe Rob can clarify how it all works on the Discord forum.

@Acorn, I don't see that you've joined the Xara forum on Discord. Rob-Xar is always logged in, even when he's sleeping it would seem, or listening to Spotify. And, with the exception of my posts yesterday and today, no one has posted anything there in a fortnight (how long is a fortnight?).

The point I really wanted to make is that some users start the doomsday ball rolling, like with this thread having the title "Will lack of 4K be the DEATH of Xara," and then others add a bit, others jump in after reading a bit but without understanding everything, and the next thing you know, Xara is going to the dogs, will die, Magix wants to get rid of Xara, it's all Magix' fault for whatever, and so on. Since Xara doesn't reply or no one tries to calm down these doomsday theories, people start to believe them.

Does this mean that if Xara fixes the 4K problem it won't die?

As for Magix marketing, I would like to point out that the marketing reach of Magix is far greater than that of whatever Xara had, now pretty much world-wide in many languages. The Magix.info forum has 6 languages. Xara problems in languages other than English, and even some in English, are raised on the Magix.info forum. Sadly, there is no TG for other languages, as far as I know.

Has anyone looked at the Magix.com website to see how the Xara line is presented? Here is just Xara DPX.

Another point, Magix has nothing else quite like Xara, at all. With the purchase of Sony Creative Software, Magix acquired many products that overlap with what they already had. Contrary to the naysayers who thought that Magix would dump either many of these or their competing legacy programs, Magix has managed to maintain, develop and improve most of these, if not all. Look at what they've done with Vegas. And at the same time, they have managed to develop and upgrade almost all of their legacy products. Xara itself is embedded in Magix's legacy video products (Movie Edit Pro, Video Pro X, PhotoStory), and is the go-to program for creating graphical overlays and masks. I can't see Magix not wanting Xara to succeed.

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Originally Posted by browj2

@Acorn, I don't see that you've joined the Xara forum on Discord. Rob-Xar is always logged in, even when he's sleeping it would seem, or listening to Spotify. And, with the exception of my posts yesterday and today, no one has posted anything there in a fortnight (how long is a fortnight?).
...
Does this mean that if Xara fixes the 4K problem it won't die?
...
I can't see Magix not wanting Xara to succeed.

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John, just because you haven't seen my acorn moniker does not mean I'm not there. You chose a different Avatar and Username: Discord JohnCB vs. TG's browj2. Equally, I chose TomPotBlenny and i have been quite active on Discord. I have Direct Messaged Rob a number of times too and you may have noticed my ask of 09 January. There is little point in raising question on TG or Discord if Xara fails to attend. TG is Xara's "official" online forum (XDA > Help > More 'XDA name' > Online forum --> https://www.talkgraphics.com/forumdi...-graphics-chat, so Xara knows who is calling [Knock-knock]). Rob is always ON as he acts as Discord Server support for a number of them.

The thread could have been written as "Does the survival of Xara hang on a 4K Delivery?", which is a directed question expecting a Yes or No response. The Thread heading is not so directed, leading to the debate so far.
Debate it should be but, again, it is somewhat one-sided so Posters, in not getting feedback, will naturally veer off on one. It is down to xara to engage.

Magix needs to look at the Update Service overlain onto the XDAs. The result of trying to force renewals / subscriptions / Cloud components has resulted in nag-ware on a professional product. Magix support has repeated demonstrated a lack of product knowledge or actual understanding in the majority of support tickets I have raised.

TG tried with https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...German-Support for a short spell; it failed as Xara was marketed in UK and Canada (Corel) and has only slowly built up an international following. Perhaps Xara needs Magix but I do know we need Xara here.

Acorn

TomPotBlenny! I never would have guessed.

For the title of this thread, I would have just raised the issue and wondered if there was a workaround or if anyone knew anything about if and when the problem would be resolved. I would not have tied it to the future of the product.

Veering off into the Update Service, it has some benefits, principally getting new features and a new version. Given the seemingly one year cycle for a new version, buy (say, v16) two or three months after a new version comes out, and you get the next version (17) for free (so long as you don't have to reinstall, etc.). Download all from the OCC before expiry. Wait for a few month after v18 comes out, and renew. Unless, of course, you absolutely have to have something new.

On the other hand, getting the nag notice to renew upon startup is annoying. At least you don't even have the hope of shutting it off as there is no "Don't show this again" checkbox. In Movie Edit Pro, with great expectation and hope, you can click on "Don't show this again" and then the choices are either Renew or Cancel. Click on Cancel and the nag message keeps coming back.

Enough for today.