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What are the Worst features in XPro
Recently we have had a wave of requests of features in this forum all stating they would like this a that in their version of Xara. My beef is, I would like what I have improved. Opening this topic is your chance to state what you don't like in your current version of Xara whither it is XPro or Xtreme.
My only beef in the product I use is the following:
Brushes; They are clumsy and take some much time to get the effect that you want!
The Alignment Tool; It is very basic in its approach although it works, needs refined.
Bugs; Just sort out the major ones like the Tiff export and so on!
And that's all as I am really happy with the current version of XPro its so easy now to use. It has increase my work flow hugely and I now use Illy just as a check to see if the colour is correct in CMYK
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Sorry everyone, but I think the previous post was still chaotic so I'm abandoning it and starting again, can't seem to think straight today - must be going down with flu or something..:o :o
Albacore I agree with brushes and bugs, which would be the two highest on my list.
The brushes are hamstrung by inflexibility - time and again you have to start from scratch to make the changes you need.
Bugs I guess are obviously bad, there seem to be quite a few that have been around for ages.....
The 2 other things I mentioned before, I think I'll let rest.
There is one feature that I haven't mentioned that I will need to think about before I post because it is important to me.
I'll go away and think it through
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
i agree about tiff export, it's xtreme!!! :D
for aligment need simple buttons, not that ugly window
but worst thing in xara - bitmap correction
xpe (levels) - just useless, xara have great feature - curve control for trans/feather, it works fine, why not have it for bitmap fills? it must be same window with additional tabs for rgb channels
xara don't have link option for import,.. it can increase speed for file saving and color correction... just imagine,.. only shapes with bitmap coordinates, all pictures lay in folder and always available for editing
also need selection menu (like in rhino3d) and object snaping options (snap in center, midle of curve, perpendecular... etc)
i hope that someone developer read what i writte and will be able to understand :) pardon my english
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
I would agree with the alignment buttons, the one in inkscape works much better and (apart from the 'clump' buttons), I guess is pretty standard.
Brushes are fairly good, they have a lot of options and much can be done with them, but Xara must fix the option to allow custom brushes to use the current fill colour. As it is, their use is practically crippled by constantly reverting to their original colours.
And the accuracy of the slice and subtract operations should be improved, having to go back and 'correct' dozens of inaccuracies just adds to the workload.
Why doesn't the Envelope warp bitmaps (beyond simple perspective warps)?
I could happily live without the pen tool, the shape editor does the same job and more. All the path options should be available for both the freehand and the shape editor tools, I spend a large part of my time flipping between the two, to access various options (I do a lot of linework). I use the line shapes and then often have to flip a path. Simply allowing the buttons for these options to be put on a custom tools palette would be fine.
Management of files in the galleries needs to be better, drag and drop would be favourite, especially for adding clip art.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
I am using the trial version of Pro. I sorry of this is a dumb question, but what are the "brushes" you are talking about? Is this part of the picture editor?
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
I disagree about the Pen tool. I DO use it, especially for drawing irregular 'clip' lines, which give a more organic feel to the resulting objects w/o the need for crating new points.
check on the warping of bitmaps.
tekarts,
'Brushes' in Xara is a bit of a misnomer. Brushes are the variations on line shapes, textures etc in the line gallery. If you look at the forum just a bit above where you entered this one, (Swap Shop - Brushes) you will see lots of them.
geo.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Although I never use either now, the frustration of creating image slicing and also nav bars and having XX tell me there's an overlay or some such error!!! The tools work, but it can often be a nightmare to get them working correctly.
I 'd also like to see the slicing errors eradicated. As for bugs, I believe a lot of these are system dependant and very difficult to pinpoint. The only one I suffer from is the dreaded XPE progress bar.
But then again there's times that I think my wife's not perfect either :D
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Number one complaint: No option for aligning to a selected object rather than to the extreme.
Otherwise, I actually prefer the alignment window to all those icons. I find it easier to read.
I'm also a fan of the Pen tool. Almost never use the Freehand tool.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Agree with Geo about the pen tool - sometimes I prefer to walk rather than fly, especially when I'm tired - I make less mistakes....
In post #2 above I mentioned a deficiency in xara that was bugging me - well here it is: color does not have a transparency attribute - you cannot apply a fade down to an individual color element of an object - only the object as a whole.
[ If you can please someone tell me how :o ]
As mentioned elsewhere this could go part way to providing a vector eraser of a sort. Another major deficiency.
See attached xar [bit complicated for an image post]
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Ah, Gotcha. Thanks handrawn.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
LOL!
O.K. The Pen tool doesn't offend me, there's no need to get rid of it, I just don't see the point of duplicating the function. The shape editor draws lines in exactly the same way, with the options set to straightline and cusp jion. Since this still allows you to drag the lines and gives the bezier 'bowtie' handles too, it just seems the better option to me.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Having just bought Xara yesterday, I can't thank you guys enough for the comments on this page. I'd like you to know that you've given me a feeling of profound confidence as I struggle to come to grips with the bloody thing.
I go now to google "inkscape". I may be some time.
Anthony:rolleyes:
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
My pet peeve: rounded corners on rectangles distort when you resize the rectangle.
I would like an option for round corners on polygons to stay round with their original radius when you resize them. This would save a lot of time when making those rounded-corner backgrounds so popular in web designs today.
-Ken
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rodzo
Having just bought Xara yesterday, I can't thank you guys enough for the comments on this page. I'd like you to know that you've given me a feeling of profound confidence as I struggle to come to grips with the bloody thing.
I go now to google "inkscape". I may be some time.
Anthony:rolleyes:
Don't despair!! nothing in this life is perfect :D
I've always said - if one program could really do everything, we all be in real trouble, especially in the wallet, it's bad enough as it is... :eek::D
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kismert
My pet peeve: rounded corners on rectangles distort when you resize the rectangle.
I would like an option for round corners on polygons to stay round with their original radius when you resize them. This would save a lot of time when making those rounded-corner backgrounds so popular in web designs today.
-Ken
I would have to agree with this one. Also I agree with Egg, on the slicing and navbar tool. I tried the navbar tool a few times and found it difficult to use. Now I prefer to export the images from Xara and use other software for slicing and making the script.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Love this thread. It's actually more important to know what you regards as the worst features, or the ones that bug you most, than just having lists of suggestions for new features.
And so you'll like to know that in the upcoming 3.2 release we've, finally, fixed the 'squashed rounded rectangle' issue. Well mostly. Using the Selector tool to stretch objects should and always will stretch or squash the rounded corners. But now if you use the Rectangle tool to re-size, this will no longer squash the roundedness of the corners.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
On alignment issue. I don't mind the dialog at all, although I think many new users miss the point of being able to click in the window and the use of the Ctrl and Shift keys (perhaps add a few word to the display like, "click here if you don't want to use the pulldown menus").
However, to be more intune with current programs, we need assignable short-cut keys to cut down on the time consuming mouse clicks.
Aligning centrally is still a major deficiency. I think Allison Moore will back me up on this one. It needs to have the capability to align relative to the center of an object (the last selected perhaps) rather that the selection box; the current method requires too much fiddling to align an object centrally to a specific location in the drawing area.
In addition, something that other programs don't have, is the ability to Align to a guideline, this would be novel feature for Xpro to boast of and could be very helpful regarding text-frame layout in multi-page documents.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
With regards to the Pen tool. If you're one that doesn't use it, simply by holding the Alt key, you can drag the pen tool button off and release. The unused button will be removed. But the option is still there.
To get it back.
--> 'Window'
--> 'Control bars...'
scrool down and check,
--> 'Button Palette'
by holding the 'Alt' key, you can add pen tool and or any other button that appears.
-Bob.
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Multipage Layout
XPro MultiPage layout lacks in the following:
No master layers.
Can't lock an individual object (so the object isn't moved by accident)
Can't assign layers to specific pages such as first pg, first and last page, page # thru #.
Can not right click for a context menu to insert a page.
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Object Editing and Maintenance
No symbols/sprites.
Very helpful when doing maps, timelines, Weblayouts, etc., where a shape is used repeatedly but later requires to be rescaled or reshaped or have its' gradient fill, transparency, bevel, drop shadow, etc., modified.
No programable "widgets" for template development, such as:
>today's date (static), current date (automatically updates itself)
>path, document name, and path and document name.
>insert a graphic (like a company logo, enable a link to a library and/or the clipart gallery for a specific filename so a logo can easily be retrieved; it could also allow company documents to be automatically updated when logo is updated)
No insertion of a graphic into the text stream so we can easily create custom symbols not found in a font set.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
The tendency that has grown up as of late for xara to do things 'automatically', such as resizing zoom when importing bitmap, as well as docking and resizing at the same time - ouch!
Both these can be fixed by regedit - but thats a hack and inflexible we really should be able to choose.
Only being able to toggle last zoom is baaaad for me [- especially when I've just had my zoom automatically resized :rolleyes:] .
Zoom history would be nice.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
The most annoying issues I have with Xara (that aren't feature requests explicitly) are:
1. Brush not retaining brush colour with each brush stroke - as someone above said: it practically cripples the use of brushes for painting. (related feature request: randomisations palette like MS product has to do subtle random variations)
2. Text tool lacks basic text creation and navigation functionality (via keyboard and mouse features) that Word has (details given elsewhere).
3. Various minor (known to Xara) bugs that affect usability.
4. Poor docking functionality and usability. Inability to reverse docking logic, i.e. have option to have control pressed to dock rather than to dock automatically unless control is held.
5. Rounded rectangle issue (which is now apparently fixed)
6. That it takes AGES to load up a lot of live effects that may be installed. A smart memory of what’s there and only scans for changes would be greatly welcome. It takes tens of seconds for Xara to scan the directories with all the LEs I have, and it’s unbelievably annoying – especially if you were in the middle of something and have to wait for ages.
7. The lack of solid-drawing/resizing when using the quickshape tools.
8. Lack of solid redraw for contours and bevels etc.
9. When exporting images, changing certain settings automatically causes a redraw. For large images, this can take forever to re-preview. E.g., you have a large image being exported, and you move the JPG quality slider a little and before you’ve even released (if you're dragging slowly) it starts to re-preview, taking ages. Then you have to do this again and again until you get the right value. The preview button should be the only way to update the image for long re-preview times, but not for short times.
10. Very outdated looking galleries that remind me of windows 3.1 for some reason. Not modern and slick to navigate (e.g. no multi-layer simultaneous delete in layer gallery).
11. (no auto save)
12. 50 pixel feather limit with non-reversible scaling when this is exceeded
13. Files with lots of pngs take a long time to save (may be unavoidable).
14. No ability to load Xara shortcuts utility from Xtreme.
15. Can’t reorder live effects
16. Inability to disable the auto-zoom-out feature when large pictures are dropped into the document.
17. It can't cure the common cold!
Additional feature request:
1. Reverse stacking order feature – useful for large numbers of objects that you want to have reversed stacking order; you currently have to manually do this all by hand.
This is all that immediately springs to mind.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
As has been mentioned before, it can be very time consuming and frustrating not having the ability to select multiple random frames in the animator.
Copy and Paste can really speed up trying to work with 100+ frames but unfortunately, selecting one frame at a time is primitive.
Perhaps gif animation may be on the way out and not a priority but as it is in Xtreme already, can it not be made as easy to use as cheaper animators like ulead gif animator ... for instance?:D
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Xhris,
Quote:
17. It can't cure the common cold!
This ones been sorted!
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Biggest beef is the frames in anim mode are ass-about-face.
Not that this will ever change back to how, most sensibly, it used to be.
Background frame goes underneath, not on top, right? Grrrr!!!!
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
- Pressure sensitivity ;
- impossibility to change anything to the brushes components without rebuilding them (only brush settings may be changed) ;
- some line settings are lost when objects are included in brushes : feathering, stroke shapes ... ;
- no warping along strokes.
kindly,
ivan
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
CMYK color picker!%^*(#??...love the multi page function needs refining though..tao
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Intbel
Biggest beef is the frames in anim mode are ass-about-face.
Not that this will ever change back to how, most sensibly, it used to be.
Background frame goes underneath, not on top, right? Grrrr!!!!
I would think the correct frame order would be, left-to-right or top-to-bottom. Personally I can work with it either way but I'm one who prefers the way it is now over the old way.
-Bob.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
When creating Flash-stuff:
- the UI to create command in the layer names (ie rotate and accelerations) should be replaced/complemented with other alternatives.
- to move objects along paths instead of moving straight from point A to point B.
Bitmaps:
- A way to resize a bitmap after its resolution. Often I have set the resolution to 300 in Photoshop and when I import image in Xtreme it will be very large at 96 dpi. Instead of trying to guess to what percentage I should resize it ot trying to resize with the handles, it would be great to just insert the prefered dpi and the bitmap would resize after that, ie I would change the 96 dpi of the imported bitmap to 300 and the image would "shrink" on the page. And there could also be a field in the Import dialogue asking for the prefered resolution (like when you import Photoshop files if I don't remember wrong).
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
The only thing I hate in Extreme, are the Galleries, especially the layer galleries.
I would love a layer gallery like the one in Adobe Fireworks.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Perhaps it's a personal quirk, but this has always annoyed me, with almost all brush engines LOL!
In the brush options, why isn't spacing affected by scaling?
I know this may seem obscure to some, but take the chainlink brush for example. If you allow scaling to be affected by pressure, the size of the links will deminish as the pressure eases, but the spacing doesn't seem to allow for the smaller elements, it stays constant.
If the spacing could be linked to the scaling variation, this would give you a 'faux perspective' effect (no overlaping forms, of course). In the example given, the links would seem to recede from the viewer as the pressure eased (or the line shape thinned), this would be a very useful option. Imagine being able to simply lay a path to show a lace pattern flowing around a skirt hem, or a paved road winding off into the distance.
If you can include an option for random spacing, it seems to me not to be too big a stretch to allow an option to link spacing to scaling?
I understand that few would see the benefit of this (I've had this discussion before), so the demand may not be enough to bother adding such an option.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Brushes are top of my fix-this list, and that sounds like a very good idea to me Mark.
Adding a pressure sensitivity option to every attribute you possibly can in fact.
:)
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
For me, it's the four-sided limitation on moulds. This restriction is the only reason I keep CorelDraw installed on my PC.
.joroho.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
I've mentioned this in another thread:
Update the Galleries
a. Change the text buttons (New, Delete, etc.) to Icons (with tool tips) for a better look and less screen real estate
b. Allow more than one Gallery to be tabbed together on a single line for docked Galleries (see DrawPlus8)
c. A dropdown list of categories for a Gallery (instead of the current list, which for some Galleries takes up most of the screen real estate before even showing the category items. This would also allow selecting a Gallery category more efficiently without all the scrolling - see DrawPlus8)
d. Allow dragging of drawing objects into a Gallery to create a new Gallery item (for the Line, Clipart and Fill Galleries)
e. A new toolbar button to toggle all displayed/docked Galleries on and off
f. Reliable horizontal resizing of docked Galleries (this fails 60% of the time, the cursor changes but dragging does not change the docked Gallery size)
Brush Tool using skeletal strokes (see Expression3 and DrawPlus8)
Layer Gallery (work flow improvements)
a. Create a New or Copy layer without the dialog box coming up first (or allow user to define this action)
b. Double Click on the layer name brings up the name dialog box, plus add a layer color selection option (see below)
c. Change the Arrow column icon to a Pad Lock icon (more explicit)
d. Simplify the Eye icon - Remove the eye lashes (easier to view)
e. Clicking on the Eye or Arrow/Pad Lock column header icon toggles all the layers on or off for that property
f. Allow color coding layers in the name dialog box plus include view and lock checkboxes
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
That the current line colour always changes to black when the line width is changed.
-Bob.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
1. That some objects appear to have a red outline when on a white background.
2. And that the x y coords always start out at .5
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Robert H
I've mentioned this in another thread:
b. Double Click on the layer name brings up the name dialog box,
Already does this (B) in Xara Pro.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
I would just like to see Brushes work more like what they did in Expression even back when it was owned by Fractal Design, the vector brushes looked more like brushes i.e. the strockes themselves bent around curves, not just folowed curves. Also Illustrator has similar feature with brushes.
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
One of the best features of Xara Xtreme Pro is the great color handling together with named colors. And the worst feature is, again, the color handling, but for CMYK colors (or better the lack of a own CMYK color mode in Xara Xtreme).
I'm also a little bit disappointed with the PDF import filter and some bugs of the PDF export filter.
Remi
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Re: What are the Worst features in XPro
The worst feature of XXP? It is addictive!