Bouton's Wish List for version 10.Moving on to WL for v11

I thought I'd "shop early" this season and get a few requests in for Xara Designer Pro x10.

First, is there a snowball's chance in heck that options—global and local—can be moved under one roof, so that all the toolbars we've customized don't go away if we reinstall or upgrade? I put the Boolean operation buttons on the Standard Bar and would love for them to stay there for the rest of Eternity (just for example).

Even if most but not all options can be written a certain way, and saved as a set, the I'd love to see button or a secret keyboard combo that would get you into Options to set them before the program finishes loading. CorelDRAW and Photoshop, among other graphics programs, have this.

Attachment 97868

Request #1 of Many,

Gary

While many applications have a reset keyboard sequence at startup option (to revert to as installed options/configuration), I haven't seen one have a keyboard sequence at start for configuring or selecting the various options.

Some applications can load configurations and/or keyboard sets from previous (still installed) versions of their software. That would be a good step. Or am I misunderstanding?

Mike's requests

#1: Larger document size. At least double the current size. But really should be as per CD.
#2: Updated PDF capabilities. Come on, how about PDFX-4? The library currently used is getting long in the tooth and newer versions are available.
#3 Can anyone say, Vector Brushes? Skeletal Strokes anyone?

More to Come Later

Hey, Mike—

I think Painter lets you reconfigure before you startup.

In any event, I'd like to be able to do something similar: load a specific workspace, whatever, that has my preferred tools, although this is not my #1 request!

•No real idea why the document size is so small, especially considering that it's now a 64x program. I use Scaling, but that's the long way around the solution, IMO.

• Not familiar with PDFX-4.

• I can not only say, and write "vector brushes", but I'd like the capability to create my own, as simply as that 2003 program, Creature House Expression, did.

Attachment 97869

I'd prefer to see Xara evolve along its lines of strengths, superb art tools, instead of chasing a trend. I think Xara is an intelligent alternative to Photoshop if you don't have the time to learn, you don't have the bucks, and your retouching needs are modest. I also think bitmap modification has been paid attention to far too much for the past three versions and it's time to go warp speed with some vector stuff that the competition has had for quite a while now.

My Best,

Gary

PDFX-4 leaves all transparency live until the RIP. No flattening. A for instance would be that drop shadows are/can be vector until the RIP is one advantage. Which for scalability has tremendous advantage. It is simply a modern PDF work-flow. Another advantage is that one can use mixed color profiles and the RIP does the conversion--which can (and does) a better job of converting to the destination space than one document color space via a PDFX-1a (or other profile) can do. There are other advantages.

You know I agree about Creature House (free to download)--and even the now free MS Expression Design--as regards the creation of *any* vector object as a stroke...

Serif software allows one to save and load customized workspaces (and keyboard shortcuts), as well as import from previous versions. This would be handy.

@Mike—

Ain't no version to cop from like the 3.3 Public beta, just after Microsoft bought Expression. The free version IMO reflects it price. I was beta testing version 4 and Microsoft changed everything overnight, crippling a lot of innovative new stuff, for the sake of making it a simple vector program subservient to that web authoring tool no one remembers.

And as I've just surfed, I don't see a legal place to download 33. for Windows. If you're a Mac user, you're in luck, and this has gone way O/T, sorry!

-g

Something else, I really expected Xara to step up their game on pixel export in Xara 9.2 64 bit version, seriously still only 16384 on tiff export? Let's hope someone addresses these issues
along with more feathering control than 52
and how about on uncompressed tiffs, the size and height stay the same when imported back in as when saved.
other than that, You would have to pry my cold blue hands from Xara, still the fastest design software on the planet!

+1000 on the vector brushes!!

And a true convert to greyscale feature that will convert any vector objects, groups or text to true greyscale.

Also I'd like to see some improvements in the bitmap tracer make it resizeable like the colour editor it is a true PITA trying to guess from the tiny previews if your trace is close enough for your needs and more controls for a better trace.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jnerf

Something else, I really expected Xara to step up their game on pixel export in Xara 9.2 64 bit version, seriously still only 16384 on tiff export? Let's hope someone addresses these issues
along with more feathering control than 52 and how about on uncompressed tiffs, the size and height stay the same when imported back in as when saved.

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You are clearly mistaking Xara software for a professional bitmap/raster design application for print and screen, which it isn't. Sadly, it doesn't profess to be and it hasn't shown any pretensions of being that in living memory.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angelize

I'd like to see some improvements in the bitmap tracer make it resizeable like the colour editor it is a true PITA trying to guess from the tiny previews if your trace is close enough for your needs and more controls for a better trace.

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At least give us ability to zoom in to the preview window. But the bitmap tracer is another feature that hasn't seen an upgrade in ten years or more, and I don't see that changing either.

I'd like to see an option to set line width from the center of the path, the outside, or the inside. This could immediately eliminate mis-measurements when, for example, you have a 400 x 300 p rectangle you want to export, but you want a 1pt outline around it, and you now have to re-do your math, or worse still, forget that Xara adds to the outside dimensions of an exported shape with a non-zero outline width.

Similarly, I'd love to see an option to Feather outwards or inwards. Creature House Expression by default feathers outwards, and depending on the effect you want to create in Xara, I see this option to make quick work of certain ideas.

My Best,

Gary

Seeing that the flash rather does not work on mobile devices and there are getting to be more mobiles than PCs in our life, I think for Xara would be a logical direction to step towards HTML5 animations. Maybe that is not too easy area technically, but could be a good market to take fast until others come.

Finally that could be the extending of the current animation functions and the flash/gif could still remain

Quote:

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Originally Posted by csehz

I think for Xara would be a logical direction to step towards HTML5 animations

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It's been said before and maybe they're working on it but it's worth reiterating!

A+++++++++++++++++++++++ :thx

+10

Xara already can export to AVI, but from what I've seen out there, there is no HTML5/CSS/JavaScript design program framework to make an animation and then save straight out to all-device-compliant visuals.

I use Google's Swiffy which has claimed to be in beta for almost a year, but it's still free and pretty darned accurate. I've been about to export Xara swfs and convert them, and the only hitch is you need to mess with code to make the placement of the code as intended on a webpage.

I think it's a worthwhile investment of programmer's time to make all of this conversion and workaround stuff unnecessarily.

You know, SwishMAX, which continues to be the Poor Man's Adobe Flash, still hasn't gotten with the program and can only export to swf, AVI, and GIF. It would be nice if Xara role to the challenge and got in there first, you know?

My Best,

Gary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gare

there is no HTML5/CSS/JavaScript design program framework to make an animation and then save straight out to all-device-compliant visuals

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http://www.hippostudios.co

..."from what I've seen out there..."

I'm Hippo to stand corrected. :)

I'd be happier if this was a native Xara feature.


-g

Aside from Hippo - there are others

► http://www.nodefire.com/
► http://www.mixeek.com/
► http://www.a5-animator.com/

I'm with Gare on this one this would make a lot of sense if Xara could output HTML 5 annimations

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sledger

Aside from Hippo - there are others

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Exactly that is why this year is the best to jump into the HTML5 animation developments, they are coming but sure not perfect yet and although Xara will be the same, this is the moment to grab market

What, do you mean ahead of brushes!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sledger

Aside from Hippo - there are others

► http://www.nodefire.com/
► http://www.mixeek.com/
► http://www.a5-animator.com/

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Can anybody comment as to their effectiveness? I have only used Hippo.

Have to agree with vector brushes I have been rattling on about these since version 4 which is a long time. This is the number 1 improvement.
Also agree with bitmap tracer and if they do improve in this area they must include a facility to close stray points.
On a similar area as stray points and a tool that I use frequently in Illy is "Same" : Appearance/Attribute, Stroke - Fill & Colour, Opacity, Blending Mode, Fill, Stroke Colour, Stroke Weight. I use this a lot when hand tracing image and where I want a line/fill to stand out from the line/fill colour below I give it a bright colour. Then after finishing the trace I quickly want to give its finish colours and I use this method of doing it. Name colours I know can do this but it's a bit of a toil and pfaff in Xara.
The SVG export filter has to be updated as well since a few people on this thread are mentioning html 5.

The SVG export filter was updated in Designer Pro X9 to filter version 4.0.0.1 and weighs in at 1.2Mb
If you are still using Designer Pro 6, Peter - the SVG filter is version 2.0.0.17 - it's just 396Kb

Hi,

Does X9 exports stroke shapes properly in SVG?

Marc

The 16384 pixel count treshhold is way too limitied for my needs. The pdf-export screws up my images, so I need pixels. Why not write a TIFF-file directly to disk in case memory is too low?
Oh well, will wait for the next version(s?).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarcT

Does X9 exports stroke shapes properly in SVG?

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Aaaaah nooo!
Bug still there... :(

Referring to this?
► http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...-export-option

Seems not so trivial to fix after all :(

Or, through lack of will, organization, priorities--or whatever--it just didn't make the cut.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarcT

Aaaaah nooo!
Bug still there... :(

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Try this SVG.

Started in XDP, exported as an Xara EPS. Opened into Expression Design. Exported as an SVG from ED.

Wouldn't it be just as easy to convert pressure profile line to shape in DPX9, Mike? Then export to SVG, all from within DPX9

Oops. Uploaded the wrong file. What I was attempting to shiw--and will when I get home--was some differences in the shear number of nodes in both applications' svg output. Got interuppted by the phone and Elvis has left the building...

Yes Steve still use Pro version 6 but bought cheap PGD 2013 which met my needs but I feel embarrassed because I am a mod.

As mentioned years before, my wishlist:

-Stretch object (group) along path
-Vector pattern fill
-PDF export: Support Brushes on PDF export (soo annoying it doesn't)
-CMYK color support: Same CMYK preview as Adobe Illustrator