New Design Notes Feature for Xara Designer Pro Xx:

Here’s me dreaming.

Ever wonder how something was made or forget how you made something or needed to teach a class? Well now you can and Xara Pro Xx will help you do it, have Xara Pro Xx keep tabs on every object in your drawing and the steps it took to make it. This feature keeps track of named objects, get started by simply making your object with any of the drawing tools or importing a graphical element such as a picture or vector drawing, then right click the object and select “Names” from the pop-up menu, give the object a name and click the “Design Notes” check box, now Xara Designer Pro Xx will build a list of actions it took you to make the object including but not limited to color values, stoke weight, effects, contours with repeat steps, File Menu actions and more and this feature works for grouped named objects as well, Xara Pro Xx will first list in the Design Notes the grouped object and then break down the details for each object in the group, so you will be able to see it all from start to finish.

Design Notes are great for teachers too, just right click the objects you wish to include in your lesson in the “Name Gallery” and select “Add to Design Notes” then you can print out your notes for your tutorials by going to “File > Print Design Notes” and give them to your students for their assignments.
And as a added bonus Xara Designer Pro Xx can make Design Notes starting from a blank document with all file menu actions and shortcut keys assigned to those actions, so if you go to “File > Import” Xara will list in the “Design Notes” as ex: “File > Import (Ctrl + Alt + I) C:\Users\Teacher\Desktop\Image Correction Tutorial\Image_01.jpg and the great thing about starting with a blank document is you have the added feature to click the Pause button to stop recording program actions as you work out your design project then click the Pause button again to have Xara Pro Xx start recording your actions were you left off. No more will you have to keep separate tutorial documents because it’s all contained right in your Xara Pro Xx document. Also print your documents to pdf from your printer selection menu and include your tutorial lessons with your video screen cast for download to help your students grasp your lessons from start to finish. Xara Pro Xx will start off printing your “Design Notes” with the name of the file, date and then the comments from the document info dialog box found in File > Document Info > Comments and then the page size and units and then finally the object notes, each page is numbered for your convenience. You can view your notes on screen by going to File > View Design Notes.

If you need to take a break or open your document another day to work on it no problem because of the way Xara Pro Xx keeps track of the “Design Notes for each named object so any future actions you do to any object will be added to the object. Note: If you delete a named object the “Design Notes” for that object will also be deleted.

Thanks, any comments or improvements appreciated.

quintessentially recording actions is scripting - it's been asked for a lot, but apparently not easy to do [edit -in xara that is, programming-wise :)]

I put general notes on a layer next to the layer they relate to - one reason why I would like grouped[nested] layers and the option for new layers to be placed next to active layer and not on top of the stack

Yip Handrawn has hit the mark, that is the way I taught, firstly ArtWorks, then Xara, for 14years in Scotland to secondary pupils from 12 to 18 years. Just put any instructions in layers and I used levels of instructions for varying abilities and ages in different layers. I hope you can understand that!

one thing about notes is they follow an inverse law of practicality - if you make too many you get lost in a sea of information [=> internet] that never ever gets read; and life is short

Yep that's true as well. All the less able pupils used the higher levels for info. They then received an earful for not following their level. You can take a horse to water ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, blah, blah, blah.

Yes agree, what you all are saying makes sense and is very true. Trying to think of ways for Xara to get more traction in the design schools as some of them are wanting an alternative to Adobe.

Thanks

one thing I tried with the later vers of designer was to have object notes in the same layer just /locked hidden - of course you have to remember they are there :D - and if you move the object then they get separated although a soft-grouping can sometimes get round that - not for general usage, but occasionally useful maybe

If you are using Designer Pro you could produce your document as a web document and use pop up layers and a series of buttons linked to each popup. Students could then preview the document to use the navigation system to view the information. The preview window can be scaled down and moved around on screen for easy access to the information while the student works.

However the recording of actions isn't some that Xara programs are capable of. As handrawn mentioned it has been asked for many times and would be a great feature to have. I could imagine a library of Xara actions that could be easily shared :) Imagine creating a text effect and recording all your actions after the text is typed. When done you stop recording and save your action. Now any time you want to apply that same effect to text your simply type your text and apply your action (from an actions gallery of course :) ) and the program automatically reproduces the recorded steps to create the effect. And that's just one possible use.

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Originally Posted by angelize

...However the recording of actions isn't some that Xara programs are capable of. As handrawn mentioned it has been asked for many times and would be a great feature to have. I could imagine a library of Xara actions that could be easily shared :) Imagine creating a text effect and recording all your actions after the text is typed. When done you stop recording and save your action. Now any time you want to apply that same effect to text your simply type your text and apply your action (from an actions gallery of course :) ) and the program automatically reproduces the recorded steps to create the effect. And that's just one possible use.

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Scripting (specifically javascript) yes. Actions? I don't think so. While recordable actions would aid in repetitive work, it really isn't geared to creativity.

Screen shots from AI using a javascript.

Mike

Attachment 101547 Attachment 101548

Yes but the OP was specifically asking about recording actions. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angelize

Yes but the OP was specifically asking about recording actions. :)

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Yes but what the OP is specifically asking (the actions part) about and what you elaborated on is an old technology that is not a good idea. Sorry :)

I think being able to assign more than one action to a keystroke would be good - for example in my case:

convert line to shape followed by add shapes followed by break shapes

scripting might be more flexible, but flexibility is not always what is required, as in the above

I would teach a class using Xara, but in order to do that, I have to bring my laptop in. All my design student use Illustrator because they're on Macs. And that's not likely to change.

The labs that have Windows don't have Cintiqs. So again, I can't teach my subjects in that room. Well, I could, but the students wouldn't have their drawing ability.