What do you want Xara/Magix to do?

There are several grumbly threads venting frustration with how Xara/Magix have handled features and pricing for 365 category products. And while venting can be good therapy and provide valuable feedback for sales & marketing, most of the voices heard were negative and angry.

So, what I propose is a new thread (this one) in which I hope to continue this discussion but moving in a positive direction.

As users, and many of us loyal long time users, WHAT DO YOU WANT XARA and MAGIX TO DO?

BE POSITIVE and offer feedback and comments that are not just whinging but that offer constructive suggestions for what would make you as a Xara user happy?

Not a debate. Not a trash Xara forum. But one that can provide helpful direction to the people who develop and market the products we use.

I WILL DELETE comments that do not fit in with these simple parameters.

Are we good?

What I would hope for is for Xara to take a long hard look at the current product with an eye to just revisiting the current tools and functions and updating and improving these rather than add new features.

For example. The bitmap tracer is a bit long in the tooth? Can it be improved, more like Vector Magic, or should be be removed.

The Web Animations are great. But can we have more controls. Ditto with the new styles and ligatures feature.

So, that is my hope for the future.

Kate Moir suggested in one of the othe angry threads that there were three options for the future of Xara, including a return to the yearly update model that was in place before.
This would make most people happy. We already waited over a year for very little, so I would be happy with one major improvement implemented each year for one of the following:

Open Type improvements

Open Type improvements and did I mention Open Type improvements? ;)

If the code prevents this then the time should be spent redesigning the program from the ground up. Serif and Adobe have done this. Why not Xara?

Bob.

What I want Magix to do is to get more developers working so they can fullfill their be promises and finish unfinished features like brushes and open type support. And I would like to see the online designer grow much faster

The main thing I would like Xara/Magix to do right now is to reduce the Update Service price for XDP to around last year's level.

I would like if Xara would keep the concept of the Designer Pro as flagship - still the best Swiss Army Knife for graphical inspirations. I love that the program is fast that is key.

If Xara stays at the 365 model, then would like to have information in advance, what is under development. In the case of going back to the yearly update, then all the old July surprises are welcome, then the development directions can be in secret as the company likes (me too liked it)

I would like if Magix would respect the loyal Xara customers and having the subscription price on the original one

Logic, follow logic and common sense.

Firstly, (not most important, and it's a psychological thing)...the GUI, icons, colour scheme, needs refreshing to differentiate between new and older versions...sounds useless, but from a developer point of view it's a big deal for not a lot of work.

Features. Let's be honest, the price point, delivery method and update model are all well and good but if there's no new features/content it's all completely and utterly irrelevant.

Market Research (also known as looking at what everyone else is doing). Not difficult, have a look at Affinity and other vector software and what's creating a stir elsewhere. I can give you a few that I've been wanting for years...

Custom line heads and tails
Two decimal places in (mm) - not a feature, a fix
Better 3D extrusion (hasn't changed in years) extrude groups or a selection of objects in maintained perspective as opposed to individual perspective per object.
Rotate a group of points on the end of a bunch of lines (so you can achieve a twist effect, I know what I mean)
Proper Multi Monitor Support Options
Improve Vector Tracing
Improve Font Handling
Get back on the Import and Export development - it's the bridge that keeps Xara relevant no matter what ("Yeah, I can handle that file, throw it over")

Focus on original Strengths...Speed, fluidity, user friendliness - remember what made you so good in the first place, never stop optimising and refining.

Don't spend disproportionate amounts of development time on Website design features. (IMHO). Yes Xara can do it, and it's OK, but it's no market leader and strictly speaking the wrong tool for the job, you might want to refocus energy on being a bloody awesome drawing workstation.

Innovate. Not easy, but try to find some unusual USP. Harvest more thoughts (like this thread) from your user base. This could be more than a dipping of the toe into the 3D realm? Anyone remember ZBrush when it was merely a 2D 3D painter? Innovation that has led the software to new heights.

Equally, don't be afraid to clone tried, tested and loved features from elsewhere in the marketplace...what do you think Affinity has done from Xara?

It's time to ditch the same old dusty examples by the way, some of which I remember from in excess of ten years ago and are still knocking about today (the beatle, the watch, the old man) get rid, get flashy and zesty, this could lead to a bit of a rebrand...and I don't mean Magix version of a rebrand!

Xara was way ahead of the curve for a long time, which is why you may find it harder now, everyone else is catching/caught up. The good thing is this means even though not a lot has changed, Xara is still very much relevant...but for us time served Xarites we will need more.

There's a few thoughts, I could go on all night. lol

Oh...also...I know it costs, but many still like a physical media option, you might want to think about that.

GWP - How much of Xara is still developed in the UK, or operates from Gaddesden Place? What is the Magix involvement and how much control do they have now over the development?

Please do not make this a specific feature request. These should be posted in the Dear Xara forum.

Communication.

Showing the development in the overhaul for current tools,UI,bitmaptracer,3D and explain what can and can't be done.
Create new tools and don't spend money on third party thingies.
People should learn themselves to create and have better knowledge about the versatility of xdp instead of pre-created stuff.

Love to see:Better text tool(ligatures,....),grids,brushes,Image and Color Meshwarp/Perspective

But upmost on my list is openness towards all users;

Xara/Magix should reveal some of the developments and the new features to make users interested and gain new users to pay the bills.
Instead they show no real value being added that legitimizes the pricing at current date.

The old yearly version made all users excited and review-sites also.
Made it something to look forward to and tryout and comment on the features changed or new.
But keeping things hush-hush and having small update periods,there is nothing to look forward to and if the small update's aren't worth the mention review-sites will no longer write about it.
So three update periods in a year is to few for being picked up by reviewers and other online influencers.
So give them something and the users to hunger for.

Xara should learn that having a site,a forum and socialmedia accounts are more than just marketingtools.
Engagement from users will only go so far these days and if they feel they are not being appreciated by either upping the price,being ignored,put in place,they will move along.
These users will no longer promote your product and probably will put your product down.
The word-to-mouth advertising is still the the biggest marketingtool in the world and if Xara/Magix doesn't see it this way it's their loss.

And for now,goodbye

I think Xara should upgrade Photo and Graphic designer so it is the equivalent of Designer Pro, but with the web stuff stripped out. Whilst I have no objection to a 'flagship' product, I have come round to thinking Drawing and Web Design should be kept separate in so far as is practicable, and ideally recoded from scratch

I have gone on in the past about the lack of certain features on the drawing side [don't worry Gary, I am not going to list them again] - but actually, as Mike and others have said, rewriting the code and getting bugs/glitches/inadequecies dealt with is just as important looking at it from the point of view of the product, and not what I [a pretty insignificant user] might actually like

Can someone tell me what happened this time? Suddenly I log on and see a bunch of threads where users are dissatisfied. Rather than make a new thread asking (there are already enough threads up) I came to ask here. Don't mean to derail the thread.
Just gimme a TL;DR. Is it that after a year Xara 365 didn't receive an update and people are angry about that?

The Alien - Please read my first post. I tried to explain.

I would like to see bugfixes for free.
at least for 2 or 3 years or so, until a complete new generation like
XARA MAXIMUS arrives.

Ok the way I see it is that Xara Design Pro focus on four areas: Photo manipulation, Drawing, Page layout, Web design with over lap between the areas.

Overall, finish the open type support and the color management. Keep improving the export and import features of the software.

Now I really do not use Xara for photo manipulation other than basic stuff. So I have no real ideas for this area.

For drawing, Xara needs to look at updating the gradient tools to have more features. Allow widths of strokes to be adjusted by using sliders or number field for selected nodes. Xara has made some good improvements in the brush feature but continue improving. I for one use the Vector Trace and would like some upgrading of this feature.

Page layout - focus on the color management and allowing lager documents to be handled. It really should not be that hard to allow different templates(i.e.. Master pages) for different pages in a document.

Web Design- I am not really sure why there is so much focus on the online designer when Xara should be I my opinion, more focused on improving the core Web Design. I like the content upgrades but they are not what needs Xara focus as much as improvement in tool design. Like for me - No follow links.

Just my opinion off the top of my head.

Ray

Hi,

It would be nice to stop dispersing efforts at every new wind blowing and concentrate on building a solid Illustrating and graphics tool.
A rewrite with a scalable UI, conserving the excellent aspects and improving on the weaknesses.

Definately different editions :

• Enthusiast (Like existing photo and graphic)
• Pro (Illustration, graphic and publishing centric)
• Web

Having everything crammed hurt credibility and makes a more complex interface.

The reason Affinity is doing well is a blatant hole in the vector development, there hasn’t been anything serious in years.
It’s also an example that there is money to make in this department.

Xara is really quite underrated as an illustration tool.
It’s productivity details are mostly unparalleled, it would be awesome to see this talent focused again to finish what has been started.

Of course I am biased as an illustrator, but I’ve certanly done my research for my tools !

-Marc

Hi,
I got a message that I had to update my prescription of XDP 365. I followed the link, got a price and when I was about to check out it had increased to $169. I aborted the update and when I tried again I got the pricing €119. Quite a difference in pricing I must say. So, I did my purchase.

Now I am not sure that I will update in the future as the errors using the updates are so plentyful that my company can't produce websites anymore - unless I go back to the functioning version that was released a year ago.

To bad, to expensive and to annoying.

Sad, as I have used XARA since the very first version so many years ago.

/Mr. Olle Dahlquist
Boden, Sweden

I have moved your comment to this thread https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...o&goto=newpost

Hi Ray,

Quote:

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... so much focus on the online designer when Xara should be I my opinion, more focused on improving the core Web Design

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I genuinely believe this is the way forward that Xara is aiming for. I think Xara will transform from desktop based software to an online, "cloud" type software. I could be very wrong but I think the base code (Camelot?) is so long in the tooth as not to be future proof and will eventually abandoned with a newer online designer. They are getting there slowly and have announced there will be some new developments in this area in the near feature.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Please do not make this a specific feature request. These should be posted in the Dear Xara forum.

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Okay, but I have asked for a form generator many times, like we had 20 years or so ago in Frontpage, and not a third party widget that gives you limited amount of clicks then charges.

Other than that, just listen and service the loyal customer base instead of using them as a cash cow to generate revenue that in normal circumstances as a business model would come as an internal investment.

Hold off on the kitchen sink... And just fix the stuff you half-assed added over the years.

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Please do not make this a specific feature request. These should be posted in the Dear Xara forum.

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I would greatly appreciate it IF "THE Team", (our awesome developers), would focus primarily on improving existing drawing tools. I really would appreciate it.




This wonderful program has been a very positive aspect of my life.

Look at what other vendors are doing that appears to work.

Save money - Scrap the disc, Make it download only and charge extra for the disc. We can all make our own disc these days or buy a pen drive just for your Xara ESD's

Make the last program version download available that was published before the end of your update year. (Allow the full ISO to be downloaded for full offline use withiin the first 90 days of your subscription)

Give us the shortcut card on PDF. Surely we can all make our own card.

Put the activations back up to three. Currently deactivating a copy may not be possible if both your activations are set at work and you are at home

Consider a single activation version for home only users at a reduced price

Build brand loyalty by offering other group products at special rates. e.g. A lot of media developers may appreciate Sound forge that you acquired from Sony

The partnership with Panorama studio resulted in me buying in to their software. How about a similar deal with APfil that calculates your toner/ink coverage - or write your own. This is very important if you are preparing documents to print in house on long runs. You could also then calculate the breakeven point before outsourcing the print job.

It is pretty obvious that a lot of veteran users would like the Xara-makers to re-focus on Vector editing.
Some of these users also have adapted Xara's image editing tools and find them useful.

I don't belong to both of these groups.

If I need line-drawings / diagrams and illustrations (what's rarely the case) I'm usually a lot faster and more accurate
with CAD programs. Imported to any Vector program one then can quickly embellish them with fills and fonts etc.
In terms of bitmap editing I consider Xara far too basic for my needs.

Personally I therefore don't care for improvement in the vector workspace and I couldn't be less interested in using Xara for
image editing. Already in version 1.5 Affinity Designer offers far deeper Vector editing workspace and costs a small fraction
(~ 1/6) of Xara Designer.

And bitmap editing? Only considering that Xara with all it does is limited to 8bit per channel app I honestly see zero
development potential here. Dozens of free or very cheap image editors are greatly superior – some are even high end
for very little money, Affinity Photo and Photoline come to my mind.

To me the single reason to use Xara is its approach to Website design.
This feature could be it's unique selling point. Unfortunately the makers of Xara have always focused the utterly wrong
customer base – likely because also the remaining apps in their portfolio target consumers and prosumers.

People who want to create a website quickly, those who can live with template based design, those who wish to set up
content once and want the software to reflow text and images automatically... are all without any question and exception
far better served with cms based webdesign.

After one year of spending a lot of time with cms based Online Shop Design it is so refreshing to experience the freedom
Xara allows for in Website design: There's no conflicting design rules and no external encapsulated modules one has to
accept the way they are. There's no framework which tries to be smart and indeed comes in the way ten times a day.
Xara doesn't force it's users to use the dreadful streamlined design concepts which have become common place.

Xara (or at least a version of it) could get marketed as a tool for truly exceptional, bespoke Webdesign.
Authors can focus on typography and pixel accurate element placement – due to static layouts one has perfect control
of site appearance on any type of device. Output code may not be the cleanest, but as html sites they are still light weight
and fast compared with cms based sites.

Seeing however how hard the Xara makers are pushing Xara Online Designer (that's a Nogo in all aspects) I think it's time to leave.
If anyone knows a Desktop Web-Software which allows for comparable freedom in Web-Editing as Xara (and is not by Adobe)
please let me know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

I think Xara should upgrade Photo and Graphic designer so it is the equivalent of Designer Pro, but with the web stuff stripped out. Whilst I have no objection to a 'flagship' product, I have come round to thinking Drawing and Web Design should be kept separate in so far as is practicable, and ideally recoded from scratch

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agreed

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wizard509

agreed

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I totally agree with you Larry as regard handrawns suggestion, doing as he has said would suit me fine +100

Stygg

This is a simple request.

For the Line Gallery Arrowheads, allow heads and tails to be fully interchangeable.

This is a harder request.

For the same line, ensure the length of the line is fixed, regardless of the line width and head and tail choice.

Acorn

+1 Shouldn't be difficult. it's an age old request.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes.

It's easy to get carried away in the light of the new changes at Magix and we forget to be thankful for all the years of joy and for some of us, livelihood, that was generated with the help of Xara products. Think about that for a minute before posting :)

So thank you very much for all the hard work that Xara developers have put into this software since CorelXARA (that's where I started). Thanks to Kate Moir as well for always assisting me with the order process as I've had special requests and she handled them to perfection every time all these years, much appreciated!

Onto the issue at hand, I think the main thing which causes so much anger and missunderstanding is the target market which Magix is focused on. While Xara (up to about when it was purchased by Magix) focused on professionals, since Magix took over, it has gradually shifted into appealing to a more broad market which obviously includes non-professionals. Statistically speaking it's obvious that there would be more non-professionals out there than professionals thus the balance of features and direction of the software leans toward appealing to this majority.

If you ask a professional what they want from their design program they will probably tell you they like stability, a lean interface efficient software while the non pros would generally want the kitchen sink. Which you see, is what Xara Designer is becoming. This direction has caused Xara Designer to become bloated, slow loading and with increased complexity the chance of something getting broken is also increased which has shown up around here numerous times.

Personally I have solved this problem: I upgraded by downgrading to Xara Designer 6 - fast and does all it needs to do for vector work. I keep X11 installed if I need something from the fluff department :) This arrangement works for me, it might not work for everyone. Personally I have no use for the content such as templates etc, I never download them. I have decided to not update before I knew what's coming with the X365, since I got the X11 as it felt too bloated already plus the 2 activation limit. Of course, seeing this X365 model completely turned me off any updates until and if situation changes. I don't feel bad for being stuck with what I have, it works great for me and I'm set however I do feel sorry for the Xara developers as Magix have taken away my ability to support the development team - I cannot possibly throw money on what X365 model is proposing and the bloating direction. If I need bloat, I already have Microsoft taking care of that :)

For the future of Xara under Magix leadership, please consider these suggestions:

• Segmenting the market more and target the professionals and loyal users with a lean Xara Designer Pro version without all the fluff and bloat just like in the good old days of around Xtreme Pro 5 - Designer Pro 6. This way you can keep targeting the masses as well, business is business, we certainly can understand that but please don't forget that you are where you are because of your loyal users.
• Since your infrastructure both at technical and logistic levels seems to be lacking (based on the issues vented thougout these forums), perhaps you should consider returning to the yearly releases, together with further segmenting your market it should work better. Professionals don't mind having an update once every 2 years, if that means reliability and real updates such as fixing bugs and improving the EXISTING tools. When you use Xara for a living, you don't want fluff to stand in your way.
• Eliminate or increase the number of activations, it is ironic that the paying customer gets hassled by these rules while pirates would be able to use the software as they please without paying anything. Those who would not pay, would not pay anyway, it's part of the world of software and nothing will change that; surely you won't lure in such a person with draconic DRM while this draconic DRM pushes away the paying customer, you are punishing the wrong person :) The world has evolved and spreading work on 3-5 devices is not for the rich anymore, most people now have a tablet, a main computer, some laptop and so on.
• Seriously work on the communication with the customers. The X365 is turning into a fiasco mostly because of lack of proper communication before this was introduced and in regards to real world expectations. The wording you have used leaves a lot of room for interpretation and you see the results - some people feel cheated.
• You have a gold mine here called TalkGraphics and the good users who provide valuable feedback, these are the people actually using the software in real world scenarios, please consider a more serious way to filter this feedback and incorporate it.

I put myself in Magix's shoes and from a business standpoint, some of these moves and attempts makes sense and as I said in the beginning it has to do with target market but is it worth at the cost of dismissing your loyal base? Will your newly found target market be as loyal as those who are with you since the days of CorelXARA?

Thanks to the TalkGraphics team for the opportunity to voice my opinion and suggestions and looking forward for the day when I can feel excited again in regards to new versions that cater to the professionals as well.