where you use it and say, this is so cool,
where you blown away,
where you say, thanks so much xara.
For me, its Clipview.
and the Curves in the Fill and Transparancy Tools
Printable View
where you use it and say, this is so cool,
where you blown away,
where you say, thanks so much xara.
For me, its Clipview.
and the Curves in the Fill and Transparancy Tools
soft grouping - being able to group things without affecting their stacking order and across layers
As an XDP user: the combination of design tools (vector & bitmap) with web -- and print -- publishing capability.
The first time I saw Xara demonstrated was in 1996 by the marketing director of Corel who were marketing the product as CorelXARA.
When the presenter demonstrated creating a linear transparency by click and drag, I was hooked. I still think this is the greatest feature for me.
A hubristic response from me - when Xara implemented my suggestion to accommodate code handling for ClassNames (Name: htmlclass="aClassName").
80% of my offerings would simply not have happened.
Acorn
... and the easy and intuitive use of most tools and functions.
^^^^ I’m with @boy on this one. I used the WD first, then graduated to Pro+. The package ideal for web and print. And a respected community. No other package on the web does it all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boy
Incredible zoom / sub pixel alignment and editing.
Ability to edit opacity masks, blends or moulds at any time.
Iv'e followed Xara from it's creation on BBC computer machines (Artworks) to it's transformation to Windows OS.
The killer app here was it's speed. Coral Draw had a standard template of a red barn surrounded by conifer trees. It was painful to view Coral Draw rendering this scene. Coral Xara rendered the same image almost instantly. That speed advantage has dissappeared over the years.
The next big advance was a major switch with the ability to create WYSIWYG web-sites. I know this has been much maligned for distracting the software away from it's origin of vector graphics. However I believe the original Xara build (Camelot?) was by now long in the tooth and was restricting advances re vector enhancements. (I may be wrong here but that's my understanding)
My other passion was Macromedia Flash, vector based animations. The vectors were Xara creations. I used to build web-sites completely Flash driven. Unfortunatly from almost dominating the internet 20 years ago it slowly declined to become defunct today. (For good security reasons.)
Today I create Flash type vector animations using Xara & SVGator. SVGator has limits. Unlike Flash you can't (presently) import animations of variable timelines, but within Xara's placeholders I can stack various SVGator svg animations within placeholders to create similar effects.
My favourite Xara tool is the Contour tool :D
The reason that I got Xara in the first place was because of the ability to use it with Magix Movie Edit Pro (MEP) to create animated and static graphical overlays on a video clip, going from into Xara with the video as the background. I can rotoscope a mask (shape) the changes form over time. The result goes back to MEP as an overlay XAR object. It can be reopened from the XAR object in MEP. I am still amazed by this when it actually works properly, which is almost never. Between Xara and Magix, they have managed to break, fix, break, fix, make it unusable, partially fix... over the years. I complain each time. Right now it works, but only in the session as the XAR object gets emptied if the project is closed and reopened. I save the XAR file first or render out from MEP. Grrrr.
Still, it's a great feature.
John, do you have any examples that you can show us? I'm quite curious about the animated graphical overlays you mention.
Hi Boy,
Indeed I do:
https://youtu.be/eQORY7J_STg
https://youtu.be/rFnM5YdPEGk
Thanks, John. Yes, I remember now. You posted one of these before. I use Pinnacle Studio, so I tried the avi with transparency export option at the time but the tweening steps were not exported. I reported the bug but forgot all about it. Anyway, I'm happy to say that it does work now. This gives new creative options for my video editing. So, thanks again!
Added: Nice tutorials, by the way!
Hi Boy,
Pinnacle Studio is a very good program (I also have it), but you can't do the same thing with Xara. Movie Edit Pro/Video Pro X send the selected video clip to Xara animation as background. There is not much out there quite like this, if anything.
For anyone who would like to get Video Pro X12 (top of the Magix line, not Vegas line), it's available in a HumbleBundle for about 30$US. The current version is 13, but due to many still unresolved bugs, one is better off with 12. There is also some other stuff to round out the offer.
All of the above, and...
The option to reopen documents currently open when you close the app - even unsaved ones
Right click copy. I know some people find this annoying, but I find it so quick and efficient and really miss this feature in other graphics apps
Right click option to make a bitmap copy. Again I find this very useful for quick experiments, and for example applying photo filter presets (which sadly only work on bitmap objects) but…
Live Fx. The feature is superb particularly when you use filters that allow you to re-edit and change the resolution (dpi). Also the ability to apply multiple Fx to the same graphic which can (wait for it...) be vector or bitmap (brilliant!)
The extrude tool and... and...
Attachment 131808
The trace tool ;)) :D
do I detect a lack of seriousness here Mr B :D
assuming it is the bitmap tracer you refer to then actually, for a small handfull of very specific tasks, the xara bitmap tracer is my favorite of the lot
like vectorising charcoal bitmap brushwork which results in a clean and scalable line without losing it's core texture
Attachment 131839
;))=D>