Xara Cloud Marketing Emails

I do not reply to marketing emails so I have decided to share the latest with TGers instead.

I bimbled into Xara Cloud thinking I might use the Premium 30-day option sometime to find it was immediately activated.
Not what potential buyers want to get without notice, but this is Xara and self-fulfilling Premium is the "Most Popular" version.
I am now down to 7 days remaining.

In the previous three weeks, Matt Boulton has been prolific in spamming (sorry sharing) advice on how to use Xara Cloud.
Hopefully, this will cease on Premium expiry.
The latest includes "You have started a Xara Cloud Premium trial, but then stopped using it. Could we help you somehow?" I have not replied.

My answer is simple: I decided I would use Xara Cloud to usurp PowerPoint and immediately failed.
Yes, Xara Cloud has 41 Presentation Themes, yet XDPX only has 22.
The big fail is Xara Cloud cannot (yet) handle Transitions.
The bigger fail was it was originally hailed as a mechanism to share Xara designs so we all tried building websites to find --- no Layers.

In the meantime, the Starter version is now being stitched up "No Xara branding on shared documents" for Premium users and above.

@Matt, yes you can help.
Stop stating Xara Cloud is not impeding Xara Desktop application development - please add the missing content to the On-line Content Catalogue ("400 stunning templates created especially for marketing your business"). I also hope the Starter version does not have block access to the templates.
Stop spamming with "create whatever you need", when clearly I cannot.
Stop branding the Starter version.
Stop automatic enrolment of the Premium ("Most Popular") version as I genuinely wanted to try out the Starter version before choosing. You have made my mind up for me - guess what?

Almost as prolific to the marketing emails for Xara Cloud have been its product updates.
Why not therefore replace the Desktop applications with a fully functional local web application using the same technologies for Xara Cloud?
For say, £7.50/month (45% of the XDPX new Purchase price), we would get monthly updates and never have to worry about a messy Desktop application on a PC. Go on, make it a genuine subscription device-agnostic model.
It might work.

One last thought, I wouldn't pay £19.95/month/user just to get 99% availability.

Acorn

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The bigger fail was it was originally hailed as a mechanism to share Xara designs so we all tried building websites to find --- no Layers.

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No variant editing either. Your site may well include these but there's no means to access them.

I, like yourself, was led to believe that this was a new venture to share Xara designed documents/web documents on the cloud via browser and Dropbox/Google Drive etc.

It's now morphed out of the Beta into something completely different and something personally I don't even try to understand. I am genuinely confused.

Perhaps Xara could produce a video tutorial on how genuinely XC works. I mean a genuine tutorial, unlike the dreadful videos that are all smoke & mirrors being produced recently (example below). Say more along the lines of Gary P's excellent tutorials within the old XaraXone which taught many, including myself, how to genuinely use Xara software, not slick videos that in no way reflect the workflow of the software in reality.

I think Xara Cloud, as it stands today, is intended for making office documents in a team based environment [pie charts and stuff] - and for sharing ideas about web-design, and vector-design, but obviously not participating in the the design process itself for these, because no layers and no tools for this

It may mature, but at the moment the hype outweighs the delivery by a large margin

Of course, it depends what you are expecting - if you are an office worker/team who just wants to put together an information leaflet for distribution in the organisation, or design a simple logo, or sketch out a visual, this might just be the tool; that's a different level of design to websites and animations

I too was miffed at being bounced straight into the trial

Hey, 'create anything you want/need' is almost worthy of the trades description act... except maybe that no sane person would actually believe it, when it comes from marketing, a breed not renowned for being objective.

I'm also amused by the constant use of the word 'awesome' - I've seen some genuinely awesome things in my time, but Xara is not one of them, especially not Xara Cloud - ok it's a buzz-word of the moment, but no substitiute for saying something meaningful, always assuming there is something meaningful to say... and BTW no, I don't 'LOVE' the new SVG feature, it's a given it should be there... :rolleyes:

Egg - if you click on setting at the top right you can switch between variants.

I don't work in marketing at all however Acorn if you reply to one of the marketing emails I can put it in Matts inbox to look over :) I don't know how often he wanders into TG.

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Originally Posted by Rob-Xar

Egg - if you click on setting at the top right you can switch between variants. I don't work in marketing at all however Acorn if you reply to one of the marketing emails I can put it in Matts inbox to look over :) I don't know how often he wanders into TG.

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Kind offer Rob, but I don't reply to marketing emails, ever.

According to Kate Moir, Matt engages regularly with TG.

Acorn

P.S. Can you confirm that Xara Cloud doesn't allow you to create a Variant.

Yes, XC's web capabilities are quite limited - You can edit content on variants but not create or edit the actual variants themselves.

Acorn, if you've decided Xara Cloud isn't for you, you can click the Unsubscribe or Notifications link at the bottom of the emails. You can reach Matt via the link in the Open Letter at the top of this page if you wish (but he's on holiday at the moment :-)

I think the main advantage of Xara Cloud for an existing Designer Pro owner is the ability to edit your files remotely using any device (including Macs of course) and, if you have the Premium version, in collaboration with colleagues or clients. Different story for non desktop owners.

The pricing is £5.95 per month for Premium, if you are in the UK and paying sterling of course (http://www.xara.com/uk/pricing/)

Kate

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Originally Posted by webmaster

The pricing is £5.95 per month for Premium, if you are in the UK and paying sterling of course (http://www.xara.com/uk/pricing/)Kate

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...plus 20% VAT (for the UK) ;)

Yes, good point, plus VAT. Unless you are a business and enter your VAT number. Before BREXIT (afterwards, who knows :) )

Kate

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Egg - if you click on setting at the top right you can switch between variants.

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Cheers for that rob. missed it. However it highlights the need for a decent tutorial re the software.

I'm currently on the 30 day trial version (7 days remaining). A client has been using the beta for a couple of years to amend content of the site. With some struggle I managed to get him to use the latest release.

I requested he downloaded the free version to evaluate it and see if the free version allowed him to continue to freely edit his site. It appears that he currently can but I'm still unsure whether selecting the free version isn't presently downloading the Premier trial version.

Can you clarify what is and isn't possible between the free and paid versions with regard to website editing?