Giving up on Xara! It's not commercial software...

[eobet]

I'm not sure how I feel about "good bye" threads like this, but I feel that I have to write one because I want to vent a little bit, and also see if I get any interesting comments.

I've been a Xara user for about five years had to use Xara X in more diverse professional situations lately, and my cup-of-complaints finally spilled over today. It was my second day on a new job and the tempo was really high, and Xara made me stumble all throughout the day!

I had the task of creating a desktop background for a high-resolution system. So I asked the developer to grab a screenshot of the entire desktop, since the image I was going to make was going to play off widgets and such placed on the desktop.

The image was 1400x1050 and when I opened it in Xara X, I discovered that a standard 800x600 white page hid behind the loaded image. A minor annoyance, perhaps, but it seems that the work area outside is limited, so when zoomed out, I wasn't able to scroll all the way I wanted. I looked at the options for new documents, but nothing apparently exceeds 1024x768.

I then went to place the image into a layer and lock it, and after an hour of work I had about five or six layers depending on what I wanted to export. But working in such a high pace made me forget what objects were in which layer, and I found no simple way to discover this. The layer ui hasn't evolved in at least five years for Xara, while both Corel and Adobe have excellent tree views detailing exactly what they contain (including groups and clip views).

The necessity of exporting in the first place was because of the absolutely awful and (again) after five years still very basic clip view function in Xara, which is very difficult to edit and apparently can't handle feathered objects properly.

In five years, I've seen ZERO productivity changes (disclaimer: which have affected me), only cosmetic changes and changes made to please the hobbyist community!

During the years of posting on this forum, I've had Charles Moir reply to me that it was embarrassing that the new Xara X didn't remember object rotations when that was a feature of even Xara's predecessor, and that STILL hasn't been added.

The situation is similar with mesh fills, which have been promised for more than three years now but apparently Charles & Co wants to get it ever so intuitive. I'm inclined to bet that they haven't even started on the feature yet.

And for years I've complained about the lack of accuracy in Xara X and when I finally get a really good thread going about it, I get no response from Xara and the moderators, instead of moderating, shut it down:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...light=accuracy

And finally, I have been waiting for over a year for the OS X port and it hasn't come. Xara X is now one of the two very last applications for which I don't have an OS X version and though Parallels/Fusion works around this, it's just one more complaint which has gone unfullfilled by Xara.

The conclusion for me is this:

Xara is not a serious commercial product.

Anyone who uses Xara for serious commercial work is lying to either us or themselves.

I can no longer use Xara for anything beyond basic object creation. All composition or post-processing has to be done in Illustrator and Photoshop.

[jamesmc]

"The image was 1400x1050 and when I opened it in Xara X, I discovered that a standard 800x600..."

I guess you are not used to working in scale eh?

When I make videos, I don't work in the highest resolution possible unless one likes to make incredibly lengthy test renders.

Best of luck on your new software, whatever that may be.

[Daniel]

I'm not sure how I feel about "good bye" threads like this

Invariably they make their author look silly.

[gwpriester]

As the saying goes, "A poor workman blames his tools."

Let us know when you find something better.

My guess is once you start using a new program you will keep asking yourself, why doesn't it do this like Xara does.

(You'll be back, I bet.)

Good luck and we have appreciated your comments and contributions to the community.

Gary

[Luciano]

Eobet,
in case it helps you, here is a 1400x 1050 page.
Sorry I don't understand why it was difficult to get such a page size.

Luciano

[MEB]

Hi eobet,
Seems you had a really bad day... so i can understand your post but not all you are describing are correct.
Please continue reading:

The image was 1400x1050 and when I opened it in Xara X, I discovered that a standard 800x600 white page hid behind the loaded image. A minor annoyance, perhaps, but it seems that the work area outside is limited, so when zoomed out, I wasn't able to scroll all the way I wanted. I looked at the options for new documents, but nothing apparently exceeds 1024x768.

You can customize the page to wahtever size you want: Just go to File -> Page Options -> Page tab. On the paper size drop down select Custom and fill in the desired Width and Weight

You can change the "work area outside" as you call it by changing the Outer Margin in the spread area on the pages tab too.

I then went to place the image into a layer and lock it, and after an hour of work I had about five or six layers depending on what I wanted to export. But working in such a high pace made me forget what objects were in which layer, and I found no simple way to discover this. The layer ui hasn't evolved in at least five years for Xara, while both Corel and Adobe have excellent tree views detailing exactly what they contain (including groups and clip views).

I have to agree that the layers gallery could be improved a little more, such the ones in Photoshop or Fireworks and this have been requested some times already but if you have some carefull naming the layers it´s possible to control even very complex illustrations. Anyway i think Xara is already aware of this. I remember one thread requesting a similar layer system to that featured by fireworks where Charles himself has participated.

The necessity of exporting in the first place was because of the absolutely awful and (again) after five years still very basic clip view function in Xara, which is very difficult to edit and apparently can't handle feathered objects properly.

I never had problems with feathering and clipview. I agree that it´s still complicated to edit directly a clipview object. We first have to remove the clip, make the changes to the shape and apply the clipview again. Would be great to to able to edit the clipview object "on the fly" like we do with any other shape.

In five years, I've seen ZERO productivity changes (disclaimer: which have affected me), only cosmetic changes and changes made to please the hobbyist community!

Hum, this is not true. I agree that we haven´t seen new drawing tools or big core improvements in the past few years but Xara hadn´t neither the resources nor the people to accomplish such level of evolution like Adobe or Macromedia. However they implemented the live effects tool. improved the text tool a lot more, improved the the numer and quality of import and export filters a lot, have "rewrited/reviewed" the code to allow the parallel development of a linux version, and have been fixing and enhancing the program in general. Now with Magix acquisition things will certainly change and more and bigger improvements will certainly be made (more frequently).

During the years of posting on this forum, I've had Charles Moir reply to me that it was embarrassing that the new Xara X didn't remember object rotations when that was a feature of even Xara's predecessor, and that STILL hasn't been added.

The situation is similar with mesh fills, which have been promised for more than three years now but apparently Charles & Co wants to get it ever so intuitive. I'm inclined to bet that they haven't even started on the feature yet.

And for years I've complained about the lack of accuracy in Xara X and when I finally get a really good thread going about it, I get no response from Xara and the moderators, instead of moderating, shut it down:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...light=accuracy

And finally, I have been waiting for over a year for the OS X port and it hasn't come. Xara X is now one of the two very last applications for which I don't have an OS X version and though Parallels/Fusion works around this, it's just one more complaint which has gone unfullfilled by Xara.

Some of those are not easy to implement i suppose and after the linux version situation i don´t believe much in a mac version being released. But again, the time and effort needed may not justify a mac version. Althought there´s a lot of artists working on the MAc platform, overall the mac represent just 5% of market share.

Besides all this, Xtreme is more than capable to produce/being integrated in a creative workflow. Just looking at what people have been made here at Talkgraphics or in Xara Xone shows how powerfull and flexible Xtreme is.
It certainly can be improved, like anything else, and hopefully we will start seeing a lot more changes/improvements in the upcoming years starting well... this month already!

[joroho]

I never had problems with feathering and clipview. I agree that it´s still complicated to edit directly a clipview object. We first have to remove the clip, make the changes to the shape and apply the clipview again. Would be great to to able to edit the clipview object "on the fly" like we do with any other shape.

Miguel,
I'm not sure this is correct. If I remember correctly, you can click on the inner "keyhole" symbol that's associatied with the contents of the clip and it'll be selected for you to make your changes. The outer keyhole is for selecting the clipping object.

Eobet,
I suspect there are a number of ways to produce commercial work without using "commercial" products. A bad photo taken with my Pentax DS will not necessarily look better had it been taken with a Canon 5D.

Best of wishes using your new, more-expensive, slower commercial software.

.joroho.

[MEB]

Miguel,
I'm not sure this is correct. If I remember correctly, you can click on the inner "keyhole" symbol that's associatied with the contents of the clip and it'll be selected for you to make your changes. The outer keyhole is for selecting the clipping object.

.joroho.

Wow! i´ve been working with Xtreme so many years and never have "seen" that second "keyhole" (the one that control the clipping object) until now! I´m feeling so embarassed...
Thank you for pointing me that joroho.
Learning everyday.

[Nostaw]

Miguel,
I'm not sure this is correct. If I remember correctly, you can click on the inner "keyhole" symbol that's associatied with the contents of the clip and it'll be selected for you to make your changes. The outer keyhole is for selecting the clipping object.
.joroho.

Ha, after all these years I learned something new! Welcome to my new friend: Clipview! I could have saved alot of time in the past using it! That's what you get for beeing a lazy bastard like me not reading the manual... hehe Thanks joroho!

[MEB]

Ha, after all these years I learned something new! Welcome to my new friend Clipview. That's what you get if you're lazy bastard like me not reading the manual... hehe Thanks joroho!

LOL, welcome to the club!