Xara Xtreme 4 promotional material is punishing us long-term users

**stewart33** · 08 April 2008, 02:31 PM

Hi ss-kalm

> Check out the website - it has quite a good overview of some of the new features (including a few videos).

Sorry I still cant see any videos of called New Features (or similar).
Are there any that you happen to know ARE the new features?

Ship

**ss-kalm** · 08 April 2008, 03:40 PM

The website itself has video's showing the text repel and the extrude etc. There are no video's specifically entitled "New Features" that I know of.

If you really can't be bothered to look then you're not going to find out anything .... are you!

Read Charles Moir's thread listing the new features and download the trial and test it. That's how the rest of us did it!

I seem to have already wasted more time pointing you in the right direction that you seem to have looking.

If you don't care then why should I ..............

**stewart33** · 08 April 2008, 04:35 PM

> If you really can't be bothered to look then you're not going to find out anything .... are you!

A valid point of course.

But sales and marketing is about 'seduction'. i.e. Lots of small incremental steps, one leading to the other. The thing I was trying to make albeit in a rather clumsy manner was that personally I had comprehensively *not* been seduced.

My comments are just explaining my personal psychological experiece and were thus directed at the Xara website's sales/marketing team I guess.

So, yes, I had a quick squint at the list of enhancements, and none of them seemed to address my primarly issues with Xara. (see above - to be honest I dont know how many people want to extrude in 3D or why, and no doubt V4 is very exciting if you do...!)

So then I looked for a lazy way to get to see the new stuff - particularly the new stuff that whose titles I didn't entirely understand.

My thinking at this point was: It would be quite fun at the end of a hard day's labour to learn about the new stunts and tricks Xara can now do...

But all I could see was a series of videos describing things I already knew how to do. None of the videos were flagged "new".

[So it thus felt a bit like as a science graduate visiting a science museum - You know that there's some fascinating new stuff in there somewhere, but 95% of the stuff you have to wade through to get there is stuff you already know!]

Anyhow rather than just walk off, I guess I was trying to help Xara. This will/would be the first time that I have ever missed a Xara upgrade, ever since Xara Studio and - I dunno - I guess I just felt a pang of loyalty to them...

Trying (albeit failing) to help.

Ship

wW · 08 April 2008, 08:54 PM

- I like your point about arrows Ship. They could add a slider which adjust the size & or location on the line similar to the blend & contours sub menu or tool options. They should have fixed the arrow problem eons ago! The fact that it's better to make your own arrows than use those in the line gallery speaks volumes!
- Speaking of the Line Gallery. What about dash line spacing? If your lucky & can find one that works you have to Alt+R+L, so when you scale, it stays the same. Much room for improvement with the line gallery! Dash spacing - Please fix.

I'll be purchasing X4 soon. I hope they fixed the bitmap galleries to the way they worked in all versions prior to X3. By far, this has been my biggest disappointment with Xara's usability thus far. Broken record, I know...

-What sounds good is the "text to shape". Hope this allows us to put blocks of text inside shapes. Hate having to use CorelDraw for this.
-When using multiple colors on a color line. The ability to see what color each block on the line represents will be helpful. Sounds nice! A timely fix I might add.
-The font gallery sounds promising. To see more than AaBbCc... will be helpful.

Looking forward to the new release.

Anyone know if X4 can import AI files or AI PDF's? I see PDF has been upgraded, this should be helpful.

Unfortunately, AI is the industry standard PERIOD. I recently did a business card in Xpro3 & I had to send the output to an Illustrator dominated-Print Shop. Keep in mind, I'm the Art Director at a textile print shop. (A Xara dominated shop & I've touted Xara as the industry secret)
-I converted every line to shape, No transparency's, All fills linear or flat, shapes subtracted etc... I went back & forth with them, to many times to count. Fixing & re-exporting the PDF at least 10 times. All this for a simple 2 color design using Black & A Metallic Spot. What a nightmare, I was jumping through every hoop imaginable to get them something they could use! In the end I had to use a bitmap for the art portions of the card & they had to hack that up. I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone! One of the biggest issues I had is with Xara turning gradients of a solid spot color into another color upon import to AI.

In the future, I hope things will improve with the communication & or usability between Illustrator & Xara files. I can only hope & pray so... At least better import options for AI files. Might be a pipe dream

wW

**raynerj1** · 09 April 2008, 12:14 AM

Hi Waldo...

I just had to do some updates on a .pdf full color catalog. I had a few issues with bitmaps importing properly, but it was still easier to edit it in Xpro 4.0 then reprint it. I ended up using both ai and xpro to do the edits.

I would say that Xpro 4.0 is worth the full price, and you would not be happy if you missed the upgrade price.

There is still color shifting, but there is also a color shift between PS and AI.

I have printed out very nice looking photos from Xara... The key is a good printer.

wW · 10 April 2008, 08:19 PM

John, I just ordered the Xpro4 but he Activation code isn't working. Once I get it figured out or resolved I can begin using the new version. Heck, I might have to wait for the CD.... Not a biggie though.

The name is wALDO! Get it right man! ;o)

wW · 10 April 2008, 08:23 PM

Originally Posted by raynerj1

The key is a good printer.

Yea John, Literally! I think I was dealing with a newby at that shop.

Or,

I'm an idiot!

Quite possibly both...

**DanDaBear** · 11 April 2008, 03:14 AM

John, I just ordered the Xpro4 but he Activation code isn't working.

Make sure you are using the TRIAL activation key. There should be two. One for the downloaded trial and one for the CD version.

**ss-kalm** · 11 April 2008, 12:58 PM

Ship,

To get back to the thread ........

The Xara website shows the following quite clearly, I'm sorry you missed it.

Reading your last post, I understand now what you were intending with this thread. I missed the point entirely with your earlier posts.

However, it's not too difficult to find this overview on the site.