Is Xara Ltd Reading These Boards?

[ss-kalm]

To be fair to Joke Artist, he has posted (more than once) a detailed wish list that appears to my untrained eye to be quite well thought out. I obviously don't know how easily or not these items can be provided, but would have expected that at least one or two of them could be accommodated.

Refer to this thread http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=31909

[handrawn]

That's right Keith, and I think that there are some firm favourites amongst all the posts.

If I remember my Aesop right it was father and son on the donkey - but that's just a quibble - good reference Gary

Also one about a grand scheme to put a bell round the neck of the cat to warn of its approach - but which unlucky mouse was actually going to be the one to try and do it?

words are fine, but action is always bedevilled by the practicalities...

[a4hire]

Of course they listen, Charles and some of his staff members do make posts here and they do respond to some requests.
Will they do everything that everyone wants ? No.
"The loudest drums will deafen the ear." ? could be.
Or it could be that ,
The squeaky wheel gets the Grease. , Actually I like the donkey Story. But important thing is the Moral of the story.
The moral of this story is, "He who tries to please everybody pleases nobody."
Xara will do as they see best for their business. And anyone else here would do the same unless they would like to lose their ass in the river.

[handrawn]

l exactly

[alexbozhenov]

They are listening but we didn't get any response or any additional question yet from Xara's official side... And yes, some of wishes came through )

[JokeArtist]

If you demand that kind of service then you need to hire a programmer and write your own custom program.

Or just move over to the competition. I'll say this for the last time there have been no new vector tools since X1. No new way of creating or manipulating or filling shapes that follow the bezier standard - i.e. vector.

If enough people show interest in a feature or a tool, and if implementing that feature or tool fits into the code, then it might happen. But if one person says, I'm not going to upgrade unless Xara adds left handed mouse support with scroll wheel live RSS feeds and right button pop up stock quotes. You get the idea.

You've obviously not been seeing or following the rather heated debate over the fact there's not been no new tools. On the front page alone there has been two or three thread and specific ones about the mesh tool. What you mention here are very specific features - we're talking about broad base new features or improvement to 5 or 6 year old tools. I mean I know why you say this because you like xara think that export to PDF or some such stuff as a feature worthy of a new release number. That's nothing new. Offers no new way of creating images. Just makes it a different way of sending the files to pirinters or sending documents to people.

What we're talking about here is a new way to draw! And I'm not talking about making a 3d bitmap extrude (lol) or adding flame and chrome birmap fills to a vector shap with live plugins. I'm talking about VECTOR tools for drawing.

What kinds of vector tools are you missing here? You have been very vague in this area only asking for more vector tools. Be specific.[/QUOTE]

Now you are being facious I take it because this has been brought up twice before by yourself and both times I've patiently posted up what I would like to see.

Third time luck Gary,

1. Make everything savable within the default document. Including settings for contour, bevels, drop shadows.

2. Have an option for Saving Undos. One of the great things about Xara is the limitless amount of undos, it would be invitative and useful to save these even if it created massive files.

3. Editable Brush Stroke Profiles.

4. True Vector Bevels / Drop Shadows / Extrudes.

5. Live Plugins which are Vector as well as bitmap. Mathematical formual that changed the vector shapes them selves, like twirls / twists, random deforms, Erm ... rounded corners for any object not just stars and rectangles.

6. Mesh fills and transparencies.

7. True fractle fills (with editable variables). Not just the psuedo bitmap fills that are currently on offer.

8. Better Brush handling. A present the colour replace doesn't work properly. The profiles and pressures don't work properly. If your groupled item has too many shapes in it - it throws a fit. In this day and age it should be able to handle more items. Also bevelled items if they were proper vectors and not just bitmaps would work properly which it does.

9. Multi-layered brushes.

10. Added shape creation tools like the ones seen in Spray, SPX, LGV and more besides.

11. Filter fills such as Zoom, Blur, etc.

[gwpriester]

Is there a vector bevel in another program? I suppose CorelDRAW but the results whether vector or bitmap are lame.

Xtreme kind of gives you the best of both. The bevel, shadow, etc, can be edited like a vector but the actual effect is indeed a bitmap. But is that bad? You can go back and edit the effect, it is a live effect. But unlike a bitmap, if you change the object, scale it up or down, the effect recreates itself to the new size and configuration.

A vector bevel is really a series of small facet objects, like a blend. I'm not sure that this is any better or worse than a bitmap bevel.

3: Editable Brush Stroke Profiles

Can you give me an example of how you see this working?

The Live Plug-in effects work with both vector and bitmap selections. Like the Canvas "sprites" do or did. The finished product is indeed a bitmap, but the effect can be edited and it is a live effect. By my definition these are live plug-in effects. Plug-ins by their very nature were intended to be applied to bitmaps, e.g. the Photoshop plug-in standard.

I think you are thinking of a vector filter, such as Dmitry's spiral generator and other utilities.

I do quibble and I think you have some very good suggestions. And my intention is not to start a thrash.

[covoxer]

Xara is a bicycle with two wheels. It rides cool but you need to stretch your leg when you stop.
Illustrator is a bicycle with a dozen of wheels. You don't have to stretch you leg when it's still, but it's a pain to make it moving.
You ask to add extra wheels to Xara so you don't need to stretch you leg on stops. But presume that it will continue to run just as cool. While in reality you can't get both - it either runs cool, or stands cool. It's either Xara or Illustrator...
With a bunch of 3-4 wheeled vehicles in between.

[PatentGuy]

I think we have our answer. Xara reads the forum.

But, we also have confirmation that Xara does not think much of our suggestions. It seems like it is too much trouble to add/enhance/fix the vector tools, but it is not too much trouble to add bitmap stuff and a wannabe web editor.

[handrawn]

There are half a dozen or so Xara staff who read this board regular - at least 3 have been here today - if you know who they are you can look at their public profile for time of last visit.

I cannot blame them for not getting involved with people who are not listening, or who think that it is so easy to do what it is not.


Xara can manipulate shape envelopes between nodes - so it'll be a breeze to manipulate mesh blends the same way... rubbish

And it will be fast because xara has a magic way of making everything fast.... rubbish

And it can be funded out of the air so that we can have it now now now... rubbish