Web Designer versus Xtreme Pro

[pauland]

That's why talented web designers stand out from the crowd. There's so much utter rubbish out there that when you see a bright, refreshing, intuitive, easy-to-navigate, simple-to-read design... you linger.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

That's why talented XXX designers stand out from the crowd. There's so much utter rubbish out there that when you see a bright, refreshing, intuitive, easy-to-navigate, simple-to-read design... you linger.

Replace XXX with just about any kind of designer you wish.

Bones has been beating the drum about web designers (clearly a bee in his bonnet). The web is populated by amateurs with only a small percentage of sites being produced by design professionals. It doesn't mean there aren't talented amateurs, not does it mean that there aren't useless professionals. In the TV industry I've seen some appalling stuff and in the print industry there's pretty poor stuff too.

It's not my intention to lambast other industries, just to suggest that singling out web designers as an intrinsically poor branch of design is nonsense. Nor do web designers as a whole get up every morning wishing they were doing something else.

Top end web designers consider that they are in the communication business. They may transition to TV/Film/Publishing etc. Game development budgets rival film budgets in some areas is it better to be a good game designer or a bad film designer?

It's just nonsense.

[Caseydave]

So we are producing sub standard rubbish that takes no knowledge of graphic design, animation, programming or any other cutting edge media into consideration let alone marketing.

There are so many brilliant web sites which out-rank brain dead TV commercials.

I dissagree with you on so many levels - Yes in every trade there are bad examples of work but you can't sit there and label all web sites bad design.

Man get out of the dark ages. The web has eveolved from the days of 256 colours and 600x400 resolutions with a 28k modem.

Here is just one site that pops into my head for some reason

http://blissmedia.com.au/ maybe check out the portfolio of work and then come back and tell me they are all done by unskilled workers.

[Big Frank]

So we are producing sub standard rubbish that takes no knowledge of graphic design, animation, programming or any other cutting edge media into consideration let alone marketing.

You might be, but I'm certainly not. Every site I design takes all of the above into consideration, but that doesn't mean I use it. Those designers who add the above "because I can" are lost in a world of their own ego. At the end of the day it's the message that matters not the medium.

In addition to that corporations who have glossy bruchures, full page adverts in Cosmo and TV adverts have the budget for all of your "cutting edge media". However, 99% of businesses that both want and need a website do not. I work with what the client can afford, not with what he might like. Reality is a great leveller.

There are so many brilliant web sites which out-rank brain dead TV commercials.

There are so many brilliant TV commercials which out-rank brain dead web sites.

There are so many brilliant bicycles which out-rank brain dead motorcycles.

There are so many brilliant bed-and-breakfasts which out-rank brain dead international hotel chains.

You're not comparing like for like.

[Caseydave]

Big Frank,

I run a web design firm here, I'm for web designs and for developing what the site requires not just because i can do attitude.

I was being sarcastic Comparing like for like - um I think bones was the one saying there isn't a site that compares to the quality of tv commercials.

I was just saying there are many better than mind draining tv.

[covoxer]

The web has eveolved from the days of 256 colours and 600x400 resolutions with a 28k modem.

Oh, I remember those!
Back then, it was an art to make it work at all. Never mind any artistic value.

[Caseydave]

Oh, I remember those!
Back then, it was an art to make it work at all. Never mind any artistic value.

thats right - i remember the day i shut down my Bulletin Board and launched my first graphic based site - so exciting! Washed out images and all. The days of monochrome images were gone.

[Spinny]

Remember the "web browser" called SlipKnot? It was for people on regular UNIX shell dial-up. It would download the data in zmodem and then re-create the HTML locally. It was my first foray onto the Web.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SlipKnot_(web_browser)

[Big Frank]

BI was being sarcastic Comparing like for like - um I think bones was the one saying there isn't a site that compares to the quality of tv commercials.

Umm, yeah, sorry... I was getting lost in this thread... Should have stayed lost really, LOL

[Xhris]

Ha, we'll see. Ok, my prediction: Xtreme 5 will have all WD's functionality (which is essentially what's already in Xtreme 4 but improved since it was first released). Upgrade pricing will take into account whether you have WD or not.

This is a simple logical extrapolation based on Xara's history and what's already there. I bet 10 imaginary TG currency units I'm right.

I'll dig this thread out when it's released (I'd guess later this year) to collect my winnings.

Ok, guess I was right, and it's pay up time to me Xtreme 5 does have all of WD's improved web support included. And content aware scale is about a million times faster than Photoshop's implementation!

[slavelle]

Yeah - Just downloaded Xtreme Pro 5 and the new Object Gallery replacement to the Layer Gallery is really great. Will be useful for both graphical stuff in trying to dig out an object that is obscured from view and intuitively move it within the layer on the layer stack - and it will also greatly simplify the Web Design stuff because of the inclusion of all of the pages of the site with their names (tied to the actual page file name), order, and layers within the Object Gallery.

I definitely like where this is headed, but I hope that there will be some options still to come - such as the ability to select a layer on one page and copy it to another page. There still doesn't seem to be an easy way to do this short of going to the page, creating a like-named layer, going back to the first page, selecting everything on the layer you want (which has definitely been made easier with the object gallery), copy, go back to next page, paste in place on the new layer. Not a huge deal, but if you have a lot of new layers that need to get on every page, it can be a hassle.
<edit: I just found the new option, alongside the "allpages same size" that there is a "same layers on all pages" check as well, which will at least create matching layers for all pages, which is pretty handy. At least then, all you have to do is copy paste the info there or "repeat" it on all pages.>

I'd also like to see transparency available at the layer level as well - so you could see through a whole layer at once instead of on an object by object basis. This would be for editing purposes, not final graphic creation - for being able to lay something on top of something else and see through to below to trace or whatever. It is nice that now on an object level, you can show or hide, so what I'm looking for can be accomplished by placing an object at the bottom of the stack, setting it to barely transparnet and then using the visibility for that object on that layer to determine if the "shade" is drawn.

Just a few first observations.

Between the inclusion of ALL of the XWD stuff into XXtreme, I will be able to use one tool, and the upgrade of JUST this layer stuff is worth the price of PRO admisission for me (especially at the upgrade price). I'll save more than that in one website design frustration of not being able to ALT-click just the right thing to select it from below - or not even know where the object went - now it's in a nice list in stack order. sweet.