To Upgrade or not?

[bcire68]

Sorry I haven't been monitoring this thread.

Improv, I too would have directed you to Xara's website as you will find a much more detailed answer to your question. In fact, I still recommend it. However in the interest of answering your (ever so humbly asked ) question and wrapping this one up, here are just a few examples of what XXP5 has that XWD does not.

Bevel tool
Contour tool
Blend tool
Mold tool
Live Effects tool
Extrude tool
Several extra file type export options
The ability to make stretchy buttons and text panels from scratch (as opposed to modifying one that exists in the designs gallery)

The list goes on, but you will need to go to the sites provided by sledger to learn what all of them are.

Eric

[kinetica]

Hi all, I have Xtreme 4.0 pro now. I have a website that I run using frontpage. I am looking to get rid of frontpage and get a new web developing program to work on it and publish it. The question is: Should I upgrade to the new 5.0 pro or keep what I have and just buy the Xara webdesigner? Is there anything the WebDesigner has that 5.0 pro doesnt have?
Thanks for any advice,
Mike

Hello Mike,

I think if you have been using Frontpage you will find that:

• XXP5 or XWD will give you graphic design freedom you could only have dreamed of in Frontpage
• Frontpage gives you control over HTML and SEO that you can only dream of in XXP5 or XWD

At the end of the day, Xara's products give you WYSIWYG without any ability (or need) to tweak the code. If you want to adjust the code in any significant way (and I'm not talking about Placeholders) you will have to edit the code in an external HTML editor.

I personally don't use XXP5 or XWDfor website creation - it's too limiting, code-wise. But it's very good for creating an instant mock-up of a website, I don't think there is any tool anywhere that is easier to use, faster or more user-friendly.

XXP5 or XWD is the ideal website creation tool for people who have no prior HTML knowledge and who really have no desire to get into it.

EDIT: those of you who, like me, perform SEO for a living, will no doubt have looked at the code generated by XXP5 or XWD and have realised that, clearly, SEO was not on any list of priorities when they built XWD. But that's not necessarily a bad thing because most people using XXP5 or XWD for website creation won't care about SEO. There will be some overlap, but for those people they will understand that there will be some deconstruction to be done.

[BobMoyer]

I thought that was an excellent presentation by Slavelle. Thank you.

Bob

[Penny O'Rorke]

Thanks, Slavelle, for a very helpful and instructive video .........

[slavelle]

Thanks for all the kudos on the video, folks. I'll be doing some others I'm sure.

[Rock]

Thanks, Scott. Helpful and well presented.

[OldRadioGuy]

Hey Mike,

Xtreme Pro 5 ... is an improvement on Xtreme Pro 4.

Eric

For web design, yes. For some other functions, perhaps not. Here are my negative experiences with the new Xara Extreme Pro.

1. I imported a simple bitmap to do a trace in Xara Extreme Pro 5.1. When I went to the layer gallery to create a new layer for my vector trace, I discovered the layer gallery is now the object gallery, and I couldn't create a new layer as before.

2. Exporting a bitmap processed in Xara has always been a simple keystroke combination -- Shift+Ctrl+E. And the keystroke shortcut for importing a bitmap was Shift+Ctrl+I. But now in 5.1 Import is Ctrl+Alt+I. Where's the logic in that change?

3. Through several versions of Xara I've used it to import 1024x768 bitmap images to a customized Xara template of the same size for adding text formatted in various ways. It's much faster than using a photo editor. I tried to do the same thing with Xara Xtreme Pro 5.1, and the images appeared smaller than the template, requiring resizing. (The same images did not behave that way when tested in version 4.)

So, I'm sticking with Xara Extreme Pro 4 for some tasks.

[Odat]

1. I imported a simple bitmap to do a trace in Xara Extreme Pro 5.1. When I went to the layer gallery to create a new layer for my vector trace, I discovered the layer gallery is now the object gallery, and I couldn't create a new layer as before.

I assume you mean that the button changed or something? You can still create layers in the Object Gallery. You might have to have a layer (or more specifically, not a page) selected when you click the button so that it knows you want to create a layer and not a page. I don't have windows running here, so I can't verify. Unfortunately this is a case of my brain telling my fingers what to do without bothering to explain to the rest of my what it is they're doing, so I can't be 100% sure about this.

2. Exporting a bitmap processed in Xara has always been a simple keystroke combination -- Shift+Ctrl+E. And the keystroke shortcut for importing a bitmap was Shift+Ctrl+I. But now in 5.1 Import is Ctrl+Alt+I. Where's the logic in that change?

I assume this is to try and get keyboard compatibility with some other application (Illustrator maybe?). I don't use the keystrokes for that (poor memory so it's tricky to remember them), and if you have the Pro version you can probably use it's key editor to change the mapping back, but I would agree with you on the annoyance factor of this one.

3. Through several versions of Xara I've used it to import 1024x768 bitmap images to a customized Xara template of the same size for adding text formatted in various ways. It's much faster than using a photo editor. I tried to do the same thing with Xara Xtreme Pro 5.1, and the images appeared smaller than the template, requiring resizing. (The same images did not behave that way when tested in version 4.)

This is actually a new feature in X5, which can be disabled in the options. I can't remember where exactly, but the setting allows you to specify what size overly large imported images are sized down to on import. You should be able to either turn it off entirely or set it to a size that makes the image come in at the right size without being touched.

I actually find this feature quite valuable as it allows me to import photos from my digital camera and not have to immediately size them down 80% so that I can see everything.

[Soquili]

Xtreme 5.1 and Web Designer resize imported bitmaps to 500 pixels.

As Odat mentions you can turn off the resize or specify another pixel size, however you will need to use XaReg to do so or edit the registry yourself.

[bcire68]

In my humble opinion....

'It's different, and I don't like it, so I'm not going to learn the new way to do things' (which seems to be your argument in a nutshell) Doesn't mean it isn't an improvement, it just means it is different. Also, if you have already given up before learning the new way of doing things, how can you tell if the new way isn't better? I don't mean that in a trolling way at all. They are just my thoughts on the subject. I do however, have to disagree with you if you are saying that v5 isn't an improvement on v4. There are many improvements in v5, even if you don't like some of them.

Eric