So far away

**Giovanni** · 22 June 2010, 06:15 AM

Originally Posted by Josè Campoy.

I´m not saying V 2.0, 3.2 etc. are better than v6 WYSWYG it´s fine, but it doesnt mean a real jump. do something in v6, go back to v 3.2, and do the same. (Not photo or web).
Can you find a real improvemet?, do you find a diference in the vector tools?

Ditto. I work more and more with Inkscape, which is really improving vector tools with each release.

To me those semi-raster half-baked tools added in the latest releases just don't cut, because they actually don't exclude the need of a raster program. So what's the point of adding them, instead of improving Xara's original vector tools?

Where are improvements like BRUSHES! FILLS! DYNAMIC GUIDES!

**Albacore** · 22 June 2010, 08:34 AM

We are too few now who are working in print to make any difference. Just do a "New Post" and see how many post there are requesting help or go into Dear Xara and look at the requests. Xara has to go with its customer base it's not what I want but it has happened. All that I can say is that I can still use what ever version that I have on my hard drive from version 4 onwards to create OK PDF's and that is what JA is saying although I can work faster than him using the Page & Layer Gallery facilities when in a large doc.

A few month ago Bill (Solquili) did a request in Dear Xara for a Lite version of the programme with all the Live Effects, Photo Editing, Web and the Desktop Publishing taken out and I made a sarcastic remark that it should be marketed as the XPro.

**Nostaw** · 22 June 2010, 10:45 AM

Originally Posted by Albacore

Just do a "New Post" and see how many post there are requesting help or go into Dear Xara and look at the requests.

Yep and it's good for Xara they have found their niche market, including the old Xara crowd.

To me the main Xara market is very clear: It's the small business, freelancer who creates a typical 'contact' web-page with some forms, a tiny shop, some text, a couple of pages here and there, a small gallery, etc. A CMS would be overblown, Dreamweaver too much of pain: Xara is here to help. And it does that brilliant, with no exception and no competitor.

The 'only' problem I see with the web market, eventually the small business or freelancer will 'grow up' and requires a CMS like Joomla. If xara goes down the CMS way using databases, that would be _amazing_ and certainly its first of its kind.

**slavelle** · 22 June 2010, 12:46 PM

I welcome whatever drawing changes or extra tools that Xara adds, and I appreciate the concern of "the road it's going down", but it's not like they are taking tools out or not making changes to the ones that are there.

The new sketch mode, the trace mode, the live lines with pressure and live brush strokes in vector, and several others right off the top of my head says to me that Xara understands that their audience DOES want these tools and is still spending time on their development, while financially keeping the product alive with features that a crossover audience is looking for.

I use the Web Design features. I also do sites with Joomla! and Microsoft Expression Web with pure html/css and an occasional javascript or php script. Even if the web design features went away, I would still be using this program to do my graphics and I DO believe it's different to use than it was when I started with Xtreme 4 Standard, now on DP6.

I'm not being a fanboy here - there are a LOT of areas for improvement and eventually they will have to either compete in both areas or get a strength in one.

As mentioned above, doing a software (separate or as an add-on or something probably) application that could do a CMS (well) along with the Xara designing tools as we have them would definitely be a first. CMS systems are a pain to work with sometimes because of their "rigid" structure. If you go outside of that structure, none of it works quite right and you might as well do a static site. And each one has its own formatting rules (and a lot of them) in css along with some rather lengthy php you might have to dig through to get to the styles that are actually being used - again, varying by template.

I'm babbling - I hope someone can get something useful from it

**w00dy** · 22 June 2010, 06:09 PM

Sometimes customers only want to update certain sections of their site so a full-blown CMS like Joomla is over-kill, hence something like Simple CMS to create editable areas comes into play but if you design the site in Designer 6 and lock down the objects you don't want touching using the advanced layer controls, then open it in WD6, it's only possible to alter the unlocked objects, so in effect you've got a Xara CMS. To supply a customer with a copy of WD6 in order to edit their areas is hardly going to break the bank and will have a minimal learning curve if they are just altering a bit of text or adding a graphic.

**MEB** · 22 June 2010, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by w00dy

To supply a customer with a copy of WD6 in order to edit their areas is hardly going to break the bank and will have a minimal learning curve if they are just altering a bit of text or adding a graphic.

Yes, the learning curve is in fact so minimal that the customer may decide to take care of all the site himself from that point on...
Bye bye customer...

But it´s a good idea if Xara developed a very simplified software we can buy/distribute to customers that allow them to only change text and swap photos from a design previous developed by us in Xara Web Designer or Xara Designer PRO.
This software would use the same XAR file but only those bits would be editable. So there´s no need for other tools in the interface. Only the selector tool, the text tool and that´s it.

**steve.ledger** · 22 June 2010, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by Miguel B.

Yes, the learning curve is in fact so minimal that the customer may decide to take care of all the site himself from that point on...
Bye bye customer...

Exactly..!

**Nostaw** · 22 June 2010, 08:45 PM

Uhm WD6 is IMO not a CMS, websites are still static.

Most CMS contain in it's basic version out of the box: admin access levels, client login areas, local date/time, increase/decrease font size, convert article to PDF and sent to email, rss feeds, website search, article tags, breadcrumbs (trail in navigation aid), mobile formatting, update/change/remove/add content from anywhere anytime, automatic update notification to clients and/or social networks, sitemap.

Any website would benefit by having these features.

The beauty of a CMS is it does it by itself once it has been set up, including Web Access Guidelines (http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCON...full-checklist)

You'll lose any customer supplying them with WD6, once they start editing content they will take the next level, get Designer and take it all apart think they can do it all themself and it starts to look like a mess - but they don't care and don't see it.