So far away

[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?

[David O'Neil]

...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?

Features I'd upgrade for, because I do find a vast improvement in the tools:

1) The Opacity Masks. Playing with this New Toy, I find it to be very powerful, and a great tool. The 4.0 way is basically unusable.

2) Graduated transparencies - 4.0 does not have this, and I sincerely wish it did.

3) The brush tool actually works for the built-in brushes, and the pressure sensitivity is corrected. Can't say enough about this fix. It lets you draw.

Those tools by themselves are worth it, in my opinion. I also like the spell check, but I wouldn't upgrade just for that, and it isn't really a vector tool except that applies to vector text.

When the money comes, I'll get it, irregardless of the UI war, although I'll probably use the old interface.

[Nostaw]

It's the same discussion year by year. Vector tools Vector shmools. Vector is not the keyword anymore, it's Web. No point of ranting about it, really, it's direction is clear. I'll still buy it as long it works in my toolchain and it still does. I did some websites and it saves tons of time doing it all in Xara, so it's worth for me.

[slavelle]

I have to say that the solid real-time rendering of shapes, the expanded object gallery, the solo mode for layers and objects, the opacity masks (which I've not really gotten into yet, but I see a lot of possibilities), and several other things that have changed even since v5, but certainly since 4.0 (or 3.2!), have made this a worthy upgrade for drawing purposes, especially for as quickly as the cost can be recovered.

The extra addded web stuff just makes prototyping a site even that much faster - and whether you create websites or not, as graphic people, there are lots of us who need to create graphics for sites, whether they are designed for other coders, we're doing the code ourselves, or are ultimately going to be exported directly from Xara Designer Pro. Being able to present a live preview of a website for a client is one more thing that seperates me from some of my other local web competition.

Just my $.02

And, really, the interface is a problem for so many people, and I can respect that, but it's a simple keystroke away to get it back to the non-gray version. Seems kind of petty to me.

[Soquili]

Slavelle the issue is not the keystrokes. The issue is that Xara announced they will not support the original interface. No more keystroke to change UI.

This is what the topic is rather than one or the other. No ability to choose.

[Giovanni]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.