A few Xara Designer Pro 7 videos

[Xhris]

I whipped up a few V7 videos like I did last year for V6 showing some of the new features (the videos were apparently fairly popular judging from feedback). Turns out there's about an hour of stuff to demo through. Links are in my signature. Hope people find them educational. Don't just watch my videos though; check out Gary's workbook for written learning material on the new V7 features.

[gwpriester]

Thanks Chris. Your videos are always excellent.

[Guest]

Chris,
thank you very much spending a lot of time to set up Sample - Files and recording all these Videos. The effort is well spent though: These are great Resources for everyone learning the Program.

Holger

[Xhris]

Yeah you're welcome. The biggest chunk of the total time taken is in the preparation believe it or not. Learning the new features—at breakneck speed from just the help file—well enough to be able to teach others and then planning a structure that conveys information as lucidly as possible, making sure you cover practically every little thing, takes absolutely ages. Then there's the delivery: it needs to be efficient—nobody likes videos which go oooon and on like a Duracell bunny when you can say it in 10 seconds. Recording takes several times longer than the final video length (because it takes several re-recordings to get the presentation and delivery right—bloopers aside—you should hear the outtakes!). Then there's editing, which also involves carefully watching the entire recording to make sure there are no mistakes (although some always slip through). Then there's HD rendering to do followed by uploading several-hundred-MB files to YouTube—which then takes ages to process them in HD. Meanwhile there's the text descriptions to write including constructing the right time index and assigning correct links--tedious, but very useful. Then it's finally a case of creating YT playlists adding videos and organising them on my profile. Then, separately, I have to update my website with the new videos which takes a while. Quite a lot of work when I think about it (I try not to beforehand). The first part is the hardest though...all that learning and planning. :S Anyway, all done now for another year.

[Advocate]

Greatly appreciated, Chris. I won't upgrade to 7 for a while, still learning my way around 6, but your videos have helped me tremendously. There's far more than meets the eye when it comes to creating instructional videos, but your professionalism shines through.

[jclements]

Chris, great job. Thank you!
Even after doing my own investigation and reading documentation you managed to point out things which I totally overlooked.
As the latest saying goes, "U DA MAN"

[xtom]

Thanks, brill videos as always!

[handrawn]

Thanks - a good run through and some good tips

[Scotty]

Nice job Chris!!....
Jim

[chuckgrmi]

Thanks Chris

I'm brand new to 7 and those videos are very helpful
I like that mask feature as I do a lot of cutouts with an old Microsoft DIP program and I was wondering if it is possible to capture the strands of hair or whiskers of a rabbit using xara?