How crippled is the trial version?

[Lou Sander]

Nasty talk, that.

My original post here expressed frustration/concern/aggravation that the Trial version had roadblocks to using it. It was prompted by the fact that the 'Read me first' section of Xara's introductory demo says we should "Open the designs gallery and select a design," yet they disallow Trial users from selecting any of those designs.

IMHO, that's unwholesomely contradictory, and more than a little perverse. IMHO, it doesn't inspire confidence, respect, or politeness.

Apparently the readers of this forum don't see it that way. Few of their responses had anything to do with the problem as I expressed it. When I pointed that out, in only seemed to enrage them. They weren't shy about name calling or giving advice unrelated to the problem at hand. At times like this, it's good to remember the teachings of Proverbs 12:15: The way of a fool is right in his own eyes.

[pauland]

Lou, we don't need any lectures. Good proverb, but you seem to have missed that lesson yourself.

Do you intend to use the software or just moan about it and TG?

[ckh]

http://support.xara.com/index.php?_m...articleid=2304

[handrawn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lou_Sander

from which I quote:

"Life has taught me to suffer fools, but not to suffer them gladly or for a protracted period of time. It has also taught me about their relatives the assholes and the pissants. Wikipedia has taught me about their other relatives, the dicks..."

[handrawn]

http://support.xara.com/index.php?_m...articleid=2304

good one Chris [or should that be two ], but I guess we have to accept that not everyone reads the FAQ's ....

[ckh]

good one Chris [or should that be two ], but I guess we have to accept that not everyone reads the FAQ's ....

He didn't seem to see it the first time or didn't bother looking as he still complained.

[Miko]

http://support.xara.com/index.php?_m...articleid=2304

Did you also see this one.
"The bottom line is that I've spent over 70 years absorbing knowledge and cultivating the art of being right. The most important part of that art is that when you aren't right, you admit it and learn from your mistake. Whatever my abilities in the less important areas of the art, I claim absolute mastery of that one."

[masque]

Do you fellows ever read the posts you are responding to?

I don't care very much that templates aren't included with the trial, and I emphasize that again and again, yet man after man of you comments on my fixation on templates, my imagined desire to get free artwork, etc.

The problem here is that the instructional material that comes with XWD, and opens every time the program is launched, specifically directs the user to the Designs Gallery. But in the Trial version of the software, the Designs Gallery is disabled. Since Xara don't bother to tell you that, a new user has a bit of trouble evaluating the product. This is an excellent sales prevention technique.

Lou
Sorry if we seem to not appriciate your true point regard the templates etc. However as your beef is with Xara itself regarding the clarity of instructions accompanying the download then it would be best to contact Xara with that complaint as there is nothing anyone here can do for you. Remember no one here is an employee of xara and so has absolutely no control over how download trials are presented on the xara site, crippled or misleadingly worded as they may be.
Derek

[Peebs24]

Ithink the word 'preview' might give you a clue!!

[Karateed]

Hi Lou,

It seems maybe your comments have been taken a bit more strongly than intended. There really is no need for anyone to be having angry words about this. :

I've been using Xara since 2009, 3D6 first, then Webdesigner 5, Xara Xtreme Pro 5 which is the grandfather of today's pro version.

Your question is to clarity of the templates. When I first looked at the trial back in 2009, one of the things of interest to me were the templates. I downloaded the trial and read through the opening page/blurb and discovered there was a web template, just one that you could use to test the program with. I also discoved rather quickly really, that there were small samples of each of the other types of graphics/symbols to play with, enough to get a hang of the program.

Now, the reason I'm using 2009 as my example is that I have assumed that Xara has done the same thing with it's current versions. My interests in Xara have changed through the awesomeness (is that really a word) of it's abilities, not mine yet, and I have become more creative due to it's user friendliness and, not to be remiss, the user friendliness of this forum. Without this forum, I'm sure my progress would be very much indoubt as I glean ideas, learn skills and so forth here.

So to answer your question, since I've upgraded to the full version, I noticed that many files were replaced and, lo and behold, some of those were template files. If you look carefully, you'll see that you can actually play with enough of them that you can see how the program works. If you're building web pages, it's possible these templates will speed your work, they did mine and when I was finished, the pages didn't end up looking anything like the original templates....don't know if that's good or bad.

Anyway, I hope you have another good look at Xara, play with it as much as you can over the trial period and end up deciding to purchase it. It truly is an awesome program.
It's possible some might think you're attacking Xara and the folks here. I don't think that's what you're doing, I think you're just a bit frustrated due to lack of enough time (I'm 61 so I understand that) and you're rushing through things too quickly to see all the facts.

Let these folks truly help you and check out the program, it is awesome.

Have a great day Lou,