Alien Skin Response to inquiry about using filters in 64 bit Xara

[richinri]

Hi,

Thank you for reach out to us. We have had requests for Xara compatibility for Eye Candy 7, but right now, that's just not an option.

1. Eye Candy 7 as far as I know will not work, but there are som steps you can try.
1a. Download Eye Candy 7
1b. Install it using the custom install feature. If it does not detect a valid host, it will default to the custom install screen.
1c. Make sure you only install the 32bit portion of the plug-in. If you are using Xara 64bit, then you would want to install the 64bit version of the plug-in.

2. Right now we do not have plans, but I would love to gather some information. What community are you reporting back to, as in a specific forum? Are there other places you can point me to where lots of people are requesting Eye Candy 7 to have Xara 64bit compatibility. If I can find enough people/information, that will allow me to take it to the developers as a serious request, and not just the small group of people who reach out to us directly.

Any forums you can point me towards, where this is a topic of conversation, I would love to visit.

Best regards,
Robert Lounsberry

[richinri]

I informed Robert at Alien Skin that I believe plugins for Xara 64 are currently disabled and we hope that changes. I also informed him Xara is still making available the 32 bit version to use the older plugins in. I also informed him of this forum.

[angelize]

I'm moving this to the Xara Compatible Plugins forum. We have had discussions about this and I'm glad to see other's reaching out to them.

[steve.ledger]

I believe plugins for Xara 64 are currently disabled

DPX9 64bit is not 64bit host enabled, though it is shipped with the new MAGIX 64bit Fx.
Until (or if) Xara add a 64bit plugin host by far the easiest way to use your current 32bit plugins in DPX64 is to assign an Adobe plugin host compatible bitmap editor as your default Designer Bitmap editor in the program options.
Once this is done, you can open the selected bitmap into the assigned editor, apply the plugin, save and the result is passed back to Designer Pro X9 64bit.
It's quick and has only a few disadvantages in a workflow that demands the use of a plugin filter (rarely in my case, but I know there are people that use plugins often.)
Installing the 32bit version of Designer Pro X9 is the other option, but you will lose the advantage of having more than 4Gb of system memory and risk running into the OOM errors.

[angelize]

One disadvantage of going the bitmap editor route is that your selection has to be a bitmap. I'm hoping that Xara can come up with a solution that will allow plug ins in the 64 bit version. Getting back to Alien Skin I do think that the more people that they see looking for support for EC7 in Xara the more likely they might be to consider fixing it. Here is a link to the other thread http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...nd-Eye-Candy-7

Steve are there any threads at XU about this? If so perhaps you could link to them here as well so if the Alien Skin devs come looking they can find everything in one place.

And EC7 does work in the 32 bit version but you need to lock the effect to avoid an error when Xara tries to redraw the effect.

[pauland]

Frances, my understanding of what Steve is saying is that it is a waste of time asking third parties to support Xara 64 bit if a Xara has not implemented/made active the correct protocols/environment for 3rd party plugins in the 64 bit product.

Xara should make a very definitive statement about this - it would be counter-productive on all counts to request a third party to support software where their product has no chance of operating.

[angelize]

I understand that of course currently there can be no 64 bit plugins but I don't think that Xara will leave it this way forever. And the Alien Skin plugins do work in the 32bit versions except that now EC 7 needs to be locked.

[pauland]

My point is that asking someone to support a 64bit platform they cannot yet access is counter-productive.

[angelize]

ah but what I'm trying to get at is that the EC plugin has an issue since version 7 was released and even in the 32 bit while it does work it needs to be locked and if there is enough interest they may look at fixing that and possibly making Xara a supported host, even if it's just for the 32 bit version for now.

[pauland]

OK, but this is a thread about 64 bit filters and mixing the issues may cause confusion.

Richinri is specifically trying to drum up interest within EyeCandy to support 64Bit Xara, but at the moment that may be a very counter-productive campaign, even if well-intentioned.