Wish List for V12

[handrawn]

you can put soft group/ungroup buttons on a custom bar

[dutchim]

Hmmmm... Another thing I overlooked!

I'm getting all these great new features lately

[ss-kalm]

More CAD type drawing tools:

Snaps to endpoints, midpoints, tangents, centres etc.
Fillet, trim and extend.
Offset command.

[MarcT]

Maybe some more Control Bar Icons?

- Soft Group and Ungroup
- CTRL, Shift and Alt toggles for us unfortunate enough not to have a keyboard with our tablet.
- Spiral Quickshape

Richard

Hi Richard, I agree, it would be nice to shave either shortkeys or Icons for the new quickshapes.

Also, specific shortkeys for the different shape painter hats.
I would like to be able to switch rapidly from warp and standard shape painter.

Marc

[dutchim]

Absolutely Marc

That pull-down menu is not the quick and easy way Xara is known for.

But at least they added it!

[gwpriester]

Scrolling Layers similar to this http://eloisasantafe.com/about/ This and the reverse for the current web animations, e.g. slide out to left instead of slide in from left.

[padwick19]

I can understand that Phil.

Mine isn't so much an added feature that Xara doesn't already contain. If I had a long list of features Xara didn't currently have surely I would be using something else entirely that had these. Illustrator has an endless list of features and is part of my creative cloud, but as a commercial designer I still prefer to use Xara every single time for illustration because of the unique features it does have.

My own personal view is that the interface could do with some refinement, one to bring it up to date and Xara Group Ltd designating it a Professional product, but also to resolve some small issues that are more to do with the design process. This is to do primarily with the colour selection system and in particular the Pantone support library of the interface. Circles aren't a great solution because it's very hard to differentiate between the subtleties of individual colours without continually referring back to the official Pantone referencing guides themselves, which tends to detract from the flow of the creative process.

I wouldn't have thought that this would detract from the average users Xara experience as in most cases anyone that doesn't specifically produce commercial packaging or pre-press material probably wouldn't ever use the library significantly. For professionals its pretty much a mandatory requirement that we do.

The only other thing I'd like to see is sticky panels. I'd like to be able to create custom panels as I currently can, but I'd certainly find it enormously useful if the position became sticky and the system remembered between sessions where I'd placed them. That's all not so much after all.

How achievable that is I remain blissfully ignorant. As a designer I get to tell you what would make it easier for me to produce material for customers that haven't a clue about the design process, and as the developer you get to make my unrealistic demands a reality. Isn't that the deal and how it works.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll do what you can within the constants placed upon you.

Thanks for all the hard you guys do on everyone's behalf.

Padwick19

[mwenz]

I do most of my packaging design in CD for other reasons than p-tone swatches.

Regardless of what I use, I make a decent size square for a swatch on the pages as needed for each color. Once in a while I open the name gallery to see the document color names, but usually just hover the mouse over the circle in the color line to see names (or I already have the color editor open and click on the objects).

One of the main reasons I don't do much package design in XDP is due to the cut, fold and or placed registration targets not hitting the spot plates.

[padwick19]

I do most of my packaging design in CD for other reasons than p-tone swatches.

Regardless of what I use, I make a decent size square for a swatch on the pages as needed for each color. Once in a while I open the name gallery to see the document color names, but usually just hover the mouse over the circle in the color line to see names (or I already have the color editor open and click on the objects).

One of the main reasons I don't do much package design in XDP is due to the cut, fold and or placed registration targets not hitting the spot plates.

I take your point that their are far better solutions available in which to produce packaging and I wasn't suggesting XDP was the definitive package in this regard. There are many short comings to using XDP for doing so as you rightly eluded too. However I was merely suggesting a change that I felt it would be possible to update that I would find of use and that didn't encompass changing the overall interface.

Xara users get very upset when they play with the overall layout of the interface. I remember only to well the furore caused when it was decided to make the dark theme the default for the package going forward. I currently do as you in that I place patches and mark them with the desired Pantone colour so I can just click to select whatever colour I want at any given time. I can't say I find this an ideal solution as many times I have clients sitting wanting to interactively look at colour alternatives.

I generally setup my Pantone colour swatches as named colours for two reasons.

1. So I can find a Pantone colour the client would like to look at as an alternative and simply drag it on to the relevant colour swatch, which applies it globally to the design.
2. It also allows me to create tints of the Pantone colour swatch which can then be applied to the design consistently.

So XDP is an extremely powerful package in some respects to increasing overall efficiency, sadly in others it falls woefully short. Hence this particular item being placed on my personal wish-list. I hate the fact that I'm constantly having to scrub up and down the panel trying to locate a particular colour the client has selected. Hell even a search facility would be a giant leap, but that's and entirely different discussion and pretty much unlikely ever to happen.

XDP is my trusted Swiss army knife and first choice when creating any illustrations or graphics. Not because it's the most polished or powerful tool on the market, on the contrary it remains for the most part what the others aren't - simple to use and uncluttered. Does that mean it should remain exactly as it is and undeveloped, of course not.

Hell I'd even be up for Xara sorting out the issues you mentioned with the cut, fold and registration targets not hitting the spot plates. Certainly would provide me with a reason not to question the rationale of paying for yet another upgrade that essentially doesn't bring anything substantively new to the package, unless of course your designing mobile first websites. Isn't that what WDP was developed for.

Still it'll be whatever they decide to give us.

Incidentally XDP now looks completely strange running under Windows 10. The Vista style minimise/maximise and close buttons look like they are desperately clinging onto a non-existent title bar in a borderless something.

Anyway good luck with whatever you decide is your personal item for the wish list, lets hope something makes it through.

Padwick19

[mwenz]

Xara has an email with my wish-list items for the next version.

I wasn't trying to denigrate your wish-list items. Merely pointing out that there would also be more items needed for packaging design. I'm all for it even though I may finish designs (of all stripes) in something else, most everything originates in XDP.