Question about X365 animations

**alanstancliff** · 02 September 2016, 01:38 AM

Hi,

Currently, I use Xara Pro X10, and when I open it, I get an ad suggesting an upgrade to 365. So I decided to look at what's new on Xara's web page.

The section titled "New Animation Possibilities" looked interesting on my Windows 7 desktop. So I decided to see what they looked like on my iPhone 6S Plus in Safari. Long story short: Most of the icons did not display, although the three which did had impressive animation.

Do other people have the same experience?

Alan

**Gare** · 04 September 2016, 03:02 PM

Just a wild guess, but I don't believe site built with Xara are responsive sites. They've gone a long way to looking responsive, but I don't think Xara codes web pages optimized for phones.

To be fair, there are a lot of stes out there, including some done in WordPress, that don't display well on phones, mostly because coders are doing things that same way they did things a year ago.

More than 50% of those interviewed six months ago view website on their smart phones.

It's time those who want to conduct any sort of commerce got hip to coding for mobile devices.

My Best,

Gary

**pauland** · 04 September 2016, 03:22 PM

Alan, if the demos didn't work on mobile, you should report that to Xara.

Animation isn't really concerned with whether a site is viewed on a mobile phone or not, or whether the site is responsive, but there are browsers and there are browsers.

WYSIWYG is not very amenable to responsive design and I rather consider Xara to produce adaptive sites rather than responsive, but that's a grey area.

Give us a link and tell us what doesn't work, Alan.

**Gare** · 04 September 2016, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by pauland

Alan, if the demos didn't work on mobile, you should report that to Xara.

Animation isn't really concerned with whether a site is viewed on a mobile phone or not, or whether the site is responsive, but there are browsers and there are browsers.

WYSIWYG is not very amenable to responsive design and I rather consider Xara to produce adaptive sites rather than responsive, but that's a grey area.

Give us a link and tell us what doesn't work, Alan.

No, quite, Paul...I didn't mean to suggest that a non-responsive web page wouldn't display at all, but rather it won't display correctly, for the most part. Images not in the right place compared to the associated text, and more.

What I should have said (but it's too early in the morning, no excuse for posting anyhow!) is that Flash content, the stuff Xara writes, won't display at all on a mobile phone. Thanks to the late Steve Jobs' insistence, which wasn't totally unfounded considering the security risks Adobe seems non-nonchalant about.

Sorry for lack of clarity.

My Best,

Gary

**pauland** · 04 September 2016, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by Gare

No, quite, Paul...I didn't mean to suggest that a non-responsive web page wouldn't display at all, but rather it won't display correctly, for the most part. Images not in the right place compared to the associated text, and more.

There's no reason for a non-responsive page to display incorrectly on a mobile phone, except that the mobile browser doesn't support the HTML/CSS being used.

What I should have said (but it's too early in the morning, no excuse for posting anyhow!) is that Flash content, the stuff Xara writes, won't display at all on a mobile phone.

Xara doesn't touch Flash except for animation output and perhaps some of the older slideshows. That's an unrelated topic to responsive sites. Some mobile phones still have Flash plugins for their browsers.

Thanks to the late Steve Jobs' insistence, which wasn't totally unfounded considering the security risks Adobe seems non-nonchalant about.

You'll find browser and operating system security flaws are just as prevalent outside flash content as in it. It's easy to knock Adobe about the flash player, but in my opinion Adobe was very quick to address vulnerabilities wherever it found them. People are quick to mention the vulnerabilities found in Flash, but never mention the vulnerabilities found regularly in the desktop OS they use.

Steve Jobs wasn't concerned about Flash from a vulnerability point of view. As a businessman he stated what was perceived as weaknesses in the Flash player to give a public reason for not supporting Flash. In practice he was more concerned that Flash content could be very sophisticated and be an easy route for people to bypass the Apple Appstore and avoid paying Apple's cut.

**Gare** · 04 September 2016, 04:11 PM

You know more than I do on site building, Paul: I defer to your facts over my opinions

Glad you didn't paint Mr. Jobs' horse, as he rode into the sunset a brilliant white.

Getting O/T, sorry!

My Best,

Gary

**pauland** · 04 September 2016, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by Gare

Glad you didn't paint Mr. Jobs' horse, as he rode into the sunset a brilliant white.

Gare, whatever you think about Jobs, on the Flash decision he made absolutely the right call. If he hadn't excluded Flash then people like me ( primarily a Flash developer for several years ) would have made his Appstore far less profitable.

I admire Jobs in many ways, as a human being he could be a jerk, but from a business and design standpoint he was amazing.

I think your comment about Jobs riding into the sunset is a cheap, unecessary shot.

**gwpriester** · 04 September 2016, 05:42 PM

Alan - My philosophy when designing for a cell phone or tablet is to design for the space and the bandwidth. While most people have a reasonably fast internet connection and can appreciate some of the animations, I design mobile sites anticipating a network connection which is somewhat to a great deal slower, and with a much smaller viewing area. Larger text. Larger buttons. Less images and less gratuitous animations and effects. But maybe that is just me.