What existing features and tools would you want updated?

[Acorn]

Names.

An ID in the Names Gallery should change the Shape entry in the Page & Layer Gallery and the converse.

Acorn

[Acorn]

Variants.

Keep but get rid of bundling all Variants together in one page file.
Provide browser width detection to switch to the appropriate view instead.

Acorn

[Acorn]

Context Menu > Group.

Casual users get into difficulty in grouping shapes.

The context menu should offer the choice of Hard or Soft.

Acorn

[Acorn]

Grouping.

(Hard) Grouping Shapes in different Layers flatten the group onto the topmost layer.
The location of the group should be the selected layer.

Acorn

[Acorn]

Tip of the Day.

To have a Previous Tip button.
How gauche!

To have the Tip text selectable.

Acorn

[ss-kalm]

“Given our template-based approach, we have a team of designers within our company,” said Xara CEO Matt Bolton. “Not only are they responsible for building templates, but also for staying on top of current trends. Our templates need to change with those trends as well.”

To Matt Bolton ...

Nothing I do with Xara, and nothing I intend to do with Xara has ever, or will ever have anything to do with templates, and I don't expect professional designers to ever use templates in work they produce for customers ... You're losing the plot.

[gwpriester]

Egg brought this to my attention, an excellent article by Sculptex on Optimizing a Xara Website for Google Pagespeed. Which is of course another current operation which needs to be revisited to incorporate this process. It involves many steps that are currently missing but need to be added if Xara is to be taken seriously as a website design tool.

[properez5]

Hello,

Here are the features Id like to see:

1. Color splashing like you can do on Photoshop. You know how when you add like purple and orange colors to a sky in a photo in PS? like that. Maybe there is a way but I cant seem to find it. Xara has dodge and burn but how do you add the color?
2. The animation section of Xara allows you to make Flash. It would be very dope if we can export it mpg4. I do video and this would be dope to create overlays and other types of animation to include in videos.
3. The dodge and burn has dotted lines. Photoshop and Affinity photo both just do the effect without the dotted lines. and they are smooth. I like it. maybe there can be a way to turn off the dotted lines. I may be the only one that wants that though. LOL
so please don't judge me on it. LOL

I can be a bit unrealistic here , but I gave it a shot. LOL

[gwpriester]

1. Color splashing like you can do on Photoshop. You know how when you add like purple and orange colors to a sky in a photo in PS? like that. Maybe there is a way but I cant seem to find it.

Color transparency can do this. But it works best when applied over middle value colors.

[Barbara B]

Hello All --

I both agree and disagree.

What we insist on here at TalkGraphics is for all discussion here be civil, and reasonable, and hopefully helpful, and productive. This thread devolved into a conversation that had none of those qualities.

I am closing this thread. I am going to read every post again and I'm going to delete those posts that I believe cross these lines. Where that line lies is a little bit like trying to define obscenity, but I'll know it when I see it.

I do this with great reluctance. I do not like censorship but I also don't like bullying or allowing flames and flamewars and the toxic environment they create. I want TG to continue to be a place where vigorous discussion can take place but doesn't fall into the toxicity, negativity, and chaos that kills many internet forums.

As the Administrator here it falls to me, with the enormous help of the other moderators and the community-at-large to ensure that discussion and disagreement can occur and still be a place that people want to come to help each other, learn and hang out.

I ask everyone to take a deep breath, really consider if what they are going to post is actually helpful, respectful and furthers the conversation not just repeats it. Because the moderators and I don't want to have to hassle people about their posts, or give demerits or put folks into moderation or even wield the ban hammer to keep TG functioning. So please don't make the moderation team act like nannies.

This thread is now closed. And I agree with Haakoo that

...a full dear xara forum should suffice for the development to get the things we want and what's to be done to make it a real up-to-date program.

PS. Upon rereading this thread I've decided it will only make sense to anyone in the future if I delete all the Off Topic posts.
So I will summarize the posts that I've deleted.
Many of the posters were unhappy with the direction, frequency and quality of the traditional Xara desktop programs and they feel that Xara/Magix is either not listening to them, or that Xara/Magix for reasons unknown but speculated on is determined or unable to move the products in the directions the posters would like. This sentiment has been expressed widely in other threads, this time it got a bit out of hand and extremely Off Topic. Many users cooled off and then some suggested/agreed this thread should be pruned.

If anyone finds that I deleted a valuable suggestion that directly relates to this topic, PM me and we'll talk about restoring the post.