xara.com getting even further from the Xara DEsigner products?

[DanFelix]

Well my renewal date has now started to pop up. I have Ver 15, and it operates just fine. If I refrain from paying the up date, do I still have access to the program and only lose access to the online library? The program seems to work just fine when I am not connected to the internet so I think I only lose the online library. Do I understand this correctly?

[iamtheblues]

As I understand it, Dan you will lose whatever enhancements (such as they are since you last paid for V.15) will be lost, which I imagine will amount to an extremely small hill of beans.
But, what do I know? I'm as confused as every other bugger around here.
Bob.

[mwenz]

As I understand it, Dan you will lose whatever enhancements (such as they are since you last paid for V.15) will be lost, which I imagine will amount to an extremely small hill of beans.
But, what do I know? I'm as confused as every other bugger around here.
Bob.

The bug fixes and enhancements since the purchase date will only be lost upon re-installation. If one never needs to re-install, then they remain. (Which, concerning the bug fixes anyway, is dumber than a rock. I would also argue that seeing how I am paying in advance, any enhancements should also remain. The application should be restored to application + everything that has been fixed/added during my subscription period.)

The content catalog (or whatever) can be downloaded. Once downloaded, find where it is on your system and make a backup to one or more thumb-drives or other media/hard drive or whatever. This is because if you ever do need to re-install, the downloaded content will be wiped out. But you can copy it all back from your backup copy.

Mike

[ss-kalm]

The bug fixes and enhancements since the purchase date will only be lost upon re-installation. If one never needs to re-install, then they remain. (Which, concerning the bug fixes anyway, is dumber than a rock. I would also argue that seeing how I am paying in advance, any enhancements should also remain. The application should be restored to application + everything that has been fixed/added during my subscription period.)

I agree If you don't re-subscribe, then everything you had during your subscription should be available ... especially since the actual amount you got for the upgrade was peanuts. Looking back on the last few versions I've had, the difference between version 9 and the current version is negligible.

If someone offered me a new program that ONLY did what one of the updates contain, and said would you pay $X.XX for this, then invariably the answer would ALWAYS be a resounding NO. I am ONLY updating, because I like Xara and feel that having the latest version is good. Have I got value for money ... in my opinion, ABSOLUTELY NOT. I updated to version 15 earlier this year and the ONLY "enhancement" has been to fix an issue that shouldn't have been changed in the first place (Stretching/squashing). The addition of TABLES (again, in my opinion) was a joke ... The tables themselves are almost useless, and for all their functionality could have been done with lines and text in earlier versions. I was expecting a range of usable cells that you could paste excel data into. That doesn't seem to be what we got.

The content catalog (or whatever) can be downloaded. Once downloaded, find where it is on your system and make a backup to one or more thumb-drives or other media/hard drive or whatever. This is because if you ever do need to re-install, the downloaded content will be wiped out. But you can copy it all back from your backup copy.

Is it actually possible to download the CONTENT CATALOG, or are we just talking about the useless "clipart free" LOCAL DESIGNS GALLERY, where we don't even get the clipart that was in earlier versions.

[Promidi]

Well my renewal date has now started to pop up. I have Ver 15, and it operates just fine. If I refrain from paying the up date, do I still have access to the program and only lose access to the online library? The program seems to work just fine when I am not connected to the internet so I think I only lose the online library. Do I understand this correctly?

This popup as appeared on my DPX15.1 as well. I am still debating whether the cost of the upgrade is actually worth it at this stage.

Look on your "documents" folder for a folder called "\MAGIX downloads\Installationsmanager" you may find the installers for whatever Xara products and updates you have installed. On my machine, the installer for the original DPX15 as well as the DPX15.1 is located there.

As far as your content is concerned, what you want to do is open up Designer Pro 15 and head to "local Deisgns Gallery". Then on right click each category and select download all. This is take a while. When this is complete, the catalogue files should appear in the following folder:

On my machine, this folder occupies 1.78 gig and is included in my daily backup.

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Xara\XtremePro\15\Cach e\designs\eng

[Pixelpusher]

I got my Xara renewal notice today... $129.00. I made a decision instead to pay $49.99 for Affinity Designer... OH MY! Have you guys seriously looked at this program? It is amazing! I have supported Xara products for years, but today I jumped ship. I am no longer going to spend over a hundred dollars a year to keep using this product.

[DanFelix]

Thanks. I emailed Magix in the US and learned that my update will cost the $129 and that price will not expire, even after my renewal date of July 4th. I think my last renewal cost was $99. An annual payment with minimal to no product changes functionally converts the purchase to a lease. I have 20+ years of files in .xar. The decision becomes less about new features and more about a payment (Danegeld?) to continue to have workable access to past files, including commercial websites. The websites are the bigger hurdle to any decision to change programs. This is beginning to feel like WordStar.

[Acorn]

Thanks. I emailed Magix in the US and learned that my update will cost the $129 and that price will not expire, even after my renewal date of July 4th. I think my last renewal cost was $99. An annual payment with minimal to no product changes functionally converts the purchase to a lease. I have 20+ years of files in .xar. The decision becomes less about new features and more about a payment (Danegeld?) to continue to have workable access to past files, including commercial websites. The websites are the bigger hurdle to any decision to change programs. This is beginning to feel like WordStar.

DanFelix, if you built the site in earlier versions of a Xara Desktop application then they are still supportable.

If you used part of Xara's early previews then the new features won't be editable or even work but these are usually few on a site so a rework would be possible.

Bitch at Xara and send it a design file and demand it unpicks the bits that won't work as it sold you something that, in good faith, you believed was a professional application with integrity.
Ask for a version that has all the bugs fixed in the year since your purchase. If Xara declines, request a full refund.

Xara wants us to continue upgrading but at present this clawback is destroying any brand loyalty. Xara should offer the latest version at the end of the year's leasehold at say $35 and drop the upgrade to $95. That way, Xara gets some money if lots of us drop out. Xara gets a far greater incentive to deliver better in its next cycle.

Acorn

[hseiken]

I didn't read this whole document but one thing I've noticed that is sort of endemic to all commercial productivity software (and non productivity software) is that there's no 'end game'. In other words, it's now expected that software will somehow always need an update at some point in time. There's no push to do it right the first time. Do you buy a car with option to upgrade later to get the gas pedal installed and simply have a frame with seats and no wheels and no gas pedal, but a really serious engine? No, you buy a complete car that drives you from here to there. You know up front what it's performance is, how it handles, how many it seats, etc.

Unfortunately due to the nature of programs being amorphous then the expectation is that it SHOULD change shape over time but this has been turned into an excuse for many companies to simply not finish a product in order to sell the rest of the program at a later date. It is true, that there's a fear of 'if you do your job as a software design company too well, you're going to basically design yourself out of business' but now that fear has fostered this other line of thinking of 'never give it all away ever'. There's a happy medium, I believe, and it has less to do with software and more to do with support and maintaining the software to deal with bugs (which obviously, no one's perfect and bugs do pop up even in good, well polished software, lots of times due to OS upgrades which are also unnecessary most days).

That said, I would love to see any program at all today Xara or even just a simple time wasting game being sold without expectation of 'upgrades'. I think this mentality is destroying the software as a whole and a lot of it has come about by this cloud updating possibility and always-on internet...when a 'patch' to fix bugs actually used to cost LOTS of money to ship out discs, companies would do everything in their power to make sure they wouldn't have to resort to any patches. These days because it costs very little to just upload a new patch and trigger within the already existing software a redirection to download and install a new patch vs. produce thousands of new discs to fix the problem, it's created complacency that 'just good enough to have something to use' is okay.

I think most people might agree that while Xara's features themselves have needed some fine tuning, in the past before this new paradigm, they shipped working a lot better than previous updates and versions. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but this is definitely true of Adobe products and certainly most other products I used. There was a big joke a few years back about Forza shipping with absolutely nothing on the disc other than a redirect to the publisher's server to download the finished game because the shipping date created a 2 day padding to fix some kind of bug. Rather than push back the ship date, they shipped essentially blank discs with day-1 patch fixes expected to be 'okay'. Yet, this is now the standard operating procedure for nearly all 'professionally produced' software. But it gives me the impression that nothing is professional at all, it's a bunch of people struggling to please investors or struggle to keep finding money where there is none.

To me, where the long term financial sustainability is lies in actual SUPPORT. When Adobe was charging 500$ for a boxed copy of Photoshop that came with a full color printed manual it also came with actual support; you could call someone or send an email and get direct help. This is virtually no longer the case. With Xara, it seems the support is the least of the worries; when it comes to operation they are redirecting people here to let other users help each other (which costs them nothing other than a server fee) and I imagine there's very little in the way of people actually dealing with technical questions about crashes/bugs and the like...

I know I'm a little long winded (I apologize...My school taught me how to type when I was 7 and I've only gotten faster through the years), but in essence, I know Xara is probably staffed these days by people 'following trends' and are being expected to 'turn around a flagging company' and other corporate nonsense that has little to nothing to do with me, or anyone else here using the product and that's precisely the problem. The product is not the concern anymore. When every company is literally putting out half finished garbage, then what's the incentive for Xara to do the same? To me, it's all the incentive in the world, but unfortunately the mass population seems to have been conditioned to expect 'upgrades' where they are simply unnecessary and companies use the term 'upgrades' in place of what's really going on which is 'finishing up a half finished product'.

It's troubling and affects everyone so I hope people at some point wake up to this as I see it as a large consumer issue that is hurting a lot of us. Upgrading is not a necessity for anyone except a company with no long term plans, imo. Again, if car companies practiced 1/5th of what software companies do, it would be deadly.

[maksimon]

Do you buy a car with option to upgrade later to get the gas pedal installed and simply have a frame with seats and no wheels and no gas pedal, but a really serious engine? No, you buy a complete car that drives you from here to there. You know up front what it's performance is, how it handles, how many it seats, etc.

I understand what you're saying but unfortunately there is no possibility to describe in detail the error in your reasoning. These things cannot be compared. If I could speak fluently in English, I have proved you that you are wrong trying to compare these things. Maybe someone else will explain to you ...