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

[Egg Bramhill]

I couldn't agree more Csehz. The tragedy is that the atmosphere of impending doom that runs throughout these forums goes totally unanswered by anyone in Xara. The new CEO Matt-Bolton posted a thread on the 30th November last year, now 6 months ago, and since 'The sound of silence', zilch!

HELLO XARA, IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE? TALK TO US!

[Scotty]

I agree Xara is going the way of the 'Do-Do" bird...pretty soon it will be obsolete..along with the supporters..
Jim

[jaydear]

...blocking on-line content is just petty. Acorn

I could not agree more. It is very sad that this combination of greed and the forceful approach will most probably repel the majority of the keen Xara user-base. I think that until recently Xara has been a very innovative and caring business. I imagine that Magix, like us, are not too happy about the downward spiral and user alienation since they bought it in 2007. How many times does it happen that rich companies buy a successful business and then proceed to destroy it before they try to understand it?

[David Strover]

Meanwhile, if you want to use Xara Cloud your every whim is being catered for time and time again.

Unfortunately, Xara Cloud does not help me in my projects or work I do for local sports teams and businesses.

The next Designer update will be I'm guessing a £99 subscription (or more) for a few middling updates during the year that don't really have an impact on the work I do. For the first time ever with Xara, that I have used for a long time, I'm begining to think there is no value for money here.

[onlye]

I haven't really found anything suitable yet. For websites I have looked at the Coffee Cup products and WYSIWYG WebBuilder. For general graphic design work I haven't found anything I like so far.

stevegill,

please share your exploration of website replacement software. i am also taking a look at Coffee Cup responsive designer and have downloaded WYSIWYG WebBuilder.
thanks,
eric

[David Strover]

stevegill,

please share your exploration of website replacement software. i am also taking a look at Coffee Cup responsive designer and have downloaded WYSIWYG WebBuilder.
thanks,
eric

Not sure what Mobirise is like but apparently it is free and gets good reviews.

[webmaster]

Guys, calm yourselves, please, there is no impending doom! Remember we have just released an update, and it had at least 2 features that have been much requested (tables and text in shapes). I thought you'd be pleased with those!! I know it was delayed, and that was bad for you and us, but remember it was still the third update in the last 12 months.

The Xara website has changed because Magix are now responsible for the marketing, we are focusing our marketing efforts on Xara Cloud, as we announced at the time. The Magix site gets MUCH more traffic than xara.com, so you shouldn't see that as an ominous thing for the future of Xara. The information is there on magix.com, and what's more much of it is still on xara.com for now (probably best to bookmark xara.com/products).

I know our CEO Matt has answered quite a few emails from TG members, and he has responded to some individual posts, plus there is a link to his Open Letter at the top of this page (which includes his email address). I don't think I can add any valuable extra info to what he says there, but I am trying to answer any new questions as they come up, and Rob from Xara support is also still visible here in the forums. We may not be doing the marketing any more, but desktop is still very much part of our lives!

Kate

[onlye]

Not sure what Mobirise is like but apparently it is free and gets good reviews.

David,

I have downloaded and played with Mobirise a couple of times. I am looking for a simple solution to build a website around the eCommerce solution we offer, ecwid. ecwid is designed to embed in an existing website. Works fine with Xara if you only have a desktop variant, they do not play nicely together with multiple variants. So I need a fairly simple responsive website builder. Unfortunately, you have to pay for the embed HTML code option so I can't test Mobirise and ecwid together. When I say unfortunately you have to pay, I don't have an issue with paying for tools I use. I just would like to be able to test it before I plop down money and it doesn't work.

While Mobirise is "free" their model is to provide a very limited product that is increased in value by additional purchases of templates, add-ons, etc. Also the pricing for the "bundle", I believe. is an annual subscription not a one time fee.

[Boy]

Look at post #8 in the following thread for some more alternatives: https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...as-Xara-silent. The post also contains a good analysis of the current situation with Xara and other companies.

[csehz]

How many times does it happen that rich companies buy a successful business and then proceed to destroy it before they try to understand it?

That can be even more as it might happen that Xara does not understand its own software anymore.

It is not unusual in the IT industry that a core team wrote a great tool which is so complex that the next programmers who try to understand finding it as a very hard task. Who knows maybe some key people have left since then, but these 'tables and text in shapes' kind of updates suggest that not touching the core part of the code as that would be too risky.

The last real update as I recall in Xara Designer was the Magnetic Lasso Tool, that had to be some real development as a new tool. If that was around 3 years ago or something like that, then I paid approximately 129$ + 129$ + 129$ as yearly update cost for around nothing. (maybe not in each year was 129$ but in this one sure).

You could ask okay so why did you pay then? Hard to answer, I was emotionally linked to the program, to the atmosphere on TG and on Xara Users forums, found online friends in learning together and so participated in a lot of tutorials on XaraXone and that still last. It seems there can be built a business on such ones