Quote Originally Posted by webmaster View Post
Hard on the heels of our recent product update, we’ve just added a large selection of new templates to Web Designer & Web Designer Premium. If you have a current Update Service you’ll see them already in your Online Content Catalog.
In particular we’ve added some modern new web themes, which you’ll find under Single Page Websites and (in Premium only) Business Themes. Plus there are new presentations and social media graphics in Premium, 4 new Tables and lots of interesting new Text Panels.
You can find more details in the current Release Notes @ http://releasenotes.xara.hosting/web-designer/
We hope you enjoy the new content!

Kate Moir
Kate, for the Smart Tables alone, Xara seems to have a busted flush and all it is doing is shuffling its hand.

A few observations:
  1. Did the Xara tester actually try to add a link to the Table 08 Sign Up block and use it? Even if you link the text, there is a span that cannot be linked so the jump link breaks right through the middle of the cell.
  2. Growing the cell rows leaves behind the embedded shapes in Tables 01, 03, 04 and now Tables 07 & 10.
  3. None of the elements under any "smart" SmartShape Group, when picked on the design page it is not highlighted in the Page & Layer gallery when using the Locate function. This completely wrecks any meaningful workflow.
  4. Why does any part of a Smart Table have unnamed colours? Try changing a cell colour when you cannot tell if it is a Theme.


Text Panels. I am at a total loss to the benefit to anyone of having "Shape with text 19". Text bleeds across the blobs; it is not "smart" so I have to select the inner shape and modify it. If this ever appears on a published website, I will be gobsmacked.
Of course, I was first attracted to "text 19" by the misspelling of a Greek-derived word mixed in with Latin Lorem Ipsum text.

I have diligently searched for the heralded "1 smart shape" in the Release Notes to no avail. What might it be?

In inventing the Online Content Catalogue and hiding all the Design content within the Update Service wrapper, Xara has done its Customers a major disservice.
At worst, there should be permanently accessible content; let's say, it is all version 10 material before the main rot set in. The rest, Business Templates, new Smart Shapes and the like can be "premium" content that is only part of the Update Service cover.
At best, it should be everything the version can handle. What are we stealing? A few HTTP calls. What are you gaining? More than you might realise.

Acorn