New forum member with some questions

[JJJayhawk]

Hi there,
I've been lurking on here for about a year, have also been using XDPX 12* for the last 11 months. My subscription is coming up on the 24th and I noticed that the tail end of the Steam 4th of July Sale had the XDPX 15 software for $99 for a new license vs $129 for a continuing license.

I went ahead and picked up the $99 license. I have a short window in which to return it, but was wondering whether I made the right choice here. Is anyone else using the Steam version and is it as stable as the non-Steam version? Is XDPX 16 around the corner and have I locked myself into the previous version that I already own?

Also, just for the record I love LOVE Xara's layout for my app dev process and LOVE the ease at which I can plot something out quickly.

What I'm doing now (because I don't see another way to do it) is I'm translating my graphics file in SVG over to Affinity Designer in order to take advantage of all the special effects built into AD. AD doesn't have as nice a gradient setup but the glows and other utilities like multiple-object-corner adjustments are something I'd love to be able to do in Xara.

I really enjoy Xara's ability to export exactly the size PNG for each element. What I am having to do though, is run that through AD where basically I have to create slices and export that way through the Export Persona. Frankly, it's a pain in the posterior and I keep wondering why Xara Pro doesn't have the same easy effects (3 clicks vs layer over layer) that AD does.

Is Magix going to help Xara's toolset mature to the point where I don't feel it necessary to translate my work over to AD every time I want to easily apply button effects and glows?

Thanks!