Did you know... III

[Acorn]

Xara Tip of the Day:

You can copy the fill colour from the selected object to any other object. Drag the 'current fill colour' patch from the left end of the Colour Line onto an object.

Now this is very useful.
Xara doesn't cover it in its Help file.

Nor does it mention you can use Drag to bring the Line fill colour across.

Nor does it mention the Start and Stop colours of a Fill can be dragged.

Nor does it mention you can drop any of the dragged colours onto a Line of another Shape.

Nor does it mention you can do the same with the patches in the Colour Editor (top right).

Acorn

[handrawn]

xara help is basic...

I learn't this by experimenting all those years ago....

good to point it out

[cmpan1]

Also learned most of these features from... just being around long enough and experimentation. Yes Acorn, Xara is full of great tricks & methods & systems... even if Xara/Magix doesn't let one know. (Go figure )

I monitor the valid beefs you & others have and don't disagree. The thing that puzzles me most is that if XARA/MAGIX focused, refined and promoted and supported XDesigner Desktop & its users, I believe
they would OWN the market... worldwide. I wonder who the powers that be over there are, and why they can't see that XD is a one-of-a-kind app and it 'COULD' easily compete with and far surpass
90% of the competitive market... even Affinity.

I just do not understand their lack of vision. You can't imagine how many times I'm asked, "what software did you use to do that"?.... because they can't do what I do IN ANY of their apps.
And for MAC users, their face drops because they can't use it. I have never shown here most of what I do with XD because it's proprietary stuff... But they can't figure out how I can mock-up so many
different types things, so fast, and upload. And when they're viewing, how I have notes popping up, and animated arrows pointing to specific things and on and on. How I can have them look at a section
that needs changing and all they do is click on it, and a corrected graphical version pops up right above it in place showing them exactly what is would look like. (pop-up layers)

And I get that XARA is jumping on the 'online' 'sharing' 'team' 'branding' design format— following the infinite numbers of existing ones and new ones popping up everyday. Maybe they COULD create a great
online app? But they will NEVER be GREATER than many of the big ones out there that are doing it very well. They will just become one of the pack and do battle for users. But they COULD OWN
the desktop market of millions if they had enough drive, understanding and vision... which sadly, and obviously, they do not.

I use Xara-Cloud (very little if any) and have used and subscribed to at least three of the top ones out there. (yeah, they all some clever tricks) But I have always had an 'unstable' feeling using them. There's
just something about OWNING, on MY PUTER a piece of software that I take care of. There's a tangible feeling there... I feel solid on desktop apps. No damn servers! No damn wifi! Just me, my puter & software.

Anyway... It's just that is a damn shame... yes sir, a damn shame.

Oh well, ya takes what get and makes the best outta it!

(my being bored Corona rant)

Cliff

[ss-kalm]

Cliff, I couldn't agree more. Every piece of graphic/photo software I use, whilst using it, I think I could do this easier and faster in Xara, it's generally more intuitive and includes most of the capabilities of the other programmes.

[handrawn]

yes well..... assuming what you say is true cliff, the boat has nevertheless sailed, it is too late in the day

and there are so many things xara designer cannot do, and so if you need these things, then you are going to look at it differently; if you don't and all you do is covered by the program, then fair enough

for example xara does not do:

winding rule options
outline position options [outside-midway-inside] - this is often a real time waster
it's animation is basic [and that's being kind]
it's bitmap handling capabilities are tailored !00% towards non-destructive editing, which is actually limiting in many respects
it does not do greyscale colour space
it's cmyk is a pain to use [this may be a bit personal]

mock-ups is what xara does very well indeed [as long as you don't want CAD accuracy] - but in a project there is so much more; the hare does not always win the race

[Acorn]

My tuppence-worth is the Xara Desktop application allows the designer to be creative; the more it focuses on SmartShapes, it detracts from that design seed growing.
Cliff is productive and in certain markets that wins. I create something the hard way. I learn from it and the second is very structured. Thereafter my designs ease back and become innate.
Perhaps others do not have the patience to learn these days?

Acorn

[hseiken]

yes well..... assuming what you say is true cliff, the boat has nevertheless sailed, it is too late in the day

and there are so many things xara designer cannot do, and so if you need these things, then you are going to look at it differently; if you don't and all you do is covered by the program, then fair enough

for example xara does not do:

winding rule options
outline position options [outside-midway-inside] - this is often a real time waster
it's animation is basic [and that's being kind]
it's bitmap handling capabilities are tailored !00% towards non-destructive editing, which is actually limiting in many respects
it does not do greyscale colour space
it's cmyk is a pain to use [this may be a bit personal]

mock-ups is what xara does very well indeed [as long as you don't want CAD accuracy] - but in a project there is so much more; the hare does not always win the race

I typically use the outliner instead of line. I think my brain just thinks that way as it is. I think my biggest gripe with Xara is really a complaint with Illustrator in that they haven't kept up with Adobe's file format at all, making loading up anything exported as AI basically garbage. I expect some stuff to be broken as that's Adobe's entire business model: Use it's position as 'standard' knowing people are forced to use it in many cases and lock everyone out by constantly changing file format, creating an artificial paywall, but even programs like GIMP can keep up moderately well with the Photoshop format as long as you don't use any very specific GIMP effects.

I ran into issue recently where I needed to work with someone using Illustrator and neither program loads SVG worth a damn. If I recall correctly, at least Xara can kinda load/export SVG, but Illustrator was just ignorant to the format completely, hilariously so, since that's a web standard format. Gotta love business practices and trying to force people to a format. I wish Imaging and video formats would just agree on format like the audio industry basically has. Everything can load MIDI, WAV and AIFF, allowing anyone to recreate a project in any other software. But nope, it's gotta be a PITA for vector...either you just export rasters and continue on from there, or...?????

Competition creates headaches for us on the user end and really the competition is workflow and features, not format.