Add platform, it's done before...

[Michael]

Way back (around 1999) Computer Concepts tried to port Xara to Linux. The Xara LX package is still to be found in repositories .

I have been using Linux, out of curiosity, on a regular base. Xara ( tested up to v 18) runs under Wine, albeit starting the program takes considerable time. Xara LX can be added to the OS if one knows how to find the proper libraries.

Considering the direction Microsoft moves with Windows and the tribulations one has to make to make it work ( GPT-partioning, TPM-modules activated, UEFI-boot sequence) I expect a lot of people will jump the wagon and switch operating system/environment.

Would it be a good idea to revive Xara LX? Or could the folks at Gaddesden Place try to port the program to Linux? I certainly would be interested and knowing that the competition is sparse on Linux (only Inkscape on that territory) I believe that there lies a opportunity.

What are your thoughts?

[handrawn]

xara cloud is platform independant - I would not be surprised if xara gmbh's direction would be to put an online version of xara designer in place which would be platform independant; but of course, subscription based as pro+ is; this is not going to happen in the near future though

there is I think zero chance of it being ported to any other platform as a desktop program, not the way the company is moving

[pauland]

I don't see the market share for Linux being enticing for Xara and if they were to revive a platform based on market share it would probably be Mac.

Generally I think handrawn has the correct answer to your question.

Xara doesn't seem to have the resources to make another platform-specific port or the will to do so.

[bwood]

I’d kiss the ground if they made for Mac. The Mac platform is sadly lacking a program like Xara. There’s always Dreamweaver but that’s a heated discussion.

[Acorn]

Xara Cloud is an instance of Xara's Pro+ desktop application on Xara's servers (or Cloud).
It is a long way off being fit for creating rich websites that Pro+ is brilliantly capable of.
Xara have positioned Xara Cloud into a business-centric niche where branding is king.
Webbie stuff has taken a back seat.

The iteration cycle of making a design change in "previewing" is way too long.
Xara needs to be able to switch mode on a click.

What fun when Office 365 goes into the Cloud and we are running Windows through a browser on a Mac to then run our XDA through a browser.

Acorn

[Michael]

I'm quiet suprised by some of the answers.

I use Xara since its incarnation for what it was designed for in the first place: Drawing!.

And in that area it's unsurpassed. The fluidity and shear ease of (vector) drawing tools is what make Xara Designer stand out with the likes of Illustrator, Inkscape and can even hold it's own with Krita. Combined with its fast bitmap rendering and intricate use of Fx it's a illustrator's dream.

And, yes, it's capable of DTP and even can make web pages but first of all an illustrator's and drawing tool. And there is simply no other program as fast and fun to use. Considering the core program was made for the Acorn in the 90's I personally believe that a port would be feasable. (That was not a question)

[Acorn]

Considering the core program was made for the Acorn in the 90's I personally believe that a port would be feasable. (That was not a question)

Michael, being there at the time. Computer Concepts dropped Acorn Archimedes as the ANSI C library was not being maintained. So CC ported to Windows at a high cost. The speed of the application was dependent on ARM RiSC code, wildly superior to anything else around. BBC Basic managed to sit in 16kB of L1 cache and so whizzed along. Hitting Windows, CC had to bypass all the Window display libraries and routines to maintain speed. A Linux or Mac port would require a total rework of these.

Sorry to have answered your non-question as infeasible.

Acorn

[handrawn]

Considering the core program was made for the Acorn in the 90's I personally believe that a port would be feasable. (That was not a question)

xara is now a new company Xara GmbH and acorn's point:

Xara have positioned Xara Cloud into a business-centric niche where branding is king.

is also relevant to pro+ as far as I can see, and in the corporate business world linux is [still] nowhere; mac would make more sense, but that already has a lot of well established competition such as affinity

and the xara/magix channel basically takes what it is given and folows on behind

just go to xara.com and see how they pitch...

the program needs a re-write, and I see acorn has just posted on that score; serif did just that when they introduced affinity to replace drawplus, they rewrote it from scratch, if xara is to do this I would suggest only a platform independant direction makes sense, financially, and for the future as the company appears to see it

I am not a vector artist, I use xara to create asset [buliding blocks] which then get incorporated elsewhere and it is very good for that... but since transparency, feathering etc cannot be exported in a way that the other program Harmony can import, that is as far as it goes for me

but I am a raster artist; artists can get very attached to the tools they love, I understand what you are saying

[pauland]

. but since transparency, feathering etc cannot be exported in a way that the other program Harmony can import, that is as far as it goes for me

Doesn't Xara just flatten the output as a regular bitmap? I don't see how that would be an issue for a raster workflow.

Not a criticism, just curious why Xara's output doesn't fit for you.

For anyone wondering I think "Harmony" is Toon Boom Harmony.

[handrawn]

sorry... that is not what I meant... so here is the long explanation:

there are lots of different ways to draw cartoons for animation

most of the time, and especially with characters, I stick to the traditional black line art that is then coloured in and composited

I pencil/paper new designs, scan and then draw the line art in PaintTool-SAI [not to be confused with the vector app SAI] in PT-SAI I use a raster brush that is set to imitate a windsor and newton sable and I can ink the pencil in seconds with it [this takes a lot of practice folks] - vector I'd be messing with nodes for minutes, I wouldn't get the 'sketch' feel, and I'd have to touch-up the line widths by hand at least in xara, who's freehand tool has no artistic sensitivity when drawing

the black line art can then be vectorised directly into harmony and the rest done there
if its a static cartoon I can colur it in PT-SAI which allows useful things like colouring in unclosed shapes

I call this producing art

When I say I am a raster artist, I mean when I paint or produce a stand alone 'piece of art' digitally, I use corel painter, as in:

https://www.talkgraphics.com/attachm...0&d=1533411544

which was done for another place under another username

english is a very woolly and imprecise language at times...