Upgrade Xara pro19?

[shiphen]

Yes, the subscription model may suit regular users, and the accountants of software developers love it (!), but as I have explained it does not suit irregular users.

In truth the subscription model is a great rip-off to many people who either forget that they have subscribed (it always adds up to more than you think) or people who it turns out may not use the product for many months.


Yes, coffee is arguably grossly over-priced too. e.g. Since your raise it, if I had a Starbucks Latte every day for a year it would cost £1,226.40 (from £3.36 x365)


But forget money, within this context I value my own time more than I value my money. And over the years, I have invested a lot of my own time learning Xara Designer and I don't particularly want to learn another system just because of the idiots who run software developers.

e.g. I tried Affinity Designer but found the UI almost unusable.
e.g. A lot of professional designers seem to use Adobe Illustrator. Looking over the shoulder of my designer I thought that it looks quite impressive, (at least lines terminate at the point of the arrows heads! ;^P )... however suffers from the "Licensing virus" and can only be rented... for about GBP 260/year last time I looked.


Xara has been a wonderful product but over the years, their senior managers have made a LOT of poor decisions. (e.g. Anyone remember the dreadful deal they did with Corel - who had vastly inferior product called CorelDraw... but who took Xara off at the knee-caps by [deliberately?] failing to promote it... )

Either way as a matter of principle, I shall never rent software, personally I choose to only ever pay a fixed amount of money for the work that has gone into a product.

Yes, I don't HAVE to buy Xara. I have been a Xara user since Xara Studio - about 1996 - and I have been telling anyone who will listen how good it is for many years.

However despite my broad loyalty, Xara have mostly failed to return the compliment and in my opinion have their upgrades have been GROSSLY overpriced compared to the value that I get out of them. For this reason I have skipped most of the upgrades.


XARA FEEDBACK

Meanwhile back to Xara v20, the Xara operative Matt says the following:

"... Xara v20 software license has most of the features in the Plus v23 product except for some recent releases and Modular Websites / Blocks."

"Thus Xara v20 is 'broadly' up to date with many of the Plus releases in 2023."

And he feel that the idea that v20 is "a couple of years" behind Xara Designer Plus is "completely inaccurate".


IS v20 WORTH IT?
It sounds like the jury is out. So I shall wait until I have a more pressing need for Xara before I upgrade.


J


PS Fwiw, one of the main things I like to use Xara for is editing PDFs. I also like using Xara for simple 2D engineering visualisations. This is mainly because I am used to it... and because I like the way that rotations, transparency, anti-aliasing work. (Weaknesses: Arrowheads on lines have always worked 'incorrectly'. Circular radiuses are almost impossible to draw... but Xara have never seemed interested in fixing either problem.)

[handrawn]

thanks for passing on Matt's comments; Matt by the way is xara's CEO, I guess you might call him an operative, but he is one helpful guy

I tell you this: I truely value my own time so i would never worry about losing out on what for me are small sums because life is too short; I appreciate you think differently and i respect that

btw: there is coffee... and there is coffee; and in business overheads have to be factored in

[Acorn]

...it seems to me that, except for the exclusions mentioned in the email link, xara designer pro 20 [perpetual] has most of the features listed in designer pro+ release notes up to march 23; in any case some of the said exceptions were not released until after march... ...could be wrong but there is certainly a lot more than in version 19

It is good to hear that v20's upgrade will not leave users 2 years behind the Plus versions.
We had the 'strange' Xara Web Designer 19.0.2.67264 P x64 Jul 21 2023 and eventually v20 Perpetual around 12 November 2023. Neither were especially marketed to us in great detail.
I accept @handrawn's assessment that v20 Perpetual is roughly equivalent to a Plus version around March.
This would be v23.0, 13 March 2023, as that precedes the introduction of Web Blocks in v23.1 as at 24 May 2023.

We have had no confirmation that v20 will be upgraded annually but pricing seems this is a good guess.

Well if v20 Perpetual equates to Plus v23.0 then by 12 November, it is necessarily behind Plus v23.5, 14 November 2023 on its release by 8 months and six updates.
If v20 Perpetual goes to v21 next November then v20 will have been 20 months behind. My original "behind by about two years" is not that far out.
You might generously put it that the Perpetual version will at best be 6 months behind and at worst 18 months behind, under favourable circumstances.

I would like three statements from Xara around the Perpetual product:
1. The upgrade period.
2. When Bugs will be remedied.
3. Whether Perpetual will only ever be one product unlike Plus variant.

Acorn

[Jonopen]

I would also be interested to know the official answers to Acorn’s questions.

I did find this page on Xara’s website talking about “Legacy products’’ although not sure if it’s just an old rogue/obsolete webpage left over from the Magix era.

https://www.xara.com/compare-plusplans/

It contains the following bullet points:

• Standard Features The basics to get design done.
• Higher upfront commitment Buy one version and own it. Purchase yearly upgrades.
• Yearly Upgrade Simple improvements & fixes

[handrawn]

My original "behind by about two years"

that was you... somehow I thought it was xara's estimate... sorry

1. The upgrade period.
2. When Bugs will be remedied.
3. Whether Perpetual will only ever be one product unlike Plus variant.

Acorn

+1

specifically bug fixes

[handrawn]

@ jono

pretty sure 'legacy' is magix

XDA20 perpetual is not legacy

[RKissane]

One of the things that really bothers me is that Xara is charging a price that was comparable to the upgrade price in the past but the program is 2 versions old. There is no way I can justify paying for this when it is this far out of date.

It is one of the reason Affinity is a better option if you are not doing web sites.

Ray

[Spamiky]

Only the price is terribly high, I already bought XARA several times, 10, 11, 15, 18 I sent XARA enough money and now I have to buy again for 120 euro almost the same version (20) that I have (19) and that's without Online catalog and no updates. Now there is an error and if there are no updates, the error will probably remain there. It's a shame. I don't make a living from the web, I work for the non-profit sector, so XARA will no longer receive money from me.

[MB365]

One of the things that really bothers me is that Xara is charging a price that was comparable to the upgrade price in the past but the program is 2 versions old. There is no way I can justify paying for this when it is this far out of date.

It is one of the reason Affinity is a better option if you are not doing web sites.

Ray

Hi Ray,

Xara v20 being 2 versions old is not accurate.
https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...373#post658373