Quote Originally Posted by JokeArtist View Post
... as I said before I don't think that there are any developers left at Xara Ltd that actually understand the inner workings of the programme to make such simple changes ... it seems like all superficial work that goes on ... either adding a new extension here or a conservatory there. But no changes to the underlying structure of the vector engine (i.e. the wiring and plumbing of the house) or additional improvements to make it a better drawing tool.
Your thinking is incorrect (as well as somewhat insulting). There are still developers working on this product that have been doing so since the very beginning and there are other developers that have come along since that have a very good understanding of the inner workings. Your description of the recent changes as "superficial work" is grossly inaccurate. The fundamentals of the entire rendering system were rewritten not very long ago (around the time that live effects were introduced) and various of the v5 changes have also required considerable alteration of fundamental parts of the program.

Even an apparently simple change such as symetrical bezier node editing is actually a lot more complex than it appears. Not only does the UI need to be updated but all parts of the program that deal with creating or modifying bezier path objects need to be checked and/or modified to handle the changes in a consistent and logical manner. This would all take a considerable amount of time (which is a very precious commodity in software development) and it has been decided that the time is better spent on features that are more likely to provide a (decent) return on the investment.

Gerry