Hi Frank—

I'm sorry I threw a chapter on fractal math at you yesterday, when a paragraph on Fractal Plasma would have done.

I agree that Xara Designer has room for improvement with its implementation of fills. And drawing tools, and other features.

First, it was the "Shades of Grey" I was getting at. Your comment, "... in my opinion its a pointless bitmap tile fill", was painting the feature "black", so to speak. It has some use, but not enough to fill your needs as an artist.

And finally (I can hear the applause from everyone!)—as the person responsible for moderating this area, there are to date over 2,000 visitor incidents (readers of this thread) while there are only 20 posts and most of them are from the same 5 members. In theory, this could mean that for every post, there are 100 people reading the post.

I have some sort of ethical responsibility to post a reply to a post that presents an opinion that paints something black, or white, Frank. Because The Xara Group, Ltd. foots the bill for this forum, and because a post that impacts on a reader in a way that they might choose not to even try the product...doesn't serve the folks who would like some revenue as an indirect result of hosting a largely uncensored forum.

I hope that doesn't come across as too much of a suck-up. I've never been an evangelist for a product, nor a brand loyalist. My "religion" is Art; I see absolutely no reason to cripple one's self in the Art field for the sake of getting a pat on the head from a software corporation.

I try to field possibilities here, ones that contribute to a reader's ambitions. I want aspiring artists to get happy with Xara Designer if they bought it, by showing some creative examples. If they haven't bought the program, I feel it's my responsibility to show the program off a little. And if an outside party such as Image Skills offers something that can't natively be done in Xara, I try to be one of the first to point this out.

I'm not attempting to nurture an argument here when none truly exists. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, Frank: I have plenty of better places to do that, where I draw more attention.

Short version:
• Fractal Fills in Xara need work, the deployment is on the wimpy side=agreed.
• Fractal Fills in Xara are a a pointless bitmap fill= disagree.

My Best,

Gary