Next version of Xara Extreme

[kandy44]

I'd love an Eraser!.....lol

[Big Frank]

I'd love an Eraser!.....lol

Why?

[Robbie Tighe]

Magic Wand?

or greater compatibility with photoshop eps

[MarkMyWords]

Well there are work-a-rounds that can emulate a magic wand and even an eraser (maybe the align problem too), but they take far longer than in a program which has those tools as standard, such as most bitmap editors.

Again, such work-a-rounds would take a mouse click (or two) with actions/macros.

[Soquili]

Why would you want so many raster tools in a vector program?

[Tallis]

I think the draw of Xara is that it is fast and versatile, and smart. So many things live on the raster side of the tracks, that many people it seems HAVE to deal with raster images-- old logos, photography, scans, catalog items, albums, etc-- that they enjoy the bitmap features built into the program.

Xara has ALREADY built in more bitmap features into the program, we can ask them why they did it as well. All I can say is Im happy that I dont need to open up photosop. I have 1.25GB RAM and a 3000MHZ processor, and although PS works fine, it sucks down ram and slows me down, so subconciously I just dont like to click in the icon really... . Xara open in a flash and I enjoy not leaving it.....

Anyway, you know more about this than I do, but at least I can give a newcomer's perspective.

[MarkMyWords]

Well the magic wand and eraser are both very useful and intuitive.

If you create a line drawing in Xara with many areas enclosed by overlapping lines, it is perfectly possible to create solid objects for the enclosed spaces (all at the same time) and keep the lines as individual objects, but that takes much longer and is more complex than selecting the areas with a magic wand.

The operaton can be automated with a macro/action, as can many other useful techniques or repetitive tasks.

I often need to apply clipview and export a series of layers from a single drawing. It would be great if one action hid all the other layers, selected all objects in the layer to be saved, applied clipview, set the export options and saved the layer.

And this is a relatively simple example, I use actions in Photoshop extensively, they must save me hours of repetitive work everyday.

[MEB]

I think the draw of Xara is that it is fast and versatile, and smart. So many things live on the raster side of the tracks, that many people it seems HAVE to deal with raster images-- old logos, photography, scans, catalog items, albums, etc-- that they enjoy the bitmap features built into the program.

Anyway, you know more about this than I do, but at least I can give a newcomer's perspective.

I still don´t understand why are people trying to work, and request more features to work with, raster images in Xara Xtreme being the program a vector application...
I know it´s intuitive and easy to learn but that shouldn´t be a reason to use it as a raster/bitmap editing program. And even less to bloat it with tons of raster editing features.

There´s plenty of image editing programs out there, very powerfull (Photoshop), easy to use (Corel Paint Shop Pro), and even free (the GIMP) that not only have all those requested features and more, as well as some vector tools, for precise selection and manipulation of pixels.
So, why not use those instead?

If what people want is mainly work with raster images, then use an image editing application and take advantage of the vector tools included in the software.

If they prefer work with illustration/drawing then just pick a vector application with some basic/complementary raster features. Something that Xara already have.

Why trying to deeply mix features of diferent types of applications with diferent goals and purposes in one same application?
Vector drawings are supposed to be resolution independent (scalable) and precise while bitmap/raster images are resolution dependent (not scalable). So what´s the point in mixing both types of images and loosing some of their advantages?