Does anyone know of a flowchart plugin for Xtreme or X?
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rich
Does anyone know of a flowchart plugin for Xtreme or X?
--
rich
No, but creating your own flow charts would be so simple that you don't really need one.
However, that's not really Xara X or Xtreme's purpose.
Perhaps it would be better to use a dedicated program instead.
Here is a link for a free flowchart program.
http://pcworld.com/downloads/file/fi...scription.html
-AF
Thanks for the link, but I've already tried out quite a few of these programs, and none of them, including this one (or the commercial version of it), have the features that I want. Besides, most of them have no antialiasing, which makes the result look quite terrible. Importing objects from other program like Xtreme is also poorly supported, or doesn't work satisfactorily.
What I want is something with all the drawing and import features of Xtreme, plus those special features of a flowchart program like line connection, automatic line routing, auto text formatting and alignment inside boxes etc. All the stuff that makes it easy to create flowcharts and different types of schemes and illustrations. I agree that you can make flowcharts in Xtreme, I have been playing a bit with it, but it's a lot more work without those particular standard features.
After I wrote this post I did however come across Inkscape. which as you may know is a vector drawing program much like xtreme. In the latest version they have included a couple of these flowchart features, perhaps they will include more in the future.
As far as I know. the Inkscape people and Xara are cooperating in some way, so who knows, perhaps those new features might be used for a Xara plugin also? Inkscape is also open source, so I assume these features are free to copy and use.
Besides, I think i might be quite profitable for Xara to have such a plugin. perhaps with some specially designes flowchart ciipart or templates. That conbination would probably beat any of the other flowchart programs available in versatility and features.
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Rich
Last edited by pauland; 16 October 2006 at 09:38 AM.
This subject has come back time and time again. Why Xara upper echelon choose to ignore this Visio-beating feature is beyond me, but ours is not reason why... I guess they are pitching Xtreme at a much lower market segment where the ability to flow-chart is not seen as a 'feature'. XaraX was released six years ago and, other than a few bitmap effects, it's still substantially the same program now that it was then. Xara is my design application of choice, and has been for 10 years, but that does not mean there's huge room for improvement, not in what it does, which it does impeccably, but in what it should do. But then I don't control or have access to their development budget which might be much smaller than we imagine.
If someone tried to make me dig my own grave I would say No.
They're going to kill me anyway and I'd love to die the way I lived:
Avoiding Manual Labour.
The request that you are making would really suit a DTP like InDesign or Serif's PagePlus and even InDesign it is a plugin to get an illustrative format. In Illy you get a data base tool which works quite well and its text engine formatting is one of its best feature but i really thing you should be going the DTP route. I have like many other people in this forum have requested a more professional approach to Xara's text engine the best one for a vector drawing package is Freehand's although this programme has been ignored by Adobe.
Have a look at Serif's pagePlus as you can pick up a slightly out of date version for very little money as it is a very under rated programme.
Design is thinking made visual.
Corel Draw has flow-charting symbols and automatic line placement. You might want to check that out.
Regards,
Alan
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