Did you know... II

[Acorn]

If you have bought Xara Web Designer Premium (XWDP), it has much of the functionality as Xara Designer Pro X (XDPX).
Some of the missing functions would be useful to access in XWDP as you could at least use them even if you could not Edit.
Well Xara Xtreme 5 Silver (XX5S) is still available and can act as your Editor for these missing functions.

Download XX5S from http://downloads.xara.com/downloads/...08_08_2012.exe. [225.15MB]
Xara also has a Xara Xtreme Pro 5 download [69.96MB], which is a different beast.

What do you get?

• An application that runs out of the box with no registration or licence needed.
• Access to a Designs Gallery with an interesting collection of content, usable in XWDP.
• Utilities > Bitmap Tracer. Not the best but the same as in XDPX.
• Utilities > Galleries > Name gallery. Use Stretches with Named Text and Shapes to create Photo Stretch Panel and stretchy Buttons.
• Freehand & Brush Tool > Create Brush. These are Scatter brushes but they are very powerful in their capabilities. Use Create Brush then Edit Brush.
• Contour Tool.
• Blend Tool.
• Live Effects Tool. Still works as it is a 32-bit application.

Limitations:

• 32-bit application.
• I open XX5S first as it otherwise hangs. You might need to load it as Run as administrator. I find it hangs on restart if another Xara Desktop application had been open - just quit and reopen.
• Old-style Transparencies.
• Doesn't understand Variants and Supersites.
• I just can not get used to the gallery windows opening and finding them in their last position. It is just so uncanny!

Do open the Help files of XX5S and XWDP and discover other functions that I have not covered.

Acorn

[handrawn]

nice one

i remember the pre dock galleries

[wizard509]

Thank you Acorn, Ths prompted me to look at me past versions to see if I had it but alas no. I do have X1, 2.0f, v9,and v11 as well as XDP8, V9 and v11 still installed.

[Acorn]

Thank you Acorn, Ths prompted me to look at me past versions to see if I had it but alas no. I do have X1, 2.0f, v9,and v11 as well as XDP8, V9 and v11 still installed.

You can download and install it regardless of purchase; it was a magazine freebie originally.

Acorn

[wizard509]

OK Thanks Acorn.

[Acorn]

Oh, I forgot to mention: no Magix! It was just about this time I believe it started cooperating with Xara.

Acorn

[louyo]

Oh, I forgot to mention: no Magix! It was just about this time I believe it started cooperating with Xara.

Acorn

Thanks, did require registration but was free.

Lou
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.

[Acorn]

Thanks, did require registration but was free. Lou

Lou, thank you for clarifying.

Acorn

[gcellison]

Though I downloaded this program when you first posted, time has only now permitted that I explore a little. Thanks, Acorn, for bringing it to our attention! (BTW, the only Xara product I have used is XWDP v10-present, so these features were new to me … unlike for XDP users.)

My impressions:
The designs gallery has a lot of well done stuff, but I didn’t find too much of pertinence. Admittedly, I don’t do graphics design or print publication, so someone else might find them more applicable.
The bitmap tracer is cool. Not sure it I’ll use it for website design, but if the need arises, I’ll have it available.
The name gallery is an awesome idea. If something along those lines was in use in Xtreme 5 back in 2011, WHY has Xara not incorporated it in all of the current programs? However, short of opening a .web file in Xtreme 5 (which would perhaps result in chaos), I see no way of taking advantage of this feature for WDP365 projects.
Create brush is awesome as well. Since the brush style is internal to the document, it can’t be accessed directly by WDP. (In fact, the document has to be opened in Xtreme 5 for a brush style be used in another Xtreme 5 project.) I did find, however, that if you create the style in Xtreme, you can copy it and paste it in your XWDP project as XaraX Document data type, and the style will appear in the options for the Freehand & Brush tools for that project! Very useful. It will not remain as a permanent style, but it can be accessed if the document containing it is open. And of course, you can't make modifications to the brush style in WDP.
The Contour tool can create some nice graphics that can be copied over into WDP. The program remembers that they are contour, and it can manipulate the colors and line widths, just not the contour-specific tools. So if you know at least the contour aspects, you can create it in Xtreme 5 and then copy / paste it in WDP to implement a few details. Quite nice.
The Blend tool has similar restrictions. You can edit the entities in the blend, and a type of blending functions (i.e., the interim graphics are altered), but the way they do so is not identical to what happens when the Blend tool is used in Xtreme 5. Nevertheless, between the two programs, you can get some nice results.
A majority of the Live Effects are found in WDP under the Photo tool slideout, but a few that are more sophisticated are not (3d bump map, AV Bros, Redfield, Mehdi). Again, the work can be done in Xtreme 5 and copied over to a WDP project, as long as no further subsequent modifications are needed.

All in all, the “old” Xara Xtreme 5 is a great asset to have to supplement WDP for its limitations. That it’s free is as much the cake as the icing ��. Thanks again, Acorn, for the heads up to those of us who haven’t been using Xara products long enough to be familiar with it.

[ss-kalm]

Mehdi and Redfield both have free plugins that will work with Xtreme 5 Silver.