AJ

Firstly apologies to everyone, I appear to have created yet another epistle so please feel free to ignore it.

This reply took a little longer because it covers a lot of ground most of it irrelevant to the original post.

I am not saying your ideas for improvement to CorelDRAW are incorrect but let us look at the history of the two products in some detail from my subjective point of view.

Around the time of CorelDRAW 4, Xara first appeared and it was scary to both Corel and its users.

The benchmark drawing back then (I still have copy) was SNOWBARN.CDR, on typical hardware this drawing could take a minute to render in Draw, it was full of complex blends.

As I recall, Xara released a viewer demo or save disabled version of Xara 1.0 on cover disks in the UK that allowed you do look at and import Draw files, this drawing rendered in something under 10 seconds, I think six, on the same hardware and it anti-aliased it so it looked better.

Add to this the transparency, interactive tools, polygons and the ability to apply almost all effects what ever the object (blended groups etc) and Corel had to do something.

So they purchased the marketing rights to Xara and relaunched the product as CorelXARA (Although after the initial launch did very little else, stifling it, no arguments there)

I assume that Corel also got to look at the code base as part of the deal.

A lot of Xara features started to appear in CorelDRAW from then on culminating with Draw 7 (6 had some Xara features), interactive tools, polygon etc and for this I am grateful, but the underlying way in which Corel reproduces the vectors for output did not change, there must be a reason for this. I do not believe it was simply because the speed advantage of coding in machine code and trying to plug this code into Draw, or converting Xara's core code to C being to difficult is entirely responsible, I think that deep down inside the packages, whilst both are working with vectors they have chosen different paths for press output regarding vector 'effects'.

It is my belief that most of the changes you have asked for, with the possible exception of mixing contour and blend effects would fundamentally alter the path Draw has chosen.

It may also be possible to have uniform transparency effects blend from start to end shape and still maintain vectors on press output.

Which path is correct, I do not know, I am happy for Draw and Xara to co-exist, each has its strengths and weaknesses.

The two graphics on my (primitave) web page were initially done in Xara X, for some reason I got brighter more effective colours and the bevel/transparency effects were easier to achieve, the melting bit was manually done in photo-paint.

Wanting to have one package, at this stage of the software developement game, do everything is admirable but not always achievable, if you check out the Corel newsgroups, most users there feel that Draw has enough twiddly bits already, what is really needed is a refinement to the existing code (e.g. bug fixes), better interoperability with Photo-Paint etc.

However as Xara exists to overcome Corel's shortcomings and visa versa why not simply use both. I may have nearly 11 years invested in learning and using Corel products, but if something better comes along that fulfills my daily working requirements then I will not hesitate to use it.

Currently I use Xara as a secondary product to the Draw suite, because of the type of work I do. I look at the job in hand, break it down, based on my knowledge of each products strengths and weaknesses and use which ever package produces the best results for each part of the job in the time alloted. Note: in my case just looking good is not always enough, sometimes the finished file size for exporting to a Publication package or PDF is just as important. Also important is changing the file at a later date, here Xara has the advantage as all of its effects are native, if you have to destroy a native object in Draw such as a blend group you loose the ability to easily re edit the drawing. Again I weigh up the pros and cons of each path chosen.

As for having to take the long approach to achieving a similar effect in Draw to that in Xara (where possible) at least you can do it and sometimes even automate the process, for most Draw users this is usually enough.

Regarding cropping bitmaps in Draw, did you know that every bitmap imported into draw has a default rectangular clipping path that is editable using the shape tool, simply add extra nodes to the clipping path and convert nodes to curves and pull/push/mould the path to the required shape.

Or place the bitmap on a locked layer, and manually created the clipping outline on an editable layer above it and powerclip the bitmap inside the shape.

I find it easier to convert mask to path in PhotoPaint and import the path into Draw and work with that, your mileage may vary.

Enough of my yakking, as I said at the start this is a subjective user's opinion and may have no basis whatsoever, in fact.

Peter

The style challenged Pete'sCrypt

[This message was edited by Peter Clifton on April 04, 2002 at 10:23.]