Will lack of 4K be the DEATH of Xara?

[ss-kalm]

I really dont agree with the statement that basically says "the interface was intuitive 25 years ago and it hasn't changed so now it's not intuitive."

I still think that Xara's learnin curve is quite small. Everything is where I expect it to be.

[shiphen]

I really dont agree with the statement that basically says "the interface was intuitive 25 years ago and it hasn't changed so now it's not intuitive."

I still think that Xara's learnin curve is quite small. Everything is where I expect it to be.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this.

All I'll ask is: Have you ever watched a computer-literate, Xara novice attempt to use Xara?

And if you say something like "yes lots of times, and they all absolutely loved and bought copies of Xara" how then would YOU account for Xara's commercial failure?

J

[gcellison]

Wow. This thread is both enlightening and depressing. Though I’ve been using Xara for over five years, I still consider myself a novice. I don’t do commercial graphics work, but my business’s website. The idea that after investing so much money and time, the software may disappear because it’s not keeping up with the demands is frustrating.

I agree that too much is being done for the Cloud and not enough for the software itself. Many of us have no interest or use for the Cloud.

But it seems that perhaps the unfortunate trigger for the changes in the company vision of Xara began when it was taken over by Magix. From product development to customer support, things have declined.

[browj2]

Wow. This thread is both enlightening and depressing. Though I’ve been using Xara for over five years, I still consider myself a novice. I don’t do commercial graphics work, but my business’s website. The idea that after investing so much money and time, the software may disappear because it’s not keeping up with the demands is frustrating.

I agree that too much is being done for the Cloud and not enough for the software itself. Many of us have no interest or use for the Cloud.

But it seems that perhaps the unfortunate trigger for the changes in the company vision of Xara began when it was taken over by Magix. From product development to customer support, things have declined.

Once again, false information.
1. The naysayers have been saying for years that Xara is dying. It has not and likely will not.
2. Magix did not take over Xara. Magix does the marketing and selling for Xara, not product development
3. Customer support goes through the Magix support page, and then I would expect that Xara queries are automatically forwarded to the Xara support people.

Oops, poor customer support? I raised a ticket yesterday, Sunday, I have a reply with a solution today, Monday.

As for shiphen's comments, I have PaintShop Pro and I managed to figure out, after a couple of years, how to draw a line and write some text over a photo. It is not obvious as you have to create separate layers to do this. You can't just drag a photo onto the arranger and then draw or write text on it. With Xara, just drag in a photo, draw a line or write text - no layer problems, nothing mysterious. If a computer-literate new user can't figure that out, then I would say that that user is not computer-literate, as there is nothing simpler than this, or they are just looking for something more complicated.

Commercial failure? By what standard? The company is still there and still producing and upgrading its software.

As for the title of this thread, has anyone put the question directly to Xara? I don't have a 4k screen, but I do have a 2736x1824 screen on my Surface Pro 4, and Xara works just fine.

[Acorn]

Once again, false information.
...
...has anyone put the question directly to Xara? I don't have a 4k screen...

"false" is somewhat strong as no one is trying to promote alternative facts. There is a perception that with Magix on support, being German, having no UK Xara directors and Xara Cloud being GmbH, then with Magix responsible for packaging and putting lots of nag-ware options in the product, there is a belief that there is a strong Magix / Xara Cloud influence on the delivery of features and the rectification of bugs. Magix does not own Xara. [See P.P.P.S. below]
4k presentation of the XARA UI has been asked of Xara over many years and the response is that it is on the list...

Recently, I have Dear Xara'd asking where the TG interaction has gone. The response is deafening: https://www.talkgraphics.com/search....rchid=8170391; two months of nothing.

Acorn

P.S. 4k offering 3840 x 2160 pixels is 150% resolution of your Surface Pro 4. Xara icons are about 32px square and menu text is around 12pt. scale these down by 66.67% and see what you reading position becomes.
3840px could present 120 button icons across the screen; my Align and Standard Bars have about 35 icons so visualise the xara application having its controls in the left-most one third of the full screen.

P.P.S. I would implore TG Mods not to close this Thread but rather move it to the Dear Xara Forum and use whatever back channels to get Xara to re-engage.

P.P.P.S.
Charles Moir Blog - http://charlesmoir.com/about.htm -

I sold Xara to a German public software company. Then started a new company 6 years ago doing cloud (web based) software.

Xara Group History - https://www.xara.com/uk/history/ -

In 2007 the company was purchased by the German multi-media company MAGIX. Xara continues as a separate company, but is now part of the MAGIX group and has seen rapid international expansion as a result. We have the same world class team of developers working on the design products that are our strength, but benefit from the considerable marketing and development resources of MAGIX.

Xara titles are now available under the MAGIX brand in German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian and Russian.

[gcellison]

Once again, false information.
1. The naysayers have been saying for years that Xara is dying. It has not and likely will not.
2. Magix did not take over Xara. Magix does the marketing and selling for Xara, not product development
3. Customer support goes through the Magix support page, and then I would expect that Xara queries are automatically forwarded to the Xara support people.

Oops, poor customer support? I raised a ticket yesterday, Sunday, I have a reply with a solution today, Monday.

As for shiphen's comments, I have PaintShop Pro and I managed to figure out, after a couple of years, how to draw a line and write some text over a photo. It is not obvious as you have to create separate layers to do this. You can't just drag a photo onto the arranger and then draw or write text on it. With Xara, just drag in a photo, draw a line or write text - no layer problems, nothing mysterious. If a computer-literate new user can't figure that out, then I would say that that user is not computer-literate, as there is nothing simpler than this, or they are just looking for something more complicated.

Commercial failure? By what standard? The company is still there and still producing and upgrading its software.

As for the title of this thread, has anyone put the question directly to Xara? I don't have a 4k screen, but I do have a 2736x1824 screen on my Surface Pro 4, and Xara works just fine.

I was responding to the thread up to that point and adding my observations. I didn’t mean to ruffle any feathers. I’ve done no investigation to know how well Xara is doing commercially, but I hope very well, as I (and many others) have invested much effort in learning it.

I’m glad your experience with customer support is good. For me, it’s been a bit slow (over a week to not until I sent them a reminder), and the answers I receive aren’t helpful. I find that I get much better advice if I post my question here on talkgraphics. And yes, the answers I got in the past from customer support were more helpful.

[handrawn]

thanks Acorn for digging out Charles Moir's commments and the reference from 2007

it seems clear from this that Xara GmbH are the cloud, and 'Xara of old' is now part of 'a german software company', Magix presumably; that has been my understanding ever since Xara GmbH was set up, but the status of the desktop development ongoing has never been made clear here on TG

Once again, false information.

sorry John, but if you have info that contradicts Magix owning at least part of Xara, perhaps you could share it ?

I recall Matt Bolton stating that 'Magix do not own Xara' but I am sure her was referring to Xara GmbH - no doubt if that is wrong he will drop by and put the record straight

Also I was very careful to stress that xara product never became mainstream, which is not a statement of failure in itself - lots of good apps are not, and that 'it' has now changed direction [again];

I would agree that is not 'commercial failure'

[browj2]

I stand corrected. I was going on the basis of what Matt Bolton said about Magix not owning Xara and missed the part about the Cloud part vs desktop. That said, I am sure that the Xara team has stated more than once that the Xara team, and not Magix, is doing Xara development and design, with Magix doing marketing type work. Maybe Rob can clarify how it all works on the Discord forum.

@Acorn, I don't see that you've joined the Xara forum on Discord. Rob-Xar is always logged in, even when he's sleeping it would seem, or listening to Spotify. And, with the exception of my posts yesterday and today, no one has posted anything there in a fortnight (how long is a fortnight?).

The point I really wanted to make is that some users start the doomsday ball rolling, like with this thread having the title "Will lack of 4K be the DEATH of Xara," and then others add a bit, others jump in after reading a bit but without understanding everything, and the next thing you know, Xara is going to the dogs, will die, Magix wants to get rid of Xara, it's all Magix' fault for whatever, and so on. Since Xara doesn't reply or no one tries to calm down these doomsday theories, people start to believe them.

Does this mean that if Xara fixes the 4K problem it won't die?

As for Magix marketing, I would like to point out that the marketing reach of Magix is far greater than that of whatever Xara had, now pretty much world-wide in many languages. The Magix.info forum has 6 languages. Xara problems in languages other than English, and even some in English, are raised on the Magix.info forum. Sadly, there is no TG for other languages, as far as I know.

Has anyone looked at the Magix.com website to see how the Xara line is presented? Here is just Xara DPX.

Another point, Magix has nothing else quite like Xara, at all. With the purchase of Sony Creative Software, Magix acquired many products that overlap with what they already had. Contrary to the naysayers who thought that Magix would dump either many of these or their competing legacy programs, Magix has managed to maintain, develop and improve most of these, if not all. Look at what they've done with Vegas. And at the same time, they have managed to develop and upgrade almost all of their legacy products. Xara itself is embedded in Magix's legacy video products (Movie Edit Pro, Video Pro X, PhotoStory), and is the go-to program for creating graphical overlays and masks. I can't see Magix not wanting Xara to succeed.