Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11

[mwenz]

Mike,

I think Designer Pro already has the basic photo manipulation tools. The program is not a bitmap editor...

Yes, I know. I should have quoted Albacore as I took what was written to mean no photo tools, I didn't do the quote is all.

Mike

[Albacore]

Mike got it in one, no photo tools. It just was my attempt to be funny which didn't work but I wasn't really trying I was was being honest. I just think back to when I started using Xara or at least to the Pro introduction when we got PDF export along with, if memory is right "Live Effects" tool in the tool bar. It suited my work flow right down to the ground as I could get my work out there and get it printed. It also suited, as I was working in offices which demanded Illy compatible files, as I could do the basic work in Xara and then export it into AI. I could get things to print and do it quicker than my counterparts who were using AI

How far has it gone since then, well I can now import/export PDF's, I have a better text engine, text in PDF's are not exported as shapes or single lines and maybe a few other advancements in vector tools but nothing to write home about. Think about what Adobe has introduced to AI over the same, as it was the dead slow vector programme at the time. I don't like doing this as Adobe has a huge staffing level to throw at improvements and more importantly sales staff, symbols, vector 3D, mapping art on 3D shapes, Blob Brush, Bristle Brush, Image Trace, Gradients on Strokes, Fast Re-Draws (Mercury Performance), Vector Patterns, Perspective Drawing Grids, Live Paint, Separations Preview, Colour Guides, Stroke improvements and those are just the tools that I use there have been a lot more. Now I have only bought AI once (CS) and upgrade twice with my money and have been given another 3 upgrades through my work. If you counted up the total cost of AI upgrades and a similar number of Xara upgrades I am sure that the Xara costs would be just under half the amount spent.

I think it is right to separate the vector tools from raster tools as the two are totally different. The Adobe way has worked as it has kept their dominance in the market from the mid 90's till now but maybe using the Cloud might change things but it is hard to see as most other publishing to print programmes are doing the same thing.

[Nostaw]

1) A PROPER CMYK color preview.


2) Support of CMYK jpgs (without Xara reconverting CMYK back to RGB!).

[Nostaw]

1) A PROPER CMYK color preview.


2) Support of CMYK jpgs (without Xara reconverting CMYK back to RGB!).

Sorry for quoting myself but knowing that X11 PRO must be just around the corner, I need to stress how important a more correct CMYK color preview is and hope to see it in X11. In the last project Xara's CMYK color preview was no where near the final printed result, while Acrobat/Illustrator/Photoshop have been much more accurate all the way through. When I was working with the client next to me on the machine I always needed to stress "...colors will look very different in print!" and needed to export to CMYK PDF to view in Acrobat just for the color's sake, which was a tedious long time wasting process.

The colors in the example above are quite accurate, C:80% M:75% Y:50% K:50% turned out dark blue as displayed in Acrobat/Illustrator/Photoshop of the final print. Xara just had it pitch black on the screen, no blue at all. Thanks Xara if you are listening!

[Gare]

Sorry for quoting myself but knowing that X11 PRO must be just around the corner...

Well, the novice version is shipping now. This is a poor time to put in requests, Nostraw, as I'm sure all the new features haver been locked down for shipping.

My Best,

Gary

[timeodanaos]

Many thanks for your longtime help.