KVR Audio

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 4:51 pm

I'm considering Xara X to satisfy my need for a graphics program, and I was hinted that at least BONES is using this "Corel-clone". Could you (or someone else familiar with it) be so kind and share your comments on it's suitability to serious work?

I've been using CorelDraw for years, but I don't have access to a licenced version anymore and them adobes and corels can kill a wallet.

I'm doing both print & web graphics.

TIA,

Jon

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 1:13 am

Xara X1, the current version, finally supports CMYK colour so its better for print work than it once was. Whilst it shares some workflow with CorelDRAW it is really very much slicker and way simpler to use. It's bitmap handling is second to none which has meant that I use PhotoPaint far less than I used to.

It has tools for automagically creating button bars with java rollover states and GIF animations so its good for web work as well.

Its a well worn cliche around here but you should download the 15-day trial. Its fully functional and if you're familiar with Draw you should pick it up quite easily. The coolest things to check out are:

Transparency - Its easy and the results are incredible, especially with bitmaps.

Booleans - Adding, subtracting and intersecting shapes, even bitmaps, is very intuitive. Once you've booleaned a bitmap you can edit it's border shape just like any other vector object.

Shape/Line Editing - pushing line segments with the arrow pointer to mould shapes is awesome.

Soft Shadows/Bevels - The shadows are beautiful.

Re-Draw Speed - Pan around the viewport as fast as you can or grab a bunch of objects and shake them around and Xara will keep up all the time, no matter how much data is involved.

TeeLangSun · Post by **TeeLangSun** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 1:54 am

I've been using Corel Draw since version 4 (Now at version 12) and I downloaded Xara after reading what Bones said about it. I don't see any Reason to mention both of them in the same sentence. That's not to disrespect Xara since it only costs around $100.00, I wouldn't expect it to be anywhere near as great as Corel Draw, and it's not.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 2:19 am

Try this:

http://www.mediachance.com/realdraw/index.html

better at bitmaps than Xara and Corel Draw imho but also powerful vector and 3D features and a fraction of the price.

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 8:40 am

BONES, thanks for the input.

Its a well worn cliche around here but you should download the 15-day trial. Its fully functional and if you're familiar with Draw you should pick it up quite easily.

Yep, I downloaded the trial, and that's why I asked for opinions from more long-term users. See, my first impression is very good. It's obviously a Corel clone, so there is no learning curve for me - nice. Surprisingly for a budget app, Xara's "feel" is much better than CorelDraws - it appears somehow more reliable and redraw really is faster. And as you mentioned, those transparency & shadow tools are great.

I managed to crash it once, what do you say about stability?

I don't see any Reason to mention both of them in the same sentence.

TeeLangSun, care to elaborate on this? I feel quite the opposite.

aMUSED, I'll check this Realdraw out as well.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 8:56 am

TeeLangSun wrote:I've been using Corel Draw since version 4 (Now at version 12) and I downloaded Xara after reading what Bones said about it. I don't see any Reason to mention both of them in the same sentence. That's not to disrespect Xara since it only costs around $100.00, I wouldn't expect it to be anywhere near as great as Corel Draw, and it's not.

Really!?! In what respect? Sure it has a shitload more tools and it handles text much better but in every way that counts - quality, speed, ease of use - Xara X1 kraps all over it.

In the name of one-upmanship I should point out that I started with CorelDRAW 3, although I did lose interest at v7 until about two years ago when I updated to v10. I have since updated to v12 and even though it looks to have some great new tools I still always end up back in Xara X1 because I can get my work done so much faster. If I spent my days laying out type-heavy brochures I would probably prefer Draw but for everything else I'll take Xara X1 every time.

Stability is good to incredibly good and, if the initial release of Xara X is anything to go by it will be completely bulletproof by Xmas. i.e. The first release of Xara X had a few bugs but they were all ironed out in a couple of patches just a few months after the initial release.

Redraw is so freakin' fast because the new version has a completely rewritten render engine. It's also much smarter in the way it saves embedded bitmaps because no matter how many copies of a bitmap you include in a document it only saves the bitmap once and references it for each instance on the page.

And just in case you're wondering, I keep updating Corel because I use PhotoPaint, Draw is just a bonus. I also downloaded RealDRAW and even printed out the manual [at work] but that was as far as I ever got with it.

DuX · Post by **DuX** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 9:45 am

Xara X is just excellent and works much faster than any other vector drawing program. Try the demo and you'll see. Also it's got very small footprint and it's compatible with photoshop plugins. I use it for drawing studio projects - racks, acoustics...

Mo Verdigast · Post by **Mo Verdigast** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 10:48 am

One other cool thing I've noticed about Xara is that they have a very active community and lots of tutorials. I feel like they are fun people (similar to here)!

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 12:11 pm

pakana wrote: It's obviously a Corel clone, so there is no learning curve for me - nice. Surprisingly for a budget app, Xara's "feel" is much better than CorelDraws - it appears somehow more reliable and redraw really is faster. And as you mentioned, those transparency & shadow tools are great.

Actually it's the other way round. Corel bought the original version of Xara, then pinched it's best ideas. Before that CorelDraw was pretty clunky. It's still not a patch on Xara for workflow though. Then the original developers of Xara took it back and created Xara X. Xara is more solid feeling and reliable because it lacks the Corel bloat and tacked on nature and because it's core is written in assembly code so it's fast as well.

Having tried all of these though I still find Realdraw has the most bang for the buck and best workflow - Xara has some real strengths like it's transparency and shadows etc but Realdraw can do all that and more - it has brilliant realtime 3D lighting, shadows, textures, layers etc and better layout and multimedia features than Xara or Coreldraw which makes it easier to make buttons and rollovers etc.

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 2:13 pm

@ aMUSED:

I stand corrected - the talented team is then over at Xara's premises.

I haven't had the time yet to trial RealDraw, I've been doing a lot of actual work with Xara

RealDraw seems to have some appealing features, so it's either RD or Xara, Corel has been dismissed.

So far, Xara's been a total pleasure to use, and it even imports my previous Corel works flawlessly... which was a rather pleasant surprise. Exporting is properly done as well. Color palettes aren't perfect, but it's not hard to make custom palettes.

imekon · Post by **imekon** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 2:58 pm

pakana wrote:I'm considering Xara X to satisfy my need for a graphics program, and I was hinted that at least BONES is using this "Corel-clone". Could you (or someone else familiar with it) be so kind and share your comments on it's suitability to serious work?

I've been using CorelDraw for years, but I don't have access to a licenced version anymore and them adobes and corels can kill a wallet.

I'm doing both print & web graphics.

It used to be called Art Works on another machine (anyone heard of the Acorn Archimedes?) and was impressive there.

I bought Xara X when it was in beta at the very start (and wasn't called Xara X!), and have been upgrading ever since. It's a great package, I occaisonally create graphics for technical documents with it.

The only thing that annoys me about it is the grid snapping function seems to be very fiddly to use, trying to align boxes is a pain... could be I'm just doing it wrong.

I can't say how it compares to Corel Draw but it was a decent package at the time (and still is) and does what I need.

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:10 pm

The only thing that annoys me about it is the grid snapping function seems to be very fiddly to use, trying to align boxes is a pain... could be I'm just doing it wrong.

Grid snapping is just as bad/good as in CorelDraw, I think it's zoom-related...or something. Whatever the thruth, ye good ole "Moving An Object First Elsewhere And Only Then To The Desired Spot"-trick works ok in both. (And of course one has to snap the other objects to grid to get them all aligned)

In this respect Xara compares well to Corel - snapping is easier when the screen is properly updated. Snapping an invisible object can be _very_ fiddly.

BONES / other Xara X users - minireview?