Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!

Subpath

And all others too

Wrote yesterday that i would post something about Magix Graphics Designer,
formerly known as Xara.

Here it is.
I decide to create a little Showcase of Xara because it impresses
me so much in its time.

Xara, is still alive and a nice little Gem, but PC only. Magix is selling it as Magix Graphics Designer
and Magix Graphics Designer Pro. Xara Company also exist and selling it as Xara Designer.

I think it try to be a little Jack of all trades. But is still pretty good in some cases.
The Pro Version could do some Web Design but dont exspect clean Code.

I once fell in love with Xara because of its nice crisp lines on the screen
(First vector program with antialiasing on the screen).
Was quite ahead of its time.
.
.

As i remember right:
First Vectorprogram with Antialiasing on Screen
(very crisp Lines on Monitor, still today)

Deep Zoom (max 25600)
Edited: @Vectorstyler has correct me
VS Zoom will go much, much deeper see below
(but is a nice Illuststration to show such zoom)

Airbrush like Vector Brush
(in a vector program !)

And superb Gradients, Transparencys long before Adobe Illustrator
and any other Vector Graphics Program had this.
(superb, even today )

and many more

In this Videos here, a few Xara Clipart Examples and showing the Zoom:

Showing the Zoom:

Clipart Examples

Clipart Examples and a impressive Vector Painting

Subpath

Will show some Tools and Features of Xara tomorrow.

b77

@Subpath Nice artwork, especially the wristwatch and the painting.

However, I can't say I asked about Xara because I'm interested in using it — I was curious what happened after the acquisition and if they are alive.

But it sounds like it's not an acquisition — the British company has a contract with Magix to let them sell Xara under a different name?

b77

@Subpath said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

Airbrush like Vector Brush
(in a vector program !)

This is great, but it can be done in VS — apply a blur effect to a path and save it as a brush preset.

@VectorStyler Because the app doesn't include such brushes, users think it cannot be done…

VectorStyler

@b77 said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

Because the app doesn't include such brushes, users think it cannot be done

Well, this goes for a lot of features. At some point there will be more presets like this.

Subpath

@b77 said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

@Subpath Nice artwork, especially the wristwatch and the painting.
But it sounds like it's not an acquisition — the British company has a contract with Magix to let them sell Xara under a different name?

yes thats true

By the way, Corel also bought Xara for a while in the past.

VectorStyler

@Subpath said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

Ultra deep Zoom (max 25600)
double then VS

??? VS max zoom level is

b77

@VectorStyler I also thought 12800% is the max value because it's the highest in the Zoom menu.

Subpath

@VectorStyler said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

@Subpath said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

Ultra deep Zoom (max 25600)
double then VS

??? VS max zoom level is

uuuiiiiii, dit not know
then sorry for that, will correct it

but isnt shown in Presettings in Bottom left

Subpath

@b77 said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

@Subpath said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

Airbrush like Vector Brush
(in a vector program !)

This is great, but it can be done in VS — apply a blur effect to a path and save it as a brush preset.

Shure many things could also be done in VS today.

But was not my intention to start a competion
would just note some Things / Tools that was very unsual
in Vector Programs
at the Times Xara came out. And thats quite a while ago.

b77

@Subpath

VectorStyler

@Subpath The edit fields for zoom level might have some other limit, will check that.

Dazmondo

@Subpath said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

Will show some Tools and Features of Xara tomorrow.

My first introduction to Xara was around 1998 when I was working as a graphic designer / illustrator / drum scanner operator for a very busy Nottingham Repro company - My boss wheeled in the PC (we all had Macs) and said ‘the guys at Serif want to know what we make of this’ and handed me a Xara CD which I loaded onto the PC and had a mess around - at the time I was using Freehand for all vector work (we had Illustrator 6 but really hated it)- Freehand 8 had all these new transparent features that would slow your system to a crawl if used and wouldn’t run through a RIP so we never used them - but messing with Xara was nice and fluent and the transparency was amazing, so after a few hours of messing, my boss came in and said ‘So what do you think,’ I said it’s incredible, basic but incredible, then he went on to say that Serif where thinking of doing something similar, wether that was licence the tech or rip it off, I don’t know, my boss than said ‘I know what you’re gonna ask - will there be a Mac version?’ he said that was his first question to the guy from Serif who’s reply was ‘Maybe in the future’ I don’t know what became of this, we where already outputting film seps of the box designs for DrawPlus and PagePlus for Serif, so wether they built in the tech to existing apps, I don’t know - I did go out and buy Corel Xara when it came out though, which was a great, although didn’t play nice with postscript devices if I remember right.

Sorry for the nostalgic waffle

Dazmondo

@Dazmondo Slightly off topic, but still relative to great vector applications - anyone ever use Mischief? --- showed so much promise, super fluent vector Pressure sensitive brushes including vector airbrushes, very basic but never got to blossom before being purchased and killed of by The Foundry in 2015 - I still have and use it today - problem is you can only save raster from it, only vector within the Mischief .art format but there were load of plans to expand the toolset and export options ---- real shame

Subpath

Here a Video about some Tools/Features in Xara

0:00
Airbrush Brush

0:33
Pen Tool could also used for Brushes

0:59
Copying Shapes/Text only with the Mouse

1:14
Fill Gallery

2:20
The little 3D Tool that is included

3:03
Has Smart Forms, also for Diagrams and Tables

Some Tools and Features in Xara Video

Subpath

@Dazmondo

Nice Story

CorelXara was the time where Corel bought Xara for a while.
And I guess they copied a few ideas and techniques and
used them later in Coreldraw versions.

I was also very impressed the first time I used it.
I never thought vector graphics could be so fluid and easy.
And I think it is still a nice illustration tool to this day.

Subpath

@Dazmondo said in Affinity user poll excluded VS as an option!:

@Dazmondo - anyone ever use Mischief?

Know Mischief, but have only played once with the demo.
Too bad it was discontinued.

A tool that goes a bit in the direction of Mischief is
the app "Concepts" for the iPad
Has an infinite canvas like Mischief, is a vector graphics app
but some brushes look like bitmap brushes. Has a Watercolor Brush (vector)
that mixes somewhat with the colors underneath.
(I don't know the technique behind, I think it's not bitmaps on a path).

There is also a PC version, but it is behind in development.
Would not recommend it.

b77

@Subpath Thanks for the Xara mini-video!