xara webstyle ??

[Anthony]

Hi Guys

I'm thinking about a Xara webstyle graphics editor to
go with my htlmpad. I reckon it may save me a load of time.

Anyone have an opinion?

Thanks.

Anthony

[chrisjlocke]

Moving to self help...

[joemichaud]

My only experience with xara was not that great. It took me less than 30 minutes to decide I would never use it and remove it from my computer.

I just evaluated CorelDraw X4 as an alternative to the Adobe suite... but it didn't make the grade so I'm back to saving for the Adobe Web Premium package.

For now - I use Inkscape and Paint.NET and like both of them fairly well.

[Anthony]

Thanks Joe, for your reply.

My own experience with Xara is similar to yours,
and I too now prefer inkscape.

Just a question of how the brain's wired, I guess.

Anthony

[joemichaud]

I've evaluated every illustration package I can find. In my opinion - for web specific work - Inkscape is second only to the almighty Illustrator. Xara has an amazingly bad interface and Corel draw raster exports are lacking in the pixel precision that web developers require (edges that are intended to be sharp end up being blurry and stuff like that).

Inkscape 0.46 now has reasonably nice typography features, pixel perfect exports, blur and transparency effects up the yin-yang, and a fabulously powerful gradient engine. Though the interface is familiar and straight-forward, it lacks polish... You have to spend time learning your way around its quirks.

IMHO, Inkscape is the cat's meow for amateur to semi-pro developers. Personally, I take the exports from inkscape and optimize them with pngnq for newer browsers, and Paint.NET for IE6 and older. (I use a conditional comment to point IE6 to the right images on an as-needed basis).

[Karlis]

I tend to stick to Photoshop - not easy to use and very expensive (I have some older version), but allows to do a lot...

[PARoss]

I tried Xara years ago and gave it up. I prefer Serif products (but not their Webplus -- it's Webuilder for me!). Graphic wise, DrawPlus and PhotoPlus are great. They are easy to use, powerful and inexpensive. See: http://www.serif.com.

[chrisjlocke]

Also they're free.
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/

The only downside is you have to register online, which usually involves a fair bit of marketing emails. These can be unsubscribed to though.

[w00dy]

Hi everyone, I new to the forum. I live in the UK and teach ICT. I'm a long time Xara user, mainly Xtreme Pro, and swear by it for vector graphics. OK, it's interface is a little different but it's not half as cluttered as Photoshop or Illy and neither of them can even begin to approach Xtreme in terms of speed. Xtreme's non-destructive photo-handling is more than enough for most web work.

Webstyle hasn't been updated since 2004 and in it's day, it was an easy option for beginners but now there are many simpler options. Some of Webstyle's templates produce decent CSS but you wouldn't go out and buy it at it's current price. I used to use it for menus but Blumental's Easy Button & Menu Generator looks a good option that will continue to be developed, so I'm about to buy it. I had a look at WeBuilder and could really take to that but it'd break my heart to change my brand of Coffee.

I teach ICT using the whole Serif range. I like PagePlus a lot, Photoplus is nearly Photoshop at a fraction of the price, WebPlus is wed design meets DTP and DrawPlus, whilst it does produce good results, it can't get near Xara Xtreme when you start throwing several large images at it.

I've flirted with Inkscape for 18 months and it's good, excellent price (Ā£0.00) but for me Xtreme will always be my first choice.

At the end of the day, I suppose it's what you get used to and what your pocket can afford. I'm sure that we've all come across those PS and DW experts, who would use "nothing else", I'm always amazed that they can afford these "industry standard" packages, where an upgrade costs many times more than any of the packages mentioned above.