Xara X to Be Released as Open Source

zero-one writes "Xara today announced that they are releasing an open source version of their vector drawing program, Xara Xtreme. They already have a Linux demo but source code is not available quite yet. Xara Xtreme on Linux will not only bring a leading-edge graphic tool to the platform, but with community assistance, has the potential to become the world's most powerful, easiest-to-use and simply the world's best graphics program. If they get this right it could bring the Linux desktop into whole sectors of the market that is has not been able to address before."

Exaggeration?

[fragmentate]

First, read this this. [slashdot.org]

All tools add value to the Linux desktop, but if it's not user-friendly none of that matters. To be able to say we have the exact same tools as Windows means nothing if those tools are frustrating to use. We recently began the process of ridding ourselves of certain proprietary software (primarily Microsoft products). It's been painful because after watching a Window-savvy person struggle with Linux I began to understand why Linux hasn't really kicked-in on the desktop yet.

I think the value of a single product is being overstated here. The Linux development community has to work on usability first, as well as product integration. There is a level of inconsistancy between applications that hampers Linux-desktop.

When I think back to the very early versions of Linux (1.0.xx) it's come a long long way. But no single product along the way has contributed any large amount. Primarily, it has been the work of the individuals that understand that, although we don't want a duplicate of Windows, we do want something that people making the switch can more easily slide into.

I am always excited when a new product is ported to Linux-desktop (simply X?). But let's keep things in perspective -- although Xara is quite "neat", it's not going to attract legions of people to Linux all of a sudden.

In truth, this may all help Mac OSX more than Linux...

Why?

[popo]

" has the potential to become the world's most powerful, easiest-to-use and simply the world's best graphics program"

Why does it suddenly have this potential? Why is it suddenly the "easiest to use"? Why is it suddenly the "world's best"?

I'm happy its being opensourced and ported to Linux too, but typically the process of opensourcing and linux-porting doesn't go hand in hand with making an application best-of-breed.

This isn't flamebait, just a reality check.

Bah Humbug

[jmorris42]

Ok, so some old hoary ACORN codebase that got ported to Windows years ago and apparently never developed a large userbase is going GPL because they realized they were fscked and never were going to achieve a breakout in today's rapidly consolidating Windows 3rd party app marketplace. So if folks would just stop working on Inkscape long enough to help us port this crufy old code from Win32 to whatever toolkit we eventually decide on it will just rule, trust us! But please don't build a Windows binary because we want to keep on doing our shareware thing over on that platform.

Sorry, this would have been news five years ago, but we have all seen this story play out enough times now to not be interested. They could at least have held off on the press release until they had a believable start on a port, i.e. a tree that builds and at least does something on X.

Re:Bah Humbug

[narrowhouse]

This will be worth a lot if it is GPL just so that the algorithms can be used. The inkscape developers are always looking for sources for things like morphing functions, gradients, etc. Even if this program where a falling corpse the parts are worth salvaging.

Re:Bah Humbug

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so some old hoary ACORN codebase that got ported to Windows years ago...
ArtWorks, the original RISC OS version, was written entirely in hand-crafted ARM assembler. Its anti-aliasing only did 8 shades (IIRC, might have been 16). It also didn't support transparency, and the chap who now maintains ArtWorks said that pretty much the whole renderer had to be rewritten to support it.

Xara wasn't a port. It was a clean re-implementation. And an extremely lovely piece of software it is to, and I've been begging for something even 10% as good for Linux for ages. Inkscape et al simply don't cut it.

Re:Really F*cking good

[Anonymous Coward]

All I see is bitching, whining and moaning from a people who've never used it.

So true! It's really a shame. A company makes a gift (GPL) and every second post sees something negative in it. What happened to slashdot recently?

Re:Guess what? Won't happen!

[Hosiah]

have (generally) spent years learning the Adobe suite.
I work with ACTUAL designers. They all think it's an ugly piece of shit.

I *AM* an actual designer, and it never fails to amaze me how people will comfortably devote "years" to learning proprietary software that costs $485.00 http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/Adobe_Photoshop_7_0/4 014-3633_16-8918085.html [com.com] , but cannot be bothered to investigate the menus in Gimp for five minutes for free to discover all the features they claim Gimp is missing. But, uh, oh, yeah, *sure*, you guys are ALL THAT!

Re:I don't like this...

[Julian Morrison]

You're thinking like a programmer, or maybe like a graphics geek.

It's in the layer menu because it only affects the current layer. Otherwise it would be in the image menu.

Now see, it's stuff like that that causes GIMP's UI to suck. Understand: layers are not what the program is there for. Layers are a means, not an end. Unless forced by necessity, UI controls should serve ends, not be subordinate to means.

I'll give an example to explain. Here's another way the brightness/contrast UI control could have been done. First: in regard of layers, what's the normal thing a user wants to do? A novice user won't be using layers. A pro will, and normally wants to affect the current layer. So, default everything to affecting the current layer. Straight off the bat that saves a lot of UI duplication! Make the common case simple, the rare case possible. So, allow edits to all layers at once if a toggle is set (I'd put it prominently on the layers dialog). Meanwhile, the "colors" and "transforms" menus go at the top level, because they're the sort of thing every Joe Digtal-camera wants to use. So from being buried two levels deep in a place that relates to an incidental technicality, brightness/contrast is instead up in front where the user can "grab it and go".

Coincidentally, this approach I outlined above would add new features in a simple way. Autocrop the layer, autocrop the image, depending on the "affect one/all" toggle. (Joe Digtal-camera isn't using layers, so the toggle behaves as if set to "affect all", and does what he expects.)

BTW path and stroke, you must be a graphical geek if you think it's tolerable. It's a pitiful hack! "Stroking" a vector (render to editable pixels) is a rare case. Normal case should be as with other combi vector/pixel editors, vectors remain vectors and are "stroked" when you export to JPG. Yes it might be nice to have a menu option to stroke a vector, for the cases when you need it. It shouldn't be the normal way to operate! (I understand GIMP's attitude is "I edit pixels, vectors had better start acting like pixels if they want to be edited". Thinking like a programmer again!)