A year ago, Xara released a subscription version of its software -- Xara 365. Now, in addition to updates for the computer-based application, the company has released a web-based application that brings Xara design functions to portable devices.
Xara Online Designer, still officially in beta, is included with Xara Web Designer and Xara Designer Pro X. Document created in the desktop applications can be viewed or edited using a web browser on any computer or tablet. That includes Mac computers, and both Android and Apple tablets.
Online Designer has a remarkable interface that works with keyboard and mouse or with touch-based devices.
When I visited the site with Chrome, it allowed me to sign in using the credentials I have on file with Xara, but then it crashed. The error message pointed to Colorzilla, a plug-in. After disabling Colorzilla, I tried again and Online Designer crashed again, this time being unable to name the plug-in that caused the problem. So I switched to Firefox.
This is, after all, still a beta application.
The interface is surprisingly clean. At first glance, you might think that very little could be done. That first glance would be wrong, though.
Selecting a component of the image does several things. At the top of the screen, the application will tell you what you've selected. In this case, a shape. A pop-up tool will appear to provide the most common tasks (copy, duplicate, delete, and float). The the real power comes from revealing a menu of functions on the right side of the screen.
Here I've selected transparency and increased the transparency from its default value (0%) to 61% and the shape is a light gray.
Another icon worth noting it at the top of the screen -- a blue box with an arrow that points up. Clicking it reveals two options: Share and Share editing. Share creates a URL that you can use to allow anyone with a web browser to view a copy of the work. Share editing is similar, but it will allow the recipient to make changes to the file.
When you share a document, Xara Online Designer provides a link to the file. If you want to allow others to edit the file, you'll first be asked to save it to a cloud-based location. Once you've done that, Xara will send a link by email to those you specify. Anyone who edits the image will need to create a free Online Designer account.
Xara plans to open the Online Designer up to the wider audience soon, but for now let's take a look at the PC-based version's new features.
Over the years, Xara's developers have concentrated on seemingly impossible tasks. One of the first impossible things involved combining the ability to edit both raster and vector images in the same program. That capability is now commonplace, so the next step involved making it possible for a single application to create websites, print documents, and graphics. Now the application can open and edit even PDF documents and Word files.
In this year's version, photo editing displays a faint copy of the original image as the user resizes it. This makes it easier to see exactly what's inside the crop area and what's outside.
Although it's not strictly a part of the application, Xara's Online Catalog File makes available a huge number of stock photos and illustrations, symbols, graphic elements, audio and video files, charts, forms, icons, and more.
You might search stock photos for the New York Public Library and find an image of the reading room that recently re-opened after being closed for a few years.
Or you might search stock illustrations for cats. You'll find a lot of cats.
The magic begins with objects such as the editable charts that Xara provides. Choose a chart type, import it, and then adjust it to suit your needs. The charts arrive with varying bar lengths, values, and names. To change a name, just click and type. To change the length of a bar or its associated number, you can either grab the end of the bar and move it (the value changes automatically) or click the value and change it (the bar resizes automatically).
As a website design tool, Designer Pro X 365 offers high powered features that make websites distinctive. One of these is the option to place something on the main page and have it stick to the top of the screen. You'll find various other animation options in the tool kit, too.
Subscribers receive a year's worth of Website M for a single domain. Although Xara can create websites in multiple sizes, it doesn't support truly responsive/adaptive design, so being able to house a version of the site designed for mobile devices on Website M is helplful. Maybe that will come in a future version. In this version, the media player has been updated to full HTML5 compatibility, previews can emulate the Windows 10 browser for testing, and page transition effects have been improved.
Ligatures aren't used as much today as they once were, but they're still a sign of fine typesetting. Most sans serif typefaces (ones without "feet") don't include ligatures and not all serif typefaces (ones with "feet") have them either. If the typeface you're using offers ligatures, Xara Pro X 365 can set them for you.
A ligature occurs when two or more letters are joined into a single glyph. The oldest ligature is considered to by the ampersand (&), which began as "et" (the Latin word for "and"), but it is no longer considered to be one. Ligatures can be made from any combination of letters, but the most common ones seem to involve the letters f, i, and l. Ligatures are effective in headlines, in part because they reduce the space needed for the text.
Other improvements in text handling deal with lists and tables.
Xara's approach differs significantly from Adobe's in that users receive a perpetual license to use the software. During the year, updates and enhancements will be delivered automatically and if you decide not to renew the subscription at the end of the year, the application will continue to run, although any new features introduced during the year will be rolled back if you need to reinstall the software. Additionally, those who don't renew the service will lose access to the on-line content catalog and they will no longer receive feature or content updates. Xara's exact words: "The copy(s) that you have installed at the time of expiry will continue to run indefinitely, but if you re-install on a new machine after the Update Service has expired then the new installation will fall back to the version you last purchased."
This is a logical, common-sense approach that offers the software user an option to continue using the version of software that they acquired initially forever instead of making the applications stop working at the end of the rental period.
Xara hits a home run with Pro X 365As usual, Xara offers several versions -- Designer Pro X 365 ($300), Web Designer 365 Premium ($100), and Photo & Graphic Designer 365 ($70). Upgrades from previous versions cost less. Although it's a subscription-based application, the application still works if you stop paying. An on-line catalog and the coming ability to edit Xara files in an on-line editor make it a value that's hard to beat.
Additional details are available on the Xara website.
This isn't strictly a technology story, although technology is involved. Mainly it's research that surprised me because so many people seem to be leaving cash on the table.
Many credit cards provide "bonus points" when they're used. Merchants pay for these in fees the bank charges, so you can be sure that the points are offset by slightly higher prices. In other words, it's just a shell game. The points are yours and not redeeming them gives your money to the credit card company.
What surprised me is that some 31% of credit card holders have never redeemed credit card rewards. The report by Bankrate.com says that cardholders typically gravitate to one extreme or the other, redeeming their rewards points/miles frequently (38% did so within the past six months) or not at all.
Credit card rewards don't gain value over time. Bankrate.com credit card analyst Robin Saks Frankel says "They're more likely to lose value as companies require more points or miles for the same perks. Your best move is to cash them in regularly."
The most popular redemption is cash back: 49% who have used credit card rewards said they most recently exchanged their rewards points for this purpose. Airline tickets were a distant second (17%), followed by gift cards (12%). Millennials were more likely to have chosen cash back than older adults (67% vs. 43%).
The conventional wisdom has been that millennials are averse to credit cards, but that seems to be changing. Older millennials -- 27-36 year-olds -- are now more likely than Gen Xers to possess a credit card (61% to 56%).
Overall, about 1 in 4 cardholders is willing to pay an annual fee. "The credit card market is very competitive right now, so if you're not happy with a fee, you can either shop around to find another card that doesn't have one or you can see if the issuer is willing to waive the fee to keep your business," Frankel added. CreditCards.com recently reported that more than 80% of cardholders were able to get an annual fee waived or reduced just by asking.
The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International by telephone. It involved 1001 adults living in the continental United States. The full survey is on the Bankrate website.
I've used Virtual Clone Drive from Elaborate Bytes for so long that I somehow missed the fact that it's no longer needed with Windows 10. The free utility has been helpful because it allows the user to mount a image file (ISO) without burning the image to a CD or DVD. But now image files can be mounted by Windows Explorer.
Virtual Clone Drive has some useful features that Windows doesn't so I'm keeping it on the computer. If you need to mount an ISO file only occasionally, though, the built-in function is perfect.
Use the file manager to locate the ISO you want to mount. In this case, it's an Ubuntu Linux disc.
Either right-click the file and choose Mount or select the Disc Image Tools tab at the top of the window and choose Mount.
Windows Explorer can also be used to burn the image to a CD or DVD.
Once the file has been mounted, it will have a drive letter and can be used the same way an optical disc can be used.
The Ubuntu disc received drive letter J.
When you're finished with the disc image, use the Drive Tools menu and click Eject. That will close the drive and drop the letter from the display.
This seems to be my week for discovering things that have been around for years. One of my major annoyances with Photoshop files is that they don't appear as thumbnail images in the File-Open dialog. It's a mystery to me why either Microsoft or Adobe didn't do something about this years ago, but it seems that David Blake and Ken Silverman invented the solution.
Blake has a computer science degree from the University of Michigan and Silverman has an applied math degree from Brown University. Together, they created the Adobe Photoshop Document CODEC.
By default, Windows displays only an icon for PSD (Photoshop), EPS (encapsulated Postscript), and AI (Adobe Illustrator) files. Unless you've named the file precisely, finding the one you want can be a long and frustrating process.
Although I had hoped to find a free utility, the $20 cost of the utility was money well spent. The only problem I encountered was a false positive warning from the anti-virus program that I use.
When the installation process completes, it's necessary to reboot the computer.
Now Windows can display thumbnails for Photoshop, Illustrator, and Postscript files.
If this is something that frustrates you, it's an easy fix. And to think that I could have solved this problem 7 years ago if only I had known about it.
To learn more or to download a 15-day free trial, visit the Ardfry Imaging website.
