Xara Xtreme Pro and Magix Xtreme Graphic Designer.

[BCHOWDHURY]

Can anyone please tell me whether Xara Xtreme Pro and Magix Xtreme Graphic Designer are same in functionality? Their interface is almost alike, coming from the same company, I suppose. But in terms of features and functionalities, are they same? Can I use Magix Xtreme Graphic Designer in place of Xara Xtreme Pro? Does Magix Xtreme Graphic Designer lack anything in comparison to Xara Xtreme Pro? Your replies will be greatly appreciated.

[mouser]

Carol Haynes on our forum is a big fan of these, hopefully she will post a reply soon.

[Ampa]

I have taken the liberty of re-posting this question on Xara's TalkGraphics forum where the real experts will nodoubt reveal all!

My initial guess is that Magix Xtreme is a re-badged version of Xara Xtreme (v3.2 NOT the new v4, and not Pro) with the addition of their own Magix Photo Editor in place of Xara Photo Editor.

[Carol Haynes]

I am not sure but I think Ampa is correct.

As I understand it Xara (in the UK) as a company was acquired by Magix (in Germany) but continues to trade as Xara whilst making some of their technology available for inclusion in Magix Products.

Interestingly I just upgraded to Xara Xtreme Pro 4 and it comes with Magix Panorama Studio (even though there is a pano tool included in Xtreme Pro) it also includes MAGIX Xtreme Photo Designer 7 (as did Xtreme Pro v3.2).

It seems there is a lot of crossover between the two branded products - but I am not sure what the Magix suite is based on (I presume the standard Xtreme 3.2 but I can't be sure as I don't have a copy).

Does you Magix product have any copyright info on the Xara components (including dates) so that we can do a comparison. If you can't see anything under Help>About check the program folder and look in individual file properties.


Here is the press statement http://site.xara.com...eases/2007-01-30.asp

Doesn't help much though.

Just looking at the Magix website ... the products list seems to suggest that Xara Xtreme Pro is a separate product:

It also has to be said that the Xara branded products also come with a lot of extra content (clipart, templates and fonts) that don't appear to be included in the downloadable Magix products (at least not in full). As far as I know Xara only sells CD/DVD based 'physical' products and the downloadable versions they supply are stop gap versions (without the extra content) while you wait for the packaged product to arrive.

Just so that you know I am an affiliate with Xara (see my website Dales Computer Services in my signature) - though only because I know and recommend the software from personal use and experience.

[Darwin]

Ah ha! Carol! I see you upgraded afterall...

Oh all right, cards on the table, so did I. Actually, I upgraded to 3.2 Pro and then to 4.0 Pro 

Anyway, BCHOWDHURY, my understanding at the time of the Magix takeover was that the Magix version was going to be the standard version of Xara Xtreme re-branded. Don't know if that is true or not. You could check out the users' forum, I'm sure the question has been answered there.

[Carol Haynes]

I love the small print ... actually at first I thought it was bad pixels on my monitor 

[iphigenie]

I'm tempted to upgrade.

I played around with some old freehand and ai files and it managed to open only some of them, but those it did it handled beautifully (not sure what to do about the others)

My only gripe compared to those 2 products and some others is how hard it is to select-and-drag objects which overlap each other. I can select one so it is highlighted but when i then drag another object moves. I guess I am used to "select, then click somewhere on or near the object and drag, and it will drag". What happens in Xara seems to be click to select, then unless you click on very specific areas of the object, when you click and drag some other object underneath will move instead.

I had to select, right click, move objects to a set of layers, lock all these layers but the one with the few objects I was trying to move/adapt, to be able to not have to undo every other attempt at moving something.

Apart from that it is a very good product and intuitive to use in most other ways.

[Carol Haynes]

There is currently a special 20% discount offer on Magix Xtreme Photo & Graphic Designer 2 which seems to be functionally equivalent to Xara Xtreme 4. See http://www.magix.com...amp;cHash=4ecf91a38e

The offer lasts until 27th May 2008. Not sure how the prices work out in other parts of the world.

As far as I can tell it is a download only version.

Checkout that it does include what you want before purchasing  but after a quick scan it does seem to have the new features of Xara Xtreme 4

[iphigenie]

Seems strange that the price they offer on this is the same as what xara wants me to pay to *upgrade*

[Carol Haynes]

I think the Xara prices are in dollars - the Magix off is in UK Pounds. Unless you are looking at upgrading Pro versions. The Magix version is equivalent to the non-Pro Xtreme (I think).

[urlwolf]

Anyone knows how good these apps work on the linux version?
I'm sick of second class conversions. For example, Opera on linux doesn't have the nice scroll that I like so much on the windows version.

[Darwin]

The linux versions are up in the air, AFAICT.  People were optimistic about their development when they were first announced, but since then things have been pretty stagnant (though I stopped following development about 10 months ago...). The Talkgrapics forum dedicated to the linux version is here: http://www.talkgraph...orumdisplay.php?f=41

[Carol Haynes]

Haven't tried the Linux version but there is an open source Xara project that is free so give it a go and report back.

See http://www.xaraxtreme.org/download/ for full details.

The last build appears to be Nov 07