Interface

Hello Ariel,

X3 just wasn't "Corel" without the BALLOON

Now it's for REAL

GOTTA HAVE THE BALLOON to be Corel !

Ted

Ok I'm going to be the party pooper here.  I wish that they hadn't touched a thing in the interface but instead spendt the time and therefore money of fixing broken things.  There are plenty that could use fixing?   Pretty is nice but it needs to be secondary to function and feature.

 David:

Have you tried X4 yet? What items do you find that "could use fixing"? 

Hugh Johnson said:

What items do you find that "could use fixing"? 

Let's not (as we say in the U.S.) throw the baby out with the bath water!  X4 is a good product, however in my opinion too much time and money was wasted on things that didn't get the Corel user anything for their dollar except something to look at.  Sort of like a relationship with a beautiful woman that is not only is a virgin is always going to stay one!

I'm a proponent of building the house properly and that starts with the foundation, so first color management as a core technology needed to be improved to enhance our ability to compete with our main competition. 

Also as part of the core technology enhancements, allowing RGB vectors to pass into the postscript stream, allowing CMYK numbers to change in the print stream (allowing driver based device simulation) and the ability to send what ever internal RGB that is chosen by the user down in the non-postscript print stream without activating a device profile for improved ease of non-postscript device calibration.

The above changes are something that would have improved the product for all users, because output providers would have a Corel product that performed in coordination with the process of standard output devices.   This also would have improved Corels and my ability to place the application in point of purchase display shops, sign shops and dye sub manufacturers where Adobe is eating into our market.

Then there are the bothersome legacy issues like the auto center power clip, the non-proportional being checked in the transformation docker. There is a huge list of these things that make Corel look as if they don't care about the user.  

The issue with spot color objects shifting when pasting into Photo-PAINT.  Solving the EPS compression issue for AI imports.

I like the RAW converter but it could have used eyedropper linked tone curves and the ability to read the image in the info docker.

As I wrote in my color management book Corel has many features that are a conglomeration of incomplete processes.  The Web image optimizer that does most of what it should but not completely, color management that is mostly functional but difficult to use.

Corel needs to start finishing some of the projects.  In my opinion they make a fine product and I use it all the time but improving it does not mean a new doo dad every release.  We, the Corel user would be best served if they finished the job and update many of the features that they already have!

Edward Thurston said:

"auto center power clip". Do you mean the "auto center new power clip contents" option ?

Yes.

If I have an object or an image and I want to powerclip out something that is not in the center I cannot do this until I disengage this setting, because the image inside the path jumps to automatically center.

This for many people is most often the case so it is a PITA, however since you draw the path to clip to where you want it the default for this being off makes sense to a great deal of people.

Edward Thurston said:

All thru the testing

On another note Ed I didn't mention it in testing because Corel was not going to fix it.  It's like the neighbors barking dog problem, it barks until some shoots the dog or the neighbor.  In this case these issues will piss people off until they buy something else.

Edward Thurston said:

It's just one of the many options that we all go thru only once during the initinal setting up under Tools>Options.

I agree. Some want it this way, and others want it another way. I guess for newbies the auto-center setting can be the easiest. What if you put a bitmap into a power clip container without positioning it first? It will suddenly be invisible. With the auto-center setting you do at least see the bitmap inside the container.

 Well I was a beta tester too as well as an AC member, and all though I didnt get all I wished for, I still see this version X4 as a very good version, one of "the" versions. I have tested it and done a lot of actual illustration and graphic work with it, (being an illustrator as I am) and I can say that THIS version is a great one. If someone go from X3 they still get a lot of new stuff to use, but I think as always, that the user´s that get most are those going from two previous versions back. There is a lot the people at Corel coluld have done, but there is also a lot of things they DID do! And being a very visual person, I think the new icons and the interface as a whole is good, and it WAS important to do new things with the Interface. X3 interface I really liked, but this I like a lot too.

And no offence David: but you seem to see it strictly out of tech, and all though tech is what we Whant, yes!, I like to have it with BOTH tech and design. And any product out there, be it a handle to a door, a seat in a car, a toothbrush, a car battery, a bottle of vergine olive oil: package is extremly important.

For example a client I made illustrations too, a broschure, the CEO came in and said, -"well that cover why dont we just put some lines here and there, that would be okey for me".  One thing, that broschure wouldnt had been sold with joy, or might not even be seen kindly by people wanting the broshure.

Point is that Interface is always important. Interface is also a question about user friendlyness. Interface we could say is actually a very TECH and DESIGN oriented issue when you come down to it. If you have an interface that is not contemporary, fresh and user friendly, and easy to understand, you will loose a lot of new and old users. Consumers honestly like to have it "New" and "Fresh", "Apealing" and "Contemporary". Thats how things work.

Stefan