My post Why does Corel Draw Graphics Suite X5 feel more like beta software? explains everything im having an issue with X5. In an effort to log the issues with this software, Im asking that if your an X5 User and are having file corruption, crashes, freezes and other such fun stuff happening to you killing your time and money while in Draw or Photopaint, please post it here.
In order to keep it all clean and easy for someone at Corel to follow, please only list issues for X5 and not turn it into a discussion out of topic.
Please, there is no need to try to defend Corel here as Iv used Corel since version 4 (not X4), so thats a long time using it.
Hi all
I am new to these forums
Have been a user of Corel Draw since version 7,8, 9 and 12.
After reading some of the stories on these forum I finally plucked up the courage to install X5 and was disappointed to say the least. I have only just purchased it last week.
I have installed Corel Draw X5 (upgrade version) on a machine running XP Home (SP3) that more than matches the minimum specs required. I do use it for professional design.
I could not even produce one bit of work on it due to the following issues:
1) X5 freezes for up to 5 to 10 seconds if I happen to hover the mouse pointer over an icon to see its function.
2) It freezes/hang anyway for no reason what so ever.
3) It also seems to hang when moving from one icon to another when I going form one function to another.
4) Also slows down when even doing a basic thing like applying a fountain fill
5) Using the artistic media tool is a waste of time as yep you guessed...it hangs again when attempting to applying a stroke to a line
6) Some descriptions of icons just appear as garbled graphics (followed by even longer freezing/hanging)
7) God help you if you want to change fonts...it seems to hang again as soon as I go to select a new font (yes I do have a lot of fonts installed on my system but no other software on my machine has a problem with this so why should X5 (versions 12 and 9 which I still use have no problems)
8) Takes forever to load
I haven't even started on Corel Paint and can't even be bothered to try it. The sooner I get rid of X5 the better.
I am going to uninstall X5 and go back to version 12. I don't see why I should have to wait around for a Service Pack that may not work and also then be in a position where I can not get my money back. Corel X5 is not fit for purpose. Corel has lost the plot in releasing a sub standard product.
Riz
riz160 said:I am going to uninstall X5 and go back to version 12. I don't see why I should have to wait around for a Service Pack that may not work and also then be in a position where I can not get my money back. Corel X5 is not fit for purpose. Corel has lost the plot in releasing a sub standard product.
I guess I can understand it coming from v12. Version 8,9,12 really fly performance wise. It took me some time to get used to the X versions as they do have a different feel all the way. Hopefully x5 will be awesome after it's first service pack is released.
-John
cannot get interactive fill tool working
at last.... it become crash everytime when i open 3 hours of work ^_^ so i cannot save it in 14 version... thats just awesome
Bl@cK said: at last.... it become crash everytime when i open 3 hours of work ^_^ so i cannot save it in 14 version... thats just awesome
perhapas you have some options active, such as include color profile (not supported by older versions like X4)
- more bugs in Draw:
I double clicked the status bar and it magically appears at the TOP of the menu structure (even above file, edit, etc.)... and there's no handle on the status bar to move it back to the bottom. Thank god you can right click and change its position back to the bottom, but wth guys... why does clicking the status bar move it at all???
- Double clicking a docker (eg. object manager) works to undock and dock but when it gets docked again, it gets put at a different position than it used to be... and this messes up the sizes of the other dockers. If you are going to keep the double click dock/undock, it should work well without the need for the user to readjust stuff... otherwise the feature is just an annoying way to mess up your workspace.
- when moving pages left/right when dragging there should be some visual indication that the page can now be dropped... and when you drop it, the page that's active should be refreshed!!!... otherwise, it looks like the drag and drop didn't work! - to demo this make 3 pages, draw 1,2,3 on each respectively... now drag page 1 between 2 and 3... no visual feedback and when you drop it, you aren't sure if it actually worked unless you click on "Page 2" which is actually the old "Page 1" and has been renamed (?!!). ---- another silly bug. It shouldn't be renamed... when I move a page, I want to see the order has changed... leave it up to the user to rename the pages. - now try dragging the NEW "Page 1" (which has a 2 drawn on it) and drag it almost to the border between "Page 2" and "Page 3"... when you drop it, but not exactly on the edge, it may or may not take. You have to actually click on the pages to verify if you did it. This current renaming and no visual feedback is just dumb in terms of usability.
- with a **group** of whatever text objects, I should be able to change all the font attributes for all of them. In a layer, I can select some curves and change the fill, outline, width, etc. If they're grouped, I can still do this. I can also do it with text in a layer or grouped. Why can't I change the font of a group and it automatically find all the fonts and change them to whatever size, colour etc. If there were a few curves in the group too, the coding would be a tiny tiny bit more complicated, but it should still work... especially if the group is JUST text. - in the coding, you are probably using a struct or a class for each object in a layer... if it's in a group, just look at the variable that says if it's text... if it's not text, then just ignore the request to change the font size etc. You might be doing it some other way, but the concept is going to be almost the same and it's pretty basic to fix this. - this bug is really annoying because if I have a complicated sign that has certain text grouped, I would love to be able to quickly switch between different fonts to see the whole effect... You can't click on a layer and apply a colour etc. to the whole thing, but you can with a group, so it is at this level of the structure that I should be able to make multiple font changes... without having to select each text object from the layer... which makes the object manager full of open layers (messy and unnecessary). I should be able to select a group (with it still collapsed and not taking up much space) and change the elements inside... like you can already do with colours and line thickness etc. - also, with a group of text selected, when you try to change a font attribute, the dialog that pops up is in error... it says "Changing text properties when nothing is selected will modify the attributes used by the text tools when creating new objects..." but I clearly DO have objects selected, and they are the objects that I want changed! A group of text objects is selected and I can see that my text in the viewport is selected. In general, grouping is ***very*** helpful for working on complicated visual elements... but not so much for text. Please make CorelDraw text grouping friendly so working with lots of text is easier to manage without having to waste time selecting each text object OR ungrouping them, selecting the ones you want changed (with Ctrl or Shift) then changing the text attributes AND THEN HAVING TO REGROUP them back (huge waste of time) into the clean structure that helps keep the layers manageable. At the very least, Ctrl and Shift should work for selecting elements inside groups.
in Draw, these seem like bugs (although they could be considered to be wishlist stuff):
- there should be a way to select all objects (or some of them) in a group (and from the layer docker... if you expand the group, you should be able to use Ctrl or Shift to do the select multiple or select many... same as if you were selecting objects at the root of a layer. I shouldn't have to ungroup stuff (really annoying when there are groups of groups) to tweak a few attributes for a few grouped objects... and doing it one by one shouldn't be necessary. Doing the changes all at once and then being able to Ctrl-Z to go back and see the before and after would be so much better.
- double click page tab to rename (or just single click on/off renaming... same as with object names in the object docker). This way of renaming is super common functionality in many programs... having to use right click is unexpected for rename.
Altough all those ideas are good, I believe that those are not really "bugs", but is a personal whishlist of features. For example, change the font of a group of text is not an error, is as was designed (I suppose it was for prevent unwanted changes of the text). Of course, I'm with you, and can be at least the option of edit grouped text.
try this 3D button tutorial...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pZTzSWqKGs&NR=1
... when using eyedropper and then paintbucket right at the end........ you guessed it...... crash.
"abnormal program termination" whatever that means. It seems to have terminated itself. I guess X5 didn't like my button.
Ariel said:is as was designed (I suppose it was for prevent unwanted changes of the text)
I agree with you that it feels like grouping of text in Draw seems like it was originally designed to protect it. You're also right that I do wish grouping of text worked differently. Also though, it still seems like a bug because grouping works for curves etc to *help* the user change and manipulate multiple things. Because grouping treats text as something to protect, it seems like a bug because it's more inhibiting than helpful. When I want to protect text, I can put it in a separate layer and click the little pencil to block editting of that layer.
In other programs... the idea of grouping or parenting is to help the user with selections and processing of those grouped elements. The hierarchy that's built is meaningful and useful for manipulating the pieces as larger modular pieces. There is definitely a protective idea around grouping, but I should still be able to go into a group and edit **multiple** elements without having to rip down the structure of the groups apart... or having to edit each one individually. That's why I'd classify Draw's treatment of grouping of text more on the bug side...
... but I definitely see what you're saying... my complaints/wishes about the grouping is not something that's causing the program to break or crash.
As the thread says... I have an "issue" with this particular unexpected time wasting functionality. I've taught software testing, and user issues/bugs range from crashes and freezing all the way to... does the program do what the user expects it to do?... and that's of course related to what other programs the user is accustomed to.... etc. etc.
In this respect, it's annoying that text in PhotoPaint CAN be grouped and selected from that group using Ctrl and Shift (but not in Draw?). I would expect this same functionality in Draw too... however, PP doesn't allow the font (or even the colour) to be changed for multiple selected text objects (grouped or not)... so the user's stuck (in a different way, I'd call it another bug) and has to change each one individually also (again a huge time waster). At least in Draw, you can select multiple text objects (with Ctrl / Shift) as long as they are not grouped. That's pretty good.
However, (another bug darn it), when you select text that exists in different layers... the text won't change colour in the selected layer... but DOES change in the NON-active layer (wth). Some users wouldn't think this is a bug and may never do this type of selection... and fair enough, but when I select stuff, and the program shows it's selected, it seems reasonable to assume that I should be able to manipulate the selected stuff in a way that I'm accustomed to (eg. change the colour of selected text). It certainly shouldn't think that I have nothing selected (as it currently does for grouped text).
... darn it, I was trying to end with something positive and I ended up finding another issue.
How about this... I have faith that Corel will fix these issues and X5 will rise up to become a stable graphics package when the service pack arrives.
more bugs in PP:
when you copy something, use ctrl to flip horizontally, turn on transparency, the shape of the copied part is actually changed by what looks like 4 pixels wider.
try this:- copy a small part of a bitmap (about 12x12)- paste it right over where you got it from- use ctrl to flip it horizontally- change the transparency (via the slider in the objects docker) to anything so you can see through it- use ctrl to flip it back over the original image of itself
... it's about 4 pixels wider!
alternatively, try this for a slightly different result along the way:- copy a small part of a bitmap (about 12x12)- paste it right over where you got it from- change transparency- flip it horizontally using ctrl... everything's fine so far.- flip it back using ctrl ----> resized.
... this same auto-blending the pixels instead of just changing their alpha values occurs with vertical flipping too.
It's the flipping that does the resizing when you get out of the selected object... it gets wider or higher. It should be a **perfect mirror**.
Here's an enlarged screenshot so you can see the detail:
I found both these next bugs when making the image showing the resizing problem:
When laying down text in PP, with the text tool on, the text is in a certain desired position... but when you switch to another tool and the text is then converted to pixels, the new rasterized text is lower than it should be by about a pixel or 2
When using ctrl to move multiple objects, if you hold ctrl before the move, only one of the objects preserves the selection and is moved (wrong)... but if you hold ctrl *after* you start the move, both are moved (the correct implementation).
When you have a tool selected (eg. rectangle tool)... make a rectangle, then you want to resize, hit your hotkey for picker arrow... works fine.
... but if you pick a fill colour, and then hit the hotkey... it's stuck on rectangle tool. There are various combinations of drawing tools and things you'd do after drawing whatever... the point is that it doesn't switch to another tool for some reason. It of course works to go hit the tool icon, but the hotkey should work... regardless of the tool you're trying to switch between.
This next issue may have been around since Corel 3. When you use a 2 colour pattern to fill... the swatch that you're picking doesn't show the correct aspect ratio (not a big deal, but still silly since it's not representative of what you're actually going to get.. and it should be easy to fix and make the program tighter), and some of the swatches are horrible looking with jagged pixels off the vertical and horizontal edges of curved surfaces. Even downsampling shouldn't produce this kind of bad smaller image. Compare to the better aspect ratio (but still with really bad downsampling) in the lens effect docker... see image below. I don't have my monitor in any weird aspect ratio that would make the fill pattern look skewed like this. Also, it's not just the circular 2 colour patterns that have weird pixels sticking out... there are a few... and it's not because it's 2 colour as opposed to anti-aliased... the pixels are actually **sticking out** weirdly.
I'm probably wrong about this next issue... it's probably not a problem, but it might be.
- In PP, with the arrow picker tool, you click on an object and it goes through scale, rotate/skew, distort, and then perspective.
- However, in Draw, it doesn't go to distort or perspective... if this isn't an error it would be awesome to have. It seems like an issue because when I'm working in PP and then go over to Draw to do something and I'm expecting the image to be scalable (ok), rotatable (fine), distortable (wait a sec...), and perspectable (hmmmm... did I do something wrong... why isn't this working?). :) Maybe I did do something wrong.
PP and Draw are soooooo slow to open. I know others have mentioned this, but I wanted to offer some help (that you at Corel have already probably dealt with, but maybe not). I hope your program is written in C or C++... NOT C#. I'm not completely certain of the timing, but people on this board have been saying that the code should go back to X3... I think that's after C# and .NET came around. I'm only guessing that X4 and X5 were maybe migrated into C#? The reason this might be really bad is because C# runs on a virtual machine (like java). This is potentially bad for performance and **stability** because it adds an extra step when the code runs... I'm not an expert at C#, but I know that C++ is superior in this respect because the code gets compiled directly to machine code... instead of needing a Microsoft in-between virtual machine layer which probably heavily depends on the operating system... and how the current version of .NET runs on the operating system. Again, I'm not an expert in this area, but I think this might be something to think about. You guys at Corel probably have this well in hand though.
I looked at a setup file (workspace) and it's in xml. Why not try using a binary? I know it would might be more complicated, but way faster. With the default User Interface XML there's almost half a MB of text to parse before parsing all the other setup files... and all this before the program is loaded. If it were a binary, it would go way faster... or even try using a more simplistic text file and just index into it.
I just googled for "XML slow" and pulled up this quote from about 3 years ago:
"XML, now 10 years old, has a lot of problems. It's document-based, verbose, requires a higher payload across the network and a lot of processing once it arrives."
Davoid said: In PP, with the arrow picker tool, you click on an object and it goes through scale, rotate/skew, distort, and then perspective. However, in Draw, it doesn't go to distort or perspective... if this isn't an error it would be awesome to have.
In PP, with the arrow picker tool, you click on an object and it goes through scale, rotate/skew, distort, and then perspective. However, in Draw, it doesn't go to distort or perspective... if this isn't an error it would be awesome to have.
I agree, it should work in Draw also, kind of like a simplified one-shot envelope, and it should work on bitmaps also, like it does in competing software.
Davoid said:I looked at a setup file (workspace) and it's in xml. Why not try using a more simplistic text file and just index into it.
Some of us also wonder why not just a simple .ini file. I don't see the appeal of XML for these settings.
In fact.. the opposite, since "valid workspace not found" errors and also a magically growing user XML file have been problems for me. At one point... it had grown to 7 MB!!! Os's XML optimization tool chopped it down dramatically. Check your size...