My Life with XRes

[Thomas Horton]

I recently purchased Macomedia XRes 1.2 for the Macintosh upon
recommendation from a Macromedia employee that it was "way better than
Photoshop." Photoshop is the undisputed "killer app", so I was
skeptical. But, I decided to give it a shot.

I should have instead run screaming to my nearest Adobe dealer and
purchased the king of all bitmap editing programs, Photoshop, rather
than buy XRes.

In short, the program is garbage‹ actually discarded fish heads and old
newspapers would make better software. It blatantly advertises to do
things it will not, it makes a mockery of the time-honored Macintosh
interface standards, it is klugey, buggy, and an overall dud of a
program. Even the manual is bad‹ particularly the index.

When I called Macromedia technical support about this product's
continual bombing upon opening a file, a gentleman named Louis offered
me these nuggets of help, which I quote/paraphrase below:

€ Well, the serial number is on the card (the program says it's on the
disk)
€ No, it can't open an EPS file (okay, not misleading but really really
awful)
€ Oh yeah, don't try to open JPEGs, they crash your system (oh, silly
me!)
€ Never select "Register Colortron" from the file menu: it crashes your
system (thanks a helluva lot)
€ Well, version 2.0 should be a lot better (gee, I guess I'll just wait
til March to edit this image)
€ Yes, you'd be charged for the upgrade (so why did I buy this one?)
€ "Undo" undoes all the actions since your last "Tag" (so instinctively
Macintosh-like!)
€ Yes, there is multiple undo (except when it simply won't undo at all)
€ Well, Fauve had it before, so we realize it's got obvious problems

This last remark brings me to the crux of my complaint‹ why on earth
would a company known for putting superior products out in the
graphics/multimedia market (FreeHand, Fontographer, Director,
MacroModel, SoundEdit 16, ClipMedia‹ all of which I use) waste its time
with such a piece of (and I feel I'm being generous here) crap like
XRes?

Yes, the technology does seem cool. Yes, speed is important. Yes, we
are all afraid of Adobe. But honestly, wouldn't Macromedia have been
better served, given the known number of out-and-out bugs in this
program, to yank it off the market, overhaul it, rename it and make it a
quality Macromedia product? I must say, the good Macromedia name is
sullied by XRes, and I must henceforth regard all my purchases from
Macromedia with a suspicious eye‹ am I buying a quality product?

I am a graphic designer who uses all my tools very seriously. I
volunteer myself to beta-test the next version of XRes (as well as
FreeHand‹ I've got some suggestions there, too, but all-in-all FH is
glorious). If you'd like to give/get more feedback, call me at
800-251-1009.

Really, Macromedia. We expect better. Looks like we have to go to
Adobe to get it.

Sincerely,

Thomas Horton
Marketing Director
Sifford Media

[John Dowdell]

Thomas Horton, on Nov 22, notes problems in using xRes 1.2 and adds,

"But honestly, wouldn't Macromedia have been better served, given
the known number of out-and-out bugs in this program, to yank it off
the market, overhaul it, rename it and make it a quality Macromedia
product? I must say, the good Macromedia name is sullied by XRes,
and I must henceforth regard all my purchases from Macromedia with a
suspicious eye am I buying a quality product?"

First, my apologies for the problems, Thomas (and thanks for the
general impression of the other tools, though ;). When Fauve joined
with Macromedia in September xRes/Win was withdrawn completely,
mainly because of Win95 issues, and xRes/Mac was withdrawn from all
promotion. The 1.2.1 Mac version was still sold to those who asked
for it, because it does offer the unique ability to deal with large
files in moderate RAM with full image-editing and also natural
media, but it was only available through word-of-mouth.

Fauve xRes 1.0 had problems but most were fixed in versions leading
up to 1.2.1. After Fauve joined Macromedia the engineering crew was
increased and they've been working *hard* on improving and making it
more Mac-like. We want to make the implementation as strong as the
promise in the first Macromedia release. Please accept my
apologies... I'll forward this to Tom Hale, see what we can do.

Regards, John Dowdell (works with Macromedia)

[Alan King]

I could wait for Macromedia to bring the product up to usable function so I
bought Live Pictures.

BTW I thought Macromedia bought Xres to use in their multimedia software.
WanŐt it to be a part of the software and not a main app?

Regards Alan