Quark Forums

To employees Quark, colleagues, Matthias Guenther!

Please, as soon as possible correct a defect in options of measurements QuarkXPress!

At moving of object by arrows of the keyboard we can shift it on 1 pt, with key Alt on 0.1 pt, with key Shift on any number pixels (it is established Edit> Preferences> Print Layout> Tools> Item Tool> Shift + Nudge Increment, px).
But I work in metric system and it is necessary for me to change a step of shift to the units! For example, on 5 mm and 0.5 mm accordingly (thus measurements in pixels for a printing breadboard model me do not interest in general).
Earlier it could be made by means of addition XPress Tools Nudge, and now in any way.

Please correct a situation in the nearest updating for QuarkXPress. Or let out XTension with such function. Probably, within the limits of Quark Labs project.

Please, declare on behalf of the company that you have heard about problem.

On behalf of set of users and. I love QuarkXpress. Thanks.

Dear Andanas,

first thank you very much for your support and passion about QuarkXPress.

Though Quark employees read and answer here, in general forums are not a very structured way for collecting bug details and troubleshooting more complicated workflows. To get an official ticket or bug ID, please call or email our (free) techncial support, they can either help or confirm that it is a bug and in the latter usually attach you customer details to the bug in our database.

For feature requests additionally we have this dedicated forum here, which you found (I deleted your duplicate posts in the other forums), of course you can also call or mail technical support about it.

I am sure you understand that we cannot answer every single post here, be assured we try to scan at least every thread start. If you need a response, please use our dedicated tech support or customer service channels.

Thanks
Matthias

Matthias, and what you will tell?

The step of moving of object by means of the keyboard can be adjusted in the eighth version QuarkXPress? Or not?

-----------------------

Excuse for theme duplication.

Hi, Andanas,

the metric system also works with pixels... ;-) and of course I see your point.

Yes, it is a good suggestion to be able to customize the incremements which will be used when moving the objects by cursor keys with or without qualifiers. Currently it is not possible. It is on the wishlist and roadmap for a future release.

Best
Matthias

 Currently not possible? I've been doing this since at least Quark 6, with Xpert Nudge. Then XPert Nudge was sensibly bundled in with Quark 7. I expected that it would be integrated to the programme (perhaps via Preferences) with Quark 8.

 I cannot tell you how useful this is to us. Well, perhaps I can.

One job I do has loads of 3.5mm square boxes. The ability to set nudge to 3.5mm makes the difference between do-able and nightmare. 

We always try to work to whole or half millimetres and not place boxes in 'roughly the right place' (except for the creative dept, but they are a law unto themselves...). To be able to adjust boxes by 1mm at a time is invaluable and prevents a whole job descending into anarchy.

This is not a bug. It is not a 'nice feature to introduce sometime'. It is a massive loss of functionality. I do not build web pages. I don't need to use the indexing feature, nor the book feature. I rarely drop shadows or make stuff transparent. I DO want to be able to do what I've always done.

Rant over. Have a nice day, guys!

Emma:

Currently not possible? I've been doing this since at least Quark 6, with Xpert Nudge.

Ok, you are right, I should have written "currently not possible with an out-of-the-box QuarkXPress 8". That's what XTensions are for, to add functionality Quark doesn't offer. Nobody says it is a bug, it is definitely a good feature request.

When building a new version every customer has a different priority list. So some features that are important for you might not be in the next release, whereas somebody else is extremely happy. And we are actively encouraging our partners to release important XTensions as quick as possible.

Could we add in 500 new features in QuarkXPress 9? Sure we could. But either you would have to wait four years or the quality of the release would not be optimal. Or both.

Therefore feedback in the suggestion box or better personally to CS/TS is important. To each enhancement (and bug) we attach customer details, which we use to build the right priorities. Regarding XPert Tools, as I have written before, the former XPert Tools will be integrated step-by-step into QuarkXPress.

Best
Matthias

P.S.: Your enhancement to customize nudge values is a very valid request and is logged as a enhancement.

Point taken. I just thought that since you had bought up the alap XTensions, they would be integrated. I wonder what has happened to the alap developers? Perhaps they could re-invent the wheel for us?

PS - From a quick click around the Quark site, there is no obvious way to contact Technical or Customer Services with feedback like this. Am I missing something?

Matthais

Why is it that Quark always tries to "reinvent the wheel" when making program upgrades. If you think about it, every feature/function that is in a current version of quark is there for a reason. Most likely well thought out at the time it was added. So then, when creating new versions why decide to not include feature/functions that are already there?

We have tons and tons of quark documents that have embedded charts and images flowing with text. They will NOT open correctly in quark 8. Known issue, already reported and supposedly is being worked on. Now, if in creating quark 8 you would have left well enough alone, and just added on to the features/functions of the program, they would probably open/print fine. Instead you FORCE us to start using a competitors program because our quark docs "no longer work" within the current version.

Luckily we have quark 7 here, and only 2 copies of 8 to test files. If we need to, we can go back. I feel sorry for the customers who were "forced" to buy 8, and told 7 was no longer available. To be ethical, you should send a free copy of 7 to ALL owners of 8 until the bugs are worked out. And, I guess, that should carry thru to version 9, 10, etc.

geo:

Matthais

It's Matthias please... thanks.

I feel sorry for the customers who were "forced" to buy 8, and told 7 was no longer available.

I am not sure from where you got that information. Of course you can still buy 7. Go to our webstore, it is also listed there. Quark is one of the few vendors selling and supporting two current versions, so currently QuarkXPress 7.5 and 8.01.

Why is it that Quark always tries to "reinvent the wheel" when making program upgrades. If you think about it, every feature/function that is in a current version of quark is there for a reason. Most likely well thought out at the time it was added. So then, when creating new versions why decide to not include feature/functions that are already there?

First, thank you for your kind words that features are well thought through when we add(ed) them.

You are right, occasionally we need to remove features. However we just do that when there's a good reason, like it being not needed anymore or the underlying technologies not making it useful to anyone anymore. Think of Command+Option+D (the dock takes it).Or auto-constraining, we might remove that in the future (as nobody we know uses that anymore). Or the rotation tool (in 8), as the current way is much more intuitive. Or the old Guide Manager as the new XPert Tools Guides are much more intuitive...

The discussion here is about XPert Tools, which were not a part of QuarkXPress 6/7.
Of course it would be nice and helpful to have all these features inside QuarkXPress. Therefore we have integrated a first lot into 8, the rest will follow. It is not "just" making them available, it is porting them (to 8) and integrating them (into palette sets as well as localization, which you might not care about but many customers in other countries do etc.). As mentioned before I strongly believe quality should be above quantity, so I hope for your agreement.

Best
Matthias

Matthias Guenther (Quark):

Of course you can still buy 7.

Matthias, seriously. Why would/should anyone buy the old program when you have a new version out? Especially when the ONLY reason to own the old version is because the new version is seriously flawed, and just does not work properly with the way the file is/was constructed. My point was quark should GIVE, free of charge, version 7 to ANYONE who owns 8.

Matthias Guenther (Quark):

occasionally we need to remove features. However we just do that when there's a good reason

The unfortunate reality of this situation is that you at quark have NO IDEA which features are "jems" that we use day in and day out, and which features the end user really does not use anymore. And this situation runs a wide gamut. What is absolutely necessary for me in my day to day work, might be something that another has never heard of. Also, like it or not, the xpert tools extensions are one of the reasons why most folks (that have stayed) stayed with quark. To me, it is very shortsighted to EVEN release version 8 without these either being "in" the program, or available as extensions. To tell us that "...down the line they will be in-place" does absolutely nothing to speed up production.

And, don't get me going on "new", "fun", "exciting". The redesign of quark (8) just to have a "modern" shell of a program was probably the dumbest thing that quark has ever done. Quark had a fabulously functional interface/program to begin with. All you needed to do was fix transparency, then the program would have been great. No, instead some idiot at quark decided that a new interface was actually worth a complete upgrade. Almost NO new features, and definitely NO FIXES in what WAS broken. I sincerely hope that whatever team or individual that led quark down that path is no longer at quark.....

Here is MY vision for quark's future:

FIX what the new interface broke. Imbedded images/charts/items need to all SHOW UP, PRINT, and open as previous versions. Stop EVERYTHING and fix this NOW. How can we justify using a program that will "open" old catalogs with completely flowing pages, but all the pages only show the first chart, and the subsequent charts are blank. Or the 2nd image is "missing". This should have been caught IMMEDIATELY by the programmers. Never even should have made thru beta testing (which we are still doing, by the way).

Now, let's call that "quark 8.02"

Then....

FIX transparency. Items need to blend the same as IDs items blend. If an image's layer is set to multiply, doggone it, it NEEDS to multiply. Until you get that one very important issue, quark is USELESS in regards to collaging images and actually printing correctly. If quark cannot compose/print items using transparency correctly, then what is it?

OK, keeping with the naming convention, we'll call that "quark 8.03"

Future...

No more straying. We want a state-of-the-art LAYOUT program for print. That is what quark "IS" (or at least if I had my say). I have photoshop to manipulate images. I have illustrator to manipulate line-art. I have flash to make web pages..... If you want to make a la carte programs that will add on to the basic (print) functionality of the quark, that would be fine. But that needs to be a separate team of code-writers. Quark needs to get back to being a functioning layout program. As it is written now, it is not. And to suggest that you can always buy a previous version because 8 does not do what it needs to do is more than just a slap in the face to us. I, for one, have been using quark since its beginning. It has been the ONLY program I/We ever used. No longer. You have forced the "production" community to look for alternatives by your decisions.

Too bad, really.

Dear geo,

geo:

Why would/should anyone buy the old program when you have a new version out?

I can think of several reasons, e.g. having a whole workflow on 7 and need to add one workstation.

And, does it matter, why? I think most important is that you CAN if you want/need to. You have the choice and you are not forced to use 8 and therefore my answer to your question.

The unfortunate reality of this situation is that you at quark have NO IDEA which features are "jems" that we use day in and day out, and which features the end user really does not use anymore.

I think most Product Managers at Quark - also the ones working for enterprise products - have been (and still are) using QuarkXPress in production. And our creative department of course uses QuarkXPress.

And you are absolutely right, every user of QuarkXPress has different priorities. That's why we do not base our decisions on our own opinion and usage, we do customer visits (you personally met our presales technicians), analyze the feedback and workflows we hear from you, read in forums, conduct surveys, hold focus groups, talk to customers at hundreds of events and tradeshows etc. 

I am happy to hear that you use many hidden gems of the software. If you have time I'd appreciate you sharing some of them with everybody (and us) here, we have a Tips & Tricks forums for that. Beside everybody benefitting from these, also you will: When we understand how you use features in QuarkXPress we can make them even better or tell other customers about it. Looking forward to read about it.

Thanks
Matthias

Matthias, re-read my previous post, I added a few things in an edit I assume you did not see.

Unfortunately my time here is much less than it used to by. Any "extra" time now is learning a new interface/layout program. Because I/we feel abandoned by our "old" program, a lot of us are moving on to our "new" program. Remember, this is a change that was dictated by quark, not myself. My previous post lists the how/why's, take a look.

...geo