CorelDRAW 2021 Update

[Bobby H]

I'm slightly surprised no one else has posted anything about this bit of news. The ".1" update of CorelDRAW 2021 was released a couple or so days ago. It does appear to fix a few known bugs, as documented on this page:

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite | Free Trial

Creativity meets productivity in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, your fully-loaded professional design toolkit for vector illustration, page layout, photo editing, typography, and more.

www.coreldraw.com

Still, I'm seeing other bugs that have not been addressed. There are various font handling issues which have existed since Version 2020. Certain type families installed in the OS or accessible via Corel Font Manager will have weights that are not visible at all to the application or are substituted with either the upright or italic versions. I'm even seeing these errors with fonts synced via the Adobe Fonts Service. Factoria is one family on Adobe Fonts that doesn't work correctly within CorelDRAW. I have a super-font family called Vito whose six bold-upright weights will not be visible if any of the six bold-italic versions are installed. On top of that the variable font interpolation engine in CorelDRAW appears to have bugs. I have a couple OTF Variable families that work just fine in Adobe Illustrator or even Inkscape yet have odd issues in CorelDRAW. Heading Now is one of the best "workhorse" sans families I've bought recently, but its Variable Fonts are just plain un-useable in CorelDRAW for how the letter forms are oddly altered.

 

[Bobby H]

Following what could be the only point-release update for CorelDRAW 2021 late last week, Adobe has rolled out the version 25.3.1 update for Adobe Illustrator early this morning. At this pace, the current version of Illustrator will probably go through point-4 and point-5 updates before the next full version (v26) is introduced with Creative Cloud 2022 at the Adobe MAX conference. By comparison CorelDRAW now only seems to get a minimal number of updates throughout a product cycle, regardless of various bugs that still remain unaddressed.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

By comparison CorelDRAW now only seems to get a minimal number of updates throughout a product cycle, regardless of various bugs that still remain unaddressed.

Is there really a surprise? Corel historically needs what, 4 or 5 pt releases at minimum (sometimes more) to iron out bugs on the old development cycle? Why would it seem that this truncate development cycle would yield better results?

Trying to get major feature releases every year may not be the best thing to do depending on what the dev team is able to get done. I think their biggest mistake was trying to add Apple support and add a totally separate code base that would require implementing the same fix on two different code bases when they were used to just one code base for so long (and if they didn't hire Apple centric devs, but trying to use Windows centric devs and get them to work on the Apple system, that wouldn't help things either). There are actually ways around this (but at a dependency and resource drawback), but at least it would have made it one code base and helped simplify that aspect of it. Then just worry about the major releases when there are new hardware/API needs etc.

 

[Bobby H]

Is there really a surprise? Corel historically needs what, 4 or 5 pt releases at minimum (sometimes more) to iron out bugs on the old development cycle? Why would it seem that this truncate development cycle would yield better results?

I can't even remember the last time CorelDRAW had more than 3 updates in a version product cycle. And that includes small "hot fix" updates. The past few versions have typically had just one "hot fix" update and one significant point release update.

I don't know the inner workings of the Corel company. But the sheer lack of maintenance activity on CorelDRAW, particularly now that it's mostly a subscription-based product, is pretty telling. It appears the development team is either lacking the personnel, talent and/or production budget to give the product the attention it deserves. When I look at Adobe's product updates their point release updates have their own point release updates. The 25.3.1 update for Illustrator got its own minor point release before getting rolled out to the public.

My cynical side suspects meddling and interference from up high via the people who own the Corel company: an outside private equity firm. One of these firms (Vector Capital) took Corel private in 2003. That wasn't long after the dot-com bust and an insider trading scandal that forced Corel's founder out of the company. Vector Capital listed Corel's stock in 2006 after re-structing the company, then took it private again in 2010 due to effects from the Great Recession. During the time Vector Capital controlled Corel they acquired other software companies under the Corel tent, such as Parallels. The other titles were probably why KKR was willing to pay over $1 billion for Corel. That's a fraction of what Vector Capital paid for Corel.

My feeling is the people at KKR, and the previous owners at Vector Capital, didn't want to sink a lot of resources into CorelDRAW. The other properties, such as Parallels, seemed more valuable. Although I really have to wonder about that one now since Apple has ditched Intel CPUs in favor of their own ARM-based CPU design.

Trying to get major feature releases every year may not be the best thing to do depending on what the dev team is able to get done. I think their biggest mistake was trying to add Apple support and add a totally separate code base that would require implementing the same fix on two different code bases when they were used to just one code base for so long (and if they didn't hire Apple centric devs, but trying to use Windows centric devs and get them to work on the Apple system, that wouldn't help things either). There are actually ways around this (but at a dependency and resource drawback), but at least it would have made it one code base and helped simplify that aspect of it. Then just worry about the major releases when there are new hardware/API needs etc.

Even before Corel introduced a version for OSX they were struggling to deliver full versions on an annual release cycle. Now their development situation is greatly compounded and more complicated with a Mac version produced alongside the Windows version. I can't tell if Corel has developed a native version of CorelDRAW for M1-based Macs or if they're just maintaining the Intel x86 version for now. There is still a large install base of Intel-based Macs. That will force a lot of Mac developers to maintain separate Intel and M1 builds for maybe a couple more years at least. It reminds me of the days when there were separate 040 and PowerPC builds of Mac applications in the 1990's.

Incidentally, the 25.3.1 update for Illustrator adds native support for M1-based Macs.

The plate is pretty full for the CorelDRAW development team. But it seems like the higher ups want to direct more attention to other apps Corel owns. I worry the decision makers will let CorelDRAW languish. The competition is pretty fierce out there. And Adobe isn't the only rival.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I don't know the inner workings of the Corel company.

That's the biggest thing. We don't know really know and that leads to speculation. All have a pretty good probability.

My cynical side suspects meddling and interference from up high via the people who own the Corel company: an outside private equity firm. One of these firms (Vector Capital) took Corel private in 2003. That wasn't long after the dot-com bust and an insider trading scandal that forced Corel's founder out of the company. Vector Capital listed Corel's stock in 2006 after re-structing the company, then took it private again in 2010 due to effects from the Great Recession. During the time Vector Capital controlled Corel they acquired other software companies under the Corel tent, such as Parallels. The other titles were probably why KKR was willing to pay over $1 billion for Corel. That's a fraction of what Vector Capital paid for Corel.

My feeling is the people at KKR, and the previous owners at Vector Capital, didn't want to sink a lot of resources into CorelDRAW. The other properties, such as Parallels, seemed more valuable. Although I really have to wonder about that one now since Apple has ditched Intel CPUs in favor of their own ARM-based CPU design.

There is a problem with that way of doing things as well. Parallels is a virtualizing program, not emulation. While emulators can also be virtualizors, not the other way around. So they are either going to need to make it such (unless they have already, I don't keep up much with the Mac side of things) or hope that Windows goes all in on arm as well or that Rosetta 2.0 (or whatever they are calling it) stays forever (which I doubt). Unless WINE gets better (there is a commercial version of it for Mac users as well, so there is that option, just not many people are aware of WINE or it's commercial varient)

Even before Corel introduced a version for OSX they were struggling to deliver full versions on an annual release cycle. Now their development situation is greatly compounded and more complicated with a Mac version produced alongside the Windows version. I can't tell if Corel has developed a native version of CorelDRAW for M1-based Macs or if they're just maintaining the Intel x86 version for now. There is still a large install base of Intel-based Macs. That will force a lot of Mac developers to maintain separate Intel and M1 builds for maybe a couple more years at least. It reminds me of the days when there were separate 040 and PowerPC builds of Mac applications in the 1990's.

It would have cost more, but it would have been better for efficiency to have gone with something like Qt (or "cute" as it is pronounced), one of my favorite libraries. Not cheap, but it does dual license (Adobe uses it in Ps Elements and Maya uses it as well, Teamviewer as well, the later two are available on all 3 desktop OSs), supported on all platforms, if use QML even on mobile with one codebase. A lot of people are using Webview (Webview2 is better on Windows and should be included (they still include regular Webview in Win 10, but now that IE has been deprecated and slated for removal next year, I think that they will switch)) and for the most part, most users won't be able to tell the difference, for while it is still a browser, it provides a more app-like experience and with being able to write backend logic and even frontend logic in compiled code, not just JS only in the front end, that adds more to the appeal (Autodesk can be run totally in the browser).

I have a feeling that's the way things are going to go. I know that when I write programs, I either write Webview/Webview2 or I'll use Godot (seems strange using a game engine for application work, but it solves the same problems rather well and can be run in low processor mode that puts it on equal footing as a webview app). But while my Webview apps are all local, just compiled into one binary and serve a local server, I imagine that business would just have it point to an offsite link to run the program.

 

[Big Rice Field]

I'm slightly surprised no one else has posted anything about this bit of news. The ".1" update of CorelDRAW 2021 was released a couple or so days ago. It does appear to fix a few known bugs, as documented on this page:

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite | Free Trial

Creativity meets productivity in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, your fully-loaded professional design toolkit for vector illustration, page layout, photo editing, typography, and more.

www.coreldraw.com

Still, I'm seeing other bugs that have not been addressed. There are various font handling issues which have existed since Version 2020. Certain type families installed in the OS or accessible via Corel Font Manager will have weights that are not visible at all to the application or are substituted with either the upright or italic versions. I'm even seeing these errors with fonts synced via the Adobe Fonts Service. Factoria is one family on Adobe Fonts that doesn't work correctly within CorelDRAW. I have a super-font family called Vito whose six bold-upright weights will not be visible if any of the six bold-italic versions are installed. On top of that the variable font interpolation engine in CorelDRAW appears to have bugs. I have a couple OTF Variable families that work just fine in Adobe Illustrator or even Inkscape yet have odd issues in CorelDRAW. Heading Now is one of the best "workhorse" sans families I've bought recently, but its Variable Fonts are just plain un-useable in CorelDRAW for how the letter forms are oddly altered.

I just do not use Font Mangler. It is a mess.