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Nathan Adams · Mar 3, 2003, 07:44 AM

What are people's thoughts on the new Freehand?

I've long been a freehand user, and lorded over illustrator people, but I think my faith is being tested.
Freehand once was a nice, slim app, for graphic designers, with a clear UI. It seems these days, with the seeds planted in FH9, that they're neglecting the designers, in favour of web and flash tie ins - that in my opinion consitute absolute bloat. On top of that, the UI has been getting hideous - esp. with the transition to OS X. Palletes are now huge. I was hoping that it was just teething troubles with Freehand 10, and that it would improve in version 11 - but it's the EXACT same ugly pallets, tacked onto those MX drop down thingys - which whilst appropriate for the likes of flash and dreamweaver - are downright awful in Freehand.
And the properties pallete, with the object tab - utter awfulness.
Why they could have introduced a properties inspector, a la Flash or Quark is beyond me. Freehand was crying out for one.

But most of this wouldn't annoy me so much, if it wasn't for the fact that they're doing this, whilst ignoring things that have long been needed. Unicode support. I would hope at sometime before 2030, I will be able to type Japanese properly in Freehand.... it's not that hard. WMF export - still not there.

sigh...

art_director · Mar 3, 2003, 09:06 AM

i picked up a copy of freehand 10 but have found myself using illustrator 10. guess i've come to favor the gui and the way it's organized. don't get me wrong, freehand is a great app, but i tend to use illustrator 10 more often.

Nathan Adams · Mar 3, 2003, 09:22 AM

I've been thinking of giving a go of Illustrator before I upgrade from FH10, but not sure.
One thing I value very much in FH has been multiple pages, with varying sizes. Since my primary uses are for logos, and page layouts (since the type in FH has long been better than in quark)
I've also always regarded Illustrator as more suited for actual illustrators, and somewhat lacking in page layout gear.

What's the typography like in Illustrator? I'm quite fond of really anal details, nitty gritty stuff. (and hanging punctuation, definately need that. thats one example of FH having better type than quark).

art_director · Mar 3, 2003, 11:00 AM

Originally posted by Nathan Adams:
I've been thinking of giving a go of Illustrator before I upgrade from FH10, but not sure.
One thing I value very much in FH has been multiple pages, with varying sizes. Since my primary uses are for logos, and page layouts (since the type in FH has long been better than in quark)
I've also always regarded Illustrator as more suited for actual illustrators, and somewhat lacking in page layout gear.

What's the typography like in Illustrator? I'm quite fond of really anal details, nitty gritty stuff. (and hanging punctuation, definately need that. thats one example of FH having better type than quark).

imo adobe has done a great job with illustrator's type handling. it's far better than the illustrator of old. maybe you should try the demo. you can get it from adobe.com.

the one thing i dislike about fh is the screen preview. i think illustrator does a better job.

Nathan Adams · Mar 3, 2003, 11:21 AM

i think I might have a cd with the demo on it lying around someplace too...

freehand mx's screen preview is vastly improved over 10. although probably not up to illustrator standards, gone is flash anti-alias, and the standard preview uses a much more accurate anti-aliasing. looks much better. (although doesn't apply it to type that's just above greek... small gripe).

i must say i've calmed down somewhat since before, and not as appalled by MX. It IS a better app than FH 10 ever was. It seems a little faster, preview is much better, redraw while scrolling is MUCH better. It's just that it seems none of the new features since FH 8, barring master pages, have really been of any great use to me as a designer.

Whilst I'm going to give the Ill 10 trial a go, I think I'll wait and see how things pan out - with Illustrator 11 not too far off (hopefully they add multiple varied size pages), and maybe Macromedia might release an update remedying the lack of unicode (people are being surprisingly vocal about it on the official freehand board this time around - when 9 and 10 were released, hardly a peep was said about it)

art_director · Mar 3, 2003, 02:19 PM

please post back after your test drive of ill. would love to hear what a hard core fh user thinks of ill 10 vs. fh mx.

putamare · Mar 3, 2003, 06:39 PM

I've been a FH user since the Aldus days, and always found it superior to illustrator. That is until 10. The one great thing about 10 is that they made it so much like illustrator that switching over was easier (once you embrace the dark side of having two tools for selection, you might as well give up and go with illustrator anyway). Things like the fact that there was no contextual menu item or keyboard command to arrange objects forward or back is inexcusable. Sure I miss the multiple pages per document, but I moved on.

It'd be nice if as an act of good faith, macromedia fixed 10 before charging us for 11. But apparently they've learned from Flash that they don't actually have to make completely functional software before charging for the next iteration.

cowerd · Mar 3, 2003, 10:02 PM

It'd be nice if as an act of good faith, macromedia fixed 10 before charging us for 11. But apparently they've learned from Flash that they don't actually have to make completely functional software before charging for the next iteration.

No different than Adobe. I believe that I'll be paying for bug-fixes mostly in Illustrator 11.

art_director · Mar 3, 2003, 10:59 PM

Originally posted by cowerd:
No different than Adobe. I believe that I'll be paying for bug-fixes mostly in Illustrator 11.

what bugs are you referring to, cowerd? i must be missing something.

putamare · Mar 4, 2003, 11:36 AM

While I never would've imagined I'd rush to defend ill over FH, the problems with FH aren't simply "bugs" (though it does crash a lot), but seriously poor implementation (like too many tasks take me away from the drawing & up into the menus). While it may be true Adobe is always playing catch-up with their releases, macromedia has demonstrated a clear line of poor judgment with FH since they acquired it. For me, FH10 was the last straw. It would take a miracle to get me back, and the people that wrote FH10 are not miracle workers.

darklightfaery · Mar 4, 2003, 07:33 PM

I've used both, Ill. 9 and so far Freehand MX till I get my hands on Ill. 10. I found Ill. GUI easier to follow and use while FH's is a bit more confusing (palettes). FH is far more simpler than Ill. in illustration, but less power or features than Ill. I like FH's multi-page support. Till I compare FH MX with Ill. 10, I'd say Ill. is better tool for illustration at the moment.

yerrow · Mar 5, 2003, 02:22 PM

I left FH 10 for Illustrator 10 because it was awfully unstable. While working on an artwork, FH 10 crashed and after that, the artwork simply refused to open. FH 10 did not recognise it as a FH document. Contacted Macromedia US via email and they directed to Macromedia Asia and someone called me about this issue. That was more than a year ago and they have yet to return me a reply.

Anyway, FH 11 brought me back. It rocks!

I wish it had better FH to Flash conversion.

graphics84 · Mar 5, 2003, 05:57 PM

we may call this the great conversion some day...

I started with Ai 6... it sucked compared to Freehand but with Ai 10 and Freehand 10 on my machine I only use Freehand when I have too...

I get more postscript errors from Ai 10 but it's because Adobe seems to always be pushing there software to do more incredible things... and I try to use it all...

Transparencies ROCK!

can't wait till my film outputers can use the full power of Postscript 3!