> Adobe no longer considered Freehand a viable competitor. Macromedia "killed" FreeHand long before Adobe had the chance to do that.
> I always looked at Illustrator 8 as being our biggest competitor
In the minds of
customers FreeHand has
always been Illustrator's primary competitor. (Evidenced in part by emotionally-devoted AI users' sensitivity to it.) I'm speaking
functionality here, not market share. I don't think, any of the mainstream drawing programs (including FH) are what they ought to be in 2009, but compared to FreeHand 8, Illustrator 8 is a child's toy.
Regarding just about everything except AI's being a full-blown Postscript interpreter, live vector effects (Brushes, etc.), and automation (macros, scripting), FreeHand
still blows the doors off Illustrator in most areas that count every minute of every day:
* Performance (text, redraw, launching, closing, stability)
* Functional elegance (feature integration, consolidation)
* Interface organization (inspector-based, fully contextual)
* Interface consistency (options exist where & when expected)
* Accuracy (snaps, dimension values)
* Path drawing (greater capability, less tedium while drawing)
* Drawing features (user-defined drawing scales, shape primitives, etc.)
* Selection (fewer tools, greater functionality)
* Text Handling (One elegantly designed textframe object does more, easier.)
I couldn't even
tolerate Illustrator 8 in its day for my day to day work. (AI 8 didn't even have a Fit To Page print option!) I could
still do my work more comfortably and expediently in FH 8 or later.
AI-only users don't have a clue as to what was lost when Adobe shut down FreeHand. Illustrator's copying of FH-ish functionality so far (with the possible exception of the decade-late multiple pages--jury's still out) has been quite weak:
Alignment of anchorpoints. This (also decades-late) feature falls far short of the FreeHand functionality, because of Illustrator's inferior underlying selection scheme.
Select Same, Magic Wand, etc. This convoluted, scattered functionality can't even come near what FreeHand's tightly integrated and concise Graphic Find & Replace can do.
Selecting anchorPoints. In CS3, AI
finally circumvented the infuriating need to continually deselect while manipulating paths. Experienced AI users praise it like it's the Great Awakening. Yet to proficient FH users, it's mere
lip service toward FH's still vastly better path/point/segment selection/manipulation interface.
Illustrator's success is NOT due to better functionality. It is due to its perceptional and marketing position relative to PostScript, Adobe, and PDF. Despite all its continually changing window-dressing, it is outdated, buggy, sluggish. Despite its focus on whiz-bang instant-eye-candy features, it still lags decades behind other drawing programs in fundamental drawing functionality.
FH, having laid dormant since a year before Adobe's acquisition still provides these very practical and
rightly expected functional superiorities over Illustrator:
User defined drawing scales
Reliable snaps (grid, points, guides)
Proper corner radius command
Geometric shape primitives
Proper cutting tool
More Grad types, all with on-object adjustment handles
Join multiple paths (without tedously selecting endpoints)
Better (more sensible, predictable, practical) path combination
Reliable, comprehensive contextual properties inspector
Autofitting text frames
Proper paragraph rules
Properly behaving paragraph styles
Better Find/Replace text
Better pathType interface
Dedicated (and integrated) perspective drawing interface
Graphic Find & Replace
Proper ruler Guides (don't conflict with pasteboard bounds)
Quick, easy, reliable select-through
Bend/resume straight segments by dragging (without adding points)
Repeatedly delete endpoints/resume
Turn OFF auto join!
Turn OFF fill open paths!
Contact/enclose marquee selection choice
Reliable palette positioning and workspace settings
User-defined stroke weight presets
Fully customizable toolbars
Proper hairline stroke weight
That's just off-the-top. The list goes on and on.
How much has a long-time AI user paid over the years for AI and its decades-late functionality, its confused and scattered interface, its sluggish behavior, and lately, its uncorrected bugs?
AI, still clinging to its archaic trappings, just can't catch up. I doubt very seriously that I will ever live to see AI match--let alone exceed, as it should--FH's efficiency and elegance. The fact that AI-devoted users deny, dismiss, or are just ignorant of FH's advantages doesn't change the fact that vector drawing has suffered a serious setback by FH's discontinuance. Too many will just never know.
JET
