yes

Yes, I will upgrade my FreeHand MX with Adobe if it is more than an interface change ;-)

yes

I'll be willing to pay double price just to get a working copy with Leopard.

Yes

Yes

Dear Jack,

I have 10 copies of Freehand MX to upgrade for Leopard (new hardware due to be purchased next spring) YES!!! I will pay to upgrade if Adobe would continue my only drawing solution (I need to print postscript without font grief from MX). I will not switch to Illustrator (being using since Freehand 1). We have hundreds of thousands of files for over twenty years (engineers expect us to be able to update material from 1989!).

Lola Durbrow

Jack, your fight, our fight to keep FreeHand alive started a while ago : http://www.enrichdesign.com/freehand.html
But I agree we should never stop to dismiss ;-) Keep on the fight!!!!

> Why should our century of learning become
> of Nothing. How can this happen to millions of people across the world.

It's called big business. ;o)

I love Freehand as much as anyone. I still use it as my main illustration
program.

That said, I'm not wasting time with Adobe anymore. They don't care, and
don't need to care about Freehand users. They bought the competition
outright and did what any company in that position would do: kill it.

I'd suggest it'd be better for us to put our efforts elsewhere...start
working with some of the open source vector illustration products. Support
some of the 3rd party options, etc.

-Darrel

> I want the share holders to know that they have made a BIG mistake by
> allowing this decision to take place.

But they haven't made a big mistake. In terms of maximizing profits,
Freehand was pure dead weight. The code base was antiquated, the dev team
was threadbare, and Adobe already owned the market leading competing
product.

Alas, Adobe did make the right decision in terms of the shareholders.

Which is a bummer for us and Freehand, of course.

I hate to be a downer, but reality sunk in quite a while ago for me
regarding this. ;o)

-Darrel

I recently went on an 2 day Illustrator training course, paid for by my work as the reality of "no more FreeHand" has set in, and while the chap taking course knew his stuff and explained everything really well, I found the actual software falling well short. I asked some pretty awkward questions too, usually to be met with a reply of "yes you can do that in Illustrator" followed by at least 5 clicks, a few menu scrolls and an arcane set of names to achieve a 2 clicks solution in FH. I'm still using Freehand for 60% of my work with Quark XPress taking up 30% and Photoshop accounting for the remainder. Even the mighty InDesign can't do some things Quark can, this all conquering Adobe stranglehold is not a good thing.

Yeah, my main stumbling block with Illus traitor is those 3 damn pointers and selecting anything be it text or object, also it was funny seeing the Adobe approved trainer on the course trying to diss FreeHand's multiple page option by saying "well what is it, is it a page layout package or is it a drawing package"? Eh, it's both you bozo!

Yes Yes, A Thousand Times YES!!! Freehand is the best and easiest interface and for total project workflow. Illustrator is CLUNKY, full of bells and whistles but much less intuitive (like using a chainsaw to cut butter) - hence, SLOWER THAN FREEHAND. I'd much rather see them discontinue Illustrator. I had to do usability studies back in the 80s when these two apps first appeared. The time comparisons which my artists completed similar tasks were almost 2 to 1, Freehand is faster to use than Illustrator. Freehand is enormously more intuitive and MORE SIMILAR to Photoshop CS3 and Flash CS3 in user experience than Illustrator.

If they just made FH Intel compatible I'd be happy enough... oh and ironed out some of the bugs... and allowed you to colour groups like it used to... and... that's about it

Yes, I will upgrade my FreeHand MX.

> If they just made FH Intel compatible

Is it not? It's running on my MacBook.

-Darrel

> I would like to point out one small but important thing. Draw a text block in illustrator, type some text, then try moving the text block with your pointer tool. It will move if you point to the text baseline or the perimeter of the text block but if you point anywhere inside the text block, it will not move.

Go to Edit>Preferences>Type and turn off the Type Object Selection By Path Only option.

Jack, you do your own cause more damage than good when you don't check your facts. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes Illustrator devotees think FreeHand users are merely whining because they are too lazy to learn another program that is "no better than Illustrator."

Now let me give you one: In FreeHand, select an object. Now move it numerically, not in terms of vertical and horizontal distances, but in terms of direction and distance.

Now wouldn't you say that functionality is pretty dang basic?

Look: In alot of important and basic ways, FreeHand is a better vector drawing interface than Illustrator ever will be. But the ugly truth is, that's not really saying much.

"FreeHand Addict"? You guys are addicted to mediocrity. (Never mind that AI "addicts" are addicted to worse.) "Give me FreeHand or give me death"? Give me a break. "Monopoly"? Look up the meaning. If this were an illegal monopoly the FTC would be all over it.

If you can't stand Illustrator, give Corel or Canvas a go. Reward them for also being better than Illustrator, and for surviving despite its market share. Moreover, do your homework. Make LEGITIMATE and SUBSTANTIVE comparisons between FH and AI, so that Adobe (and more importantly, Illustrator users) will understand that the complaints are based on meaningful fact, not mere habituated favoritism.

And finally: Post those comparisons where they can make a difference. You guys are just preaching to the choir here. " Millions"? Where do you get that figure? I count 18 different responders in 13 days. Criminy, there's more interest than that in some of the most mundane single threads in the Illustrator forums.

JET

I would definitlely buy at least 50 copies here.... we are in the process of upgrading and NEED Freehand MX to ckeep using the literally MILLIONS of files we have here.