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1. Re: Layer options for placed AI files
Larry G. Schneider Sep 19, 2008 8:06 AM (in response to Michael Brown12)Modify the original and in the second document, relink the first. -
2. Re: Layer options for placed AI files
Michael Brown12 Sep 19, 2008 9:02 AM (in response to Michael Brown12)I don't think you read my question. Of course if I change the original it will change where it is placed. That's not I'm looking for.
I want to know where the "Layer Options" menu command is (as it is called in InDesign). I have one AI file with four layers. I have four AI files into which that single, four-layer file is placed. I want a different combination of its layers to be visible for each file. This is a simple procedure in ID and I'm hoping it is the same for an AI-into-an-AI situation.
Thanks,
MGuilfoile -
3. Re: Layer options for placed AI files
Larry G. Schneider Sep 19, 2008 9:50 AM (in response to Michael Brown12)As far as I know, AI doesn't have that option. If you are making 4 versions of the single file in new files just set the layers as you want and Save As for the new files. -
4. Re: Layer options for placed AI files
Michael Brown12 Sep 19, 2008 12:41 PM (in response to Michael Brown12)Really? That is incredible if true. What you suggest would work, but it would increase my workload by nearly 400 percent because I'd have to make changes to four files instead of one.
I can't understand why Adobe leaves features off one application that are equally as important for another. To be honest, ID and AI could be combined into one application that would work far more efficiently than the tangled mess currently offered. At least I'd quit running into incompatibilities between the two apps.
Thanks for letting me know. I can stop trying to figure it out.
MGuilfoile -
5. Re: Layer options for placed AI files
Scott Falkner Sep 19, 2008 4:20 PM (in response to Michael Brown12)Illustrator was designed in the mid-1980s. Each revision has had to perform three vital, yet conflicting, duties. Each must be compatible with previous versions so as not to provide a barrier to upgrading. They must each play catch-up with competing applications so that Adobe can maintain and gain market share. More recently, now that pro-level competition is negligible, each version must justify the upgrade dollars that Adobe depends on now that they have committed to upgrading seven (eight? nine?) programs together on a regular schedule.
The first is the most important to users, while the last is the most important to Adobe executives (and least important to users).
The result is that Illustrator is a hodge-podge of code, old and new. Many of the original programmers of Illustrator have moved to other companies, retired, or taken up daisy-raising. But the original code is still in there, and as hard to get out of Illustrator as pee from a pool.
Imaging repainting the same dresser every two ears, but never having the luxury of the time needed to strip the old paint. How smoothly do you think those drawers will work with a 16th of an inch of paint on them?
Years ago, Adobe had the same problem with PageMaker, but with one huge difference: Quark. If Adobe had bought Quark, we'd be using PageMaker CS3 or maybe AdobeXPress CS3, instead of InDesign, with the same burden of 24 year old code lingering beneath the veneer of the latest version.
But they didn't buy Quark. The pressures of keeping up with (and hopefully surpassing) the Joneses and satisfying their loyal users (they had loyal users once) meant scrapping the rusting base of PageMaker and starting from scratch with something new. Hence, InDesign. And there was much rejoicing.
Five or six years ago Illustrator might have been close to the same position, but for Flash and Dreamweaver. Macromedia had a phenomenally good drawing program in Freehand which had been driving Adobe to make Illustrator better up until Illustrator 8. But when Macromedia's DreamWeaver and Flash took off as the high-end web development platforms of choice, Macromedia knew they had a winner and were in a position to stake a claim in the relatively new and fractured online and interactive environment. Rather than fight with Adobe by further developing FreeHand and Xres (a very capable image editing/painting program) they let FreeHand fall behind, and never seriously backed it after version 9.
When Adobe bought Macromedia 2 years ago, they killed Freehand. To be fair, they only pulled the plug on it. FreeHand had already been abandoned by Macromedia, although they wouldn't admit it, since people were still buying it or adding license in multi-user environments. But the greater damage was done to Adobe and it's decreasingly loyal users. Without Freehand, there's no QuarkXpress to Illustrator's PageMaker. Now that Adobe owns the high-end vector graphics market, they have nobody to compete with in terms of ease of use and quality.
Illustrator needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot, but not until its replacement is fully up to speed and able to faithfully convert AI files to its own superior format. I believe this must eventually happen. But without the pressure of a competing product Adobe will be happy to keep slapping another coat of paint on the dresser and ask us to pull a little harder on the drawers each time.


