what my friend wrote me...
About FHMX, how about educating people why Freehand is so much better than
ill, and publishing a migration guide from ill to Freehand. Maybe you and I
can join Adobe and implement this program! As a matter of fact I've already
written the introduction to the guide.
Top reasons why I love using Freehand MX over Illustrator for the work we
do. Try it, and you'll like it too.
•Gouping and ungrouping is time consuming in ill. If an object on the bottom
is grouped, the whole group is selected. Selecting the bottom object is
useless unless you ungroup all. Very time consuming.
Freehand can select one element even if it's part of a group.
• It is common in ill & FHMX to hold down shift while clicking on objects to
select several at a time. ill has a tendency to 'pick up'& move those
objects as your moving from one to the other. Which means having to back up
your last step and then continue.
•• ill select/same/stroke colour, fill colour etc. VS FHMX 'find & replace'
In ill available only 'document wide' which forces you to take the selection
and place it in a new document (usually a temporary measure ill forces upon
you).
All this copying takes extra time when the art is complex.
Since changing colours is often the goal, opening a new document means
having to drag into the new doc, all the colours you'll be needing to
change.
Also when choosing same fill & stroke colour, ill doesn't catch everything,
so you have to try several times to get everything.
FHMXs 'find & replace' runs on whatever you select, without requiring
copying
the info to a new document, so there is no waiting like in ill. And it
catches everything all in one shot. Wham, bam thank you maam. FHMXs 'find &
replace' light years ahead of ill.
• Multiple page documents
FHMX multi page documents can be of different sizes and orientation within a
single document. Ill must have the same size and orientation.
Ill allows only one page size & page format while FHMX permits you to use
any combo within the same document, all with the click of a button. Job's
done.
ill: go into doc setup and calculate new overall width.
"let's see I need 5 pages of 8.5x11 so that's 8.5" x 5 pages =42.5" width.
If you add a page, all the doc info gets shifted off center. Ill requires
you to select all, (make sure nothing is locked!) and recenter all the
pages. All time consuming and unnecessary in FHMX.
Ill can't handle multiple pages when it come time to print them all. In
order to be able to print an 8 page document with simple vector art (without
any linked files) in illustrator, it was necessary to convert the document
to 8 single page documents. Each page took 5 minutes , 40 min total.
FHMX prints multiple page documents with no hesitation.
••ill has no collect for output. This is ridiculous. FHMX enables you to
enjoy creating freely without having to think of where that tiff you just
imported came from. When the art is finished in FH, click 'collect for
output' and in under 5 seconds a complete folder is created of everything
you need to backup that artwork.
Never spend one second looking for anything again when opening a freehand
document. Not today, not tomorrow, or in three months.
In ill, after the art is done, you need to spend the time looking for those
linked files, to gather them into a folder. And when a deadline is so
important, will you actually take the time? NO! So days, weeks, or months
later, when you need to open the file and the tiff is missing, well, I hope
you like treasure hunts, because with time tiffs can be moved or go missing.
With this one feature, FH saves hours of time per year over ill.
•Pathfinder/combine in ill is slow ad often crashes the program. (See next
point) Freehand unite is Fast!. ill requires you to ungroup all elements
before using the filter. FHMX doesn't.
••Paste inside.
FHMX enables you to use garment sketches without modifying shapes to
accommodate a tiff pasted inside. Tons less work over ill. 'Paste inside' in
FHMX is fast & effortless, encouraging you to paste inside each individual
shape of the garment. (Ex. Belt loops, waistband, pockets, body. All get
their own tiff pasted inside.) This gives the artist freedom over each
individual tiff. Changes can be applied in light/dark or angle to each tiff
seperatly from one another.
Ill cannot do this without a massive investment in time, it doesn't even
compare with the ease of FHMX. ill method is also a pain to work with ,
requiring you to lock/unlock items as the masks bounding box is often in the
way. This requires you to lock nearby elements in order select. Very
annoying. This work around is so time consuming it discourages you to paste
inside individual shapes. In fact it's impractical to do so. You're forced
to combine all shapes and paste one tiff into this one overall shape, which
is time consuming because it increase your workload to achieve a lesser
result.
Ill requires you to draw a duplicate shape which must lie in perfect
register with the shape underneath it. Shapes are often composed of highly
complex components (ex:text) that need to be united into one overall shape,
to paste into. Often these complex shapes crash illustrators unite filter,
making the job time consuming or impossible. FHMX requires none of this
workaround, because FHMX enables you to past into individual shapes.
FHMX can even paste inside a paste inside, and in easily accesible layers,
creating realistic effects. Don't even dream of doing this in ill.
•ill toolbox. The 'Venus' girl at the top of the box is often clicked in
error resulting in an annoying 'Adobe online' dialogue box appearing. So
annoying! Bury this feature elsewhere, or at least move it away from the two
arrow tools, the two most used tools of the whole program! Stop interrupting
workflow!
•Ill locking unlocking frenzy
You'd like to add a point to a path. In FHMX, select the path and click on
it
with the pen tool. You're done.
In ill, select the path and click on it with the pen tool +. But ill adds
the point to the path in front, even though you selected the one in back!
Ill forces you to lock the front path to get to the rear path. If your
artwork has many layered paths, get ready to go on the usual locking frenzy
until you get to the path you need. All this just to add a point.
As an added bonus, ill often throws the "Can't add an anchor point. Please
use the add anchor point tool on a segment of a path" dialogue box in your
face, as if you can't aim a point on a path.
Paste inside
• Because paste inside in ill is so complicated, a common workaround is to
create a pattern swatch to achieve the same ease as in FHMX. However pattern
swatches are simple vector paths that can't match the subtlety of a tiff.
When opening a new document, swatches have to be brought in to the new
document to be used.. When changing a pattern colour, a new swatch has to be
created, which is more time consuming than changing the tiff colour in FHMX.
5 seconds vs. 5 minutes
• The arrow+ tool in Ill selects in increments of one group at a time. FHMX
selects in increments of one element at a time, giving the user greater
control over elements within groups.
• In Ill before using Pathfinder/Unite, you should save, because pathfinder
tool often crashes the program. Since large documents take time to save,
waiting time in Ill multiplies. FHMX doesn't crash when using the pathfinder
tool so much time and frustration is saved.
Sometimes Pathfinder in Ill just won't work the way it's expected to. I wind
up importing the art into FHMX where it works fine and instantly.
About FHMX, how about educating people why Freehand is so much better than
ill, and publishing a migration guide from ill to Freehand. Maybe you and I
can join Adobe and implement this program! As a matter of fact I've already
written the introduction to the guide.
Top reasons why I love using Freehand MX over Illustrator for the work we
do. Try it, and you'll like it too.
•Gouping and ungrouping is time consuming in ill. If an object on the bottom
is grouped, the whole group is selected. Selecting the bottom object is
useless unless you ungroup all. Very time consuming.
Freehand can select one element even if it's part of a group.
• It is common in ill & FHMX to hold down shift while clicking on objects to
select several at a time. ill has a tendency to 'pick up'& move those
objects as your moving from one to the other. Which means having to back up
your last step and then continue.
•• ill select/same/stroke colour, fill colour etc. VS FHMX 'find & replace'
In ill available only 'document wide' which forces you to take the selection
and place it in a new document (usually a temporary measure ill forces upon
you).
All this copying takes extra time when the art is complex.
Since changing colours is often the goal, opening a new document means
having to drag into the new doc, all the colours you'll be needing to
change.
Also when choosing same fill & stroke colour, ill doesn't catch everything,
so you have to try several times to get everything.
FHMXs 'find & replace' runs on whatever you select, without requiring
copying
the info to a new document, so there is no waiting like in ill. And it
catches everything all in one shot. Wham, bam thank you maam. FHMXs 'find &
replace' light years ahead of ill.
• Multiple page documents
FHMX multi page documents can be of different sizes and orientation within a
single document. Ill must have the same size and orientation.
Ill allows only one page size & page format while FHMX permits you to use
any combo within the same document, all with the click of a button. Job's
done.
ill: go into doc setup and calculate new overall width.
"let's see I need 5 pages of 8.5x11 so that's 8.5" x 5 pages =42.5" width.
If you add a page, all the doc info gets shifted off center. Ill requires
you to select all, (make sure nothing is locked!) and recenter all the
pages. All time consuming and unnecessary in FHMX.
Ill can't handle multiple pages when it come time to print them all. In
order to be able to print an 8 page document with simple vector art (without
any linked files) in illustrator, it was necessary to convert the document
to 8 single page documents. Each page took 5 minutes , 40 min total.
FHMX prints multiple page documents with no hesitation.
••ill has no collect for output. This is ridiculous. FHMX enables you to
enjoy creating freely without having to think of where that tiff you just
imported came from. When the art is finished in FH, click 'collect for
output' and in under 5 seconds a complete folder is created of everything
you need to backup that artwork.
Never spend one second looking for anything again when opening a freehand
document. Not today, not tomorrow, or in three months.
In ill, after the art is done, you need to spend the time looking for those
linked files, to gather them into a folder. And when a deadline is so
important, will you actually take the time? NO! So days, weeks, or months
later, when you need to open the file and the tiff is missing, well, I hope
you like treasure hunts, because with time tiffs can be moved or go missing.
With this one feature, FH saves hours of time per year over ill.
•Pathfinder/combine in ill is slow ad often crashes the program. (See next
point) Freehand unite is Fast!. ill requires you to ungroup all elements
before using the filter. FHMX doesn't.
••Paste inside.
FHMX enables you to use garment sketches without modifying shapes to
accommodate a tiff pasted inside. Tons less work over ill. 'Paste inside' in
FHMX is fast & effortless, encouraging you to paste inside each individual
shape of the garment. (Ex. Belt loops, waistband, pockets, body. All get
their own tiff pasted inside.) This gives the artist freedom over each
individual tiff. Changes can be applied in light/dark or angle to each tiff
seperatly from one another.
Ill cannot do this without a massive investment in time, it doesn't even
compare with the ease of FHMX. ill method is also a pain to work with ,
requiring you to lock/unlock items as the masks bounding box is often in the
way. This requires you to lock nearby elements in order select. Very
annoying. This work around is so time consuming it discourages you to paste
inside individual shapes. In fact it's impractical to do so. You're forced
to combine all shapes and paste one tiff into this one overall shape, which
is time consuming because it increase your workload to achieve a lesser
result.
Ill requires you to draw a duplicate shape which must lie in perfect
register with the shape underneath it. Shapes are often composed of highly
complex components (ex:text) that need to be united into one overall shape,
to paste into. Often these complex shapes crash illustrators unite filter,
making the job time consuming or impossible. FHMX requires none of this
workaround, because FHMX enables you to past into individual shapes.
FHMX can even paste inside a paste inside, and in easily accesible layers,
creating realistic effects. Don't even dream of doing this in ill.
•ill toolbox. The 'Venus' girl at the top of the box is often clicked in
error resulting in an annoying 'Adobe online' dialogue box appearing. So
annoying! Bury this feature elsewhere, or at least move it away from the two
arrow tools, the two most used tools of the whole program! Stop interrupting
workflow!
•Ill locking unlocking frenzy
You'd like to add a point to a path. In FHMX, select the path and click on
it
with the pen tool. You're done.
In ill, select the path and click on it with the pen tool +. But ill adds
the point to the path in front, even though you selected the one in back!
Ill forces you to lock the front path to get to the rear path. If your
artwork has many layered paths, get ready to go on the usual locking frenzy
until you get to the path you need. All this just to add a point.
As an added bonus, ill often throws the "Can't add an anchor point. Please
use the add anchor point tool on a segment of a path" dialogue box in your
face, as if you can't aim a point on a path.
Paste inside
• Because paste inside in ill is so complicated, a common workaround is to
create a pattern swatch to achieve the same ease as in FHMX. However pattern
swatches are simple vector paths that can't match the subtlety of a tiff.
When opening a new document, swatches have to be brought in to the new
document to be used.. When changing a pattern colour, a new swatch has to be
created, which is more time consuming than changing the tiff colour in FHMX.
5 seconds vs. 5 minutes
• The arrow+ tool in Ill selects in increments of one group at a time. FHMX
selects in increments of one element at a time, giving the user greater
control over elements within groups.
• In Ill before using Pathfinder/Unite, you should save, because pathfinder
tool often crashes the program. Since large documents take time to save,
waiting time in Ill multiplies. FHMX doesn't crash when using the pathfinder
tool so much time and frustration is saved.
Sometimes Pathfinder in Ill just won't work the way it's expected to. I wind
up importing the art into FHMX where it works fine and instantly.