New (to me) Mac question

Any Freehand devotees?..

Just set up a new (to me) iMac with Snow Leopard and I’ve noticed odd changes in programme behaviour from previous G5 Tiger setup.

Freehand opens nicely in the new setup, as do all old files transferred across. All drawing functions there and so on, no problems.

However, when using the text tool I sometimes have to use the ® or © symbols - both of which, as I’ve just done here, are accessed using alt-R or alt-G. On the Tiger machine it correctly inserted the registered or copyright symbol. On the Snow Leopard Freehand, however, it inserts some strange foreign language symbol, like a peche or cidilla (is that how you spell it?). I’m using the bog standard Arial font.

I’ve also noticed that pattern fills in Freehand, when output to PDF (using Acrobat 8 and Distiller), are much coarser and more jagged than they were on the Tiger machine (where I used Acrobat 7 and distiller). ??

Basically there are issues with Freehand under the new setup which weren’t there before?. any experts have any inkling why this might be so?

thanks
Hugh


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On 13 Jul 2012, at 13:13, hugh wrote:

Basically there are issues with Freehand under the new setup which weren’t there before?. any experts have any inkling why this might be so?

Yes, there are issues under Snow Leopard. I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it, sadly. Whatever you do, don’t update to Lion because that drops any PPC Rosetta support entirely. =o(

I still have FreeHand installed on a G5 Mac mini that runs Leopard. Adobe will never update FreeHand now and it will never be released as open source or anything, so I’m afraid it’s a case of struggle on with the foibles or convert to Frustrator as and when you can.

My business has shifted such that I don’t really need a full-fat vector application much these days. On my main machine (Lion) I bought a nice little illustration app called Artboard from an outfit called MapDiva. It’s very good, but I’m finding it frustrating as I’m stuck in the old ways of doing things. FreeHand is there on the old Mac when I need to edit an existing file, or I need to do something more than Artboard will do.

Oddly, I try to avoid launching Illustrator CS3 on my main machine as much as possible. Funny, that.

Heather


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Just my 2 cents… I love pixelmator

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On Jul 13, 2012, at 8:50, Heather Kavanagh email@hidden wrote:

On 13 Jul 2012, at 13:13, hugh wrote:

Basically there are issues with Freehand under the new setup which weren’t there before?. any experts have any inkling why this might be so?

Yes, there are issues under Snow Leopard. I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it, sadly. Whatever you do, don’t update to Lion because that drops any PPC Rosetta support entirely. =o(

I still have FreeHand installed on a G5 Mac mini that runs Leopard. Adobe will never update FreeHand now and it will never be released as open source or anything, so I’m afraid it’s a case of struggle on with the foibles or convert to Frustrator as and when you can.

My business has shifted such that I don’t really need a full-fat vector application much these days. On my main machine (Lion) I bought a nice little illustration app called Artboard from an outfit called MapDiva. It’s very good, but I’m finding it frustrating as I’m stuck in the old ways of doing things. FreeHand is there on the old Mac when I need to edit an existing file, or I need to do something more than Artboard will do.

Oddly, I try to avoid launching Illustrator CS3 on my main machine as much as possible. Funny, that.

Heather


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On 13 Jul 2012, at 13:51, Julie Maxwell Allen wrote:

Just my 2 cents… I love pixelmator

I have Pixelmator, too. It’s nearly ready to completely replace Photoshop on my machine. It doesn’t replace FreeHand, though. =o(

Heather


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There is a way… I thought I saw … With a tablet Unsure about free hand
Google some of the tutorials …
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On Jul 13, 2012, at 8:53, Heather Kavanagh email@hidden wrote:

On 13 Jul 2012, at 13:51, Julie Maxwell Allen wrote:

Just my 2 cents… I love pixelmator

I have Pixelmator, too. It’s nearly ready to completely replace Photoshop on my machine. It doesn’t replace FreeHand, though. =o(

Heather


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Hi Heather,

Thanks for your insight, there. I’m not sure what rosetta is, although it cropped up in another conversation with someone else about another glitch that’s reared its head.

I’m sure I can struggle on, although at the moment the benefits of an intel machine and Snow Leopard are rather underwhelming. Another much more knowledgeable (than me, not you!) Mac user also told me NOT to upgrade to Lion due to numerous ‘usability’ issues he encountered.

The iMac’s ok and offers support for Intel-only programmes. But as far as my main programmes and workflow are concerned, it’s a step back rather than forward at the moment. I can’t even run my dear old Freeway 3.5 anymore…nor ImageStyler (remember our conversation about that some years ago?) The iMac screen isn’t anywhere near as good as the Hewlett Packard separate I used, either.

I don’t think I’ll be losing the G5 setup just yet :wink:


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On 13 Jul 2012, at 14:42, hugh wrote:

Thanks for your insight, there. I’m not sure what rosetta is

Rosetta - named for the Rosetta Stone that allowed scholars to finally begin to understand Egyptian hieroglyphs - was a bit of Apple magic that let applications coded for the PowerPC to run on Intel Macs.

Essentially, it translated the PPC code on the fly to run on the Intel system architecture. Utterly amazing and completely transparent to the end user.

Dropped, of course, from OS X 10.7 Lion onwards. The price of progress, and the steady move from 32-bit to 64-bit architectures.

I haven’t found Lion to be that bad, to be honest. Okay, it’s killed some of the programs that were never updated to support Intel (which included my Canon scanner, which drivers were not updated ever in the time I owned it), but it runs adequately on my creaking five-year-old MacBook Pro.

Heather


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Heather Kavanagh wrote:

It doesn’t replace FreeHand, though.

I have to give props to Sketch 2 from Bohemian Coding
http://tinyurl.com/7kc5w9n. I believe their goal was to create a
viable replacement for Freehand and while I can’t say how it compares I
can say that of all the vector apps I’ve tried (too many) Sketch 2 is
simply a dream to use. Yes, it has shortcomings but it still has that
new app smell so I expect a lot of these will be addressed as it matures.

Todd


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On 13 Jul 2012, 2:08 pm, Todd wrote:

I have to give props to Sketch 2 from Bohemian Coding…
Yes, it has shortcomings but it still has that new app smell so I expect a lot of these will be addressed as it matures.

Hi Todd!

Sadly, Freehand already was very mature…and good, too!
Immediate shortcomings noticed in Sketch are no page size definitions and boundaries, no visible layers palette, and ( a real biggy) no keyboard shortcuts for zooming.
I’m sure it can create pretty shapes, but it hasn’t got speed and usability written all over it like Freehand.
But as you say, as it matures… :wink:

Hugh


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Hi Hugh,

  1. If you need to set a specific size you can setup an Artboard instead
    of the infinite canvas.
  2. Keyboard Zooming: Command+/Command-
  3. The sidebar shows layers, groups.

There’s a lot buried in what appears to be a very minimalistic UI. I’m
not say it is Freehand but take a closer look. I’ve been using it for
awhile and still find little nuggets I didn’t know about.

Todd

hugh mailto:email@hidden
July 13, 2012 10:04 AM

Hi Todd!

Sadly, Freehand already was very mature…and good, too!
Immediate shortcomings noticed in Sketch are no page size definitions
and boundaries, no visible layers palette, and ( a real biggy) no
keyboard shortcuts for zooming.
I’m sure it can create pretty shapes, but it hasn’t got speed and
usability written all over it like Freehand.
But as you say, as it matures… :wink:

Hugh


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Todd mailto:email@hidden
July 13, 2012 9:08 AM

I have to give props to Sketch 2 from Bohemian Coding
http://tinyurl.com/7kc5w9n. I believe their goal was to create a
viable replacement for Freehand and while I can’t say how it compares
I can say that of all the vector apps I’ve tried (too many) Sketch 2
is simply a dream to use. Yes, it has shortcomings but it still has
that new app smell so I expect a lot of these will be addressed as it
matures.

Todd
http://xiiro.com


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Thanks Todd, I will indeed look. It’s certainly an interesting app, unfamiliar of course so I’m probably complaining about things which are just base fundamentals in Freehand! But I will have a look around, indeed.

H.


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On 13 Jul 2012, at 16:17, Todd wrote:

There’s a lot buried in what appears to be a very minimalistic UI. I’m not say it is Freehand but take a closer look. I’ve been using it for awhile and still find little nuggets I didn’t know about.

I like the look, and I’ve downloaded the trial to have a play. Software company based in the UK is also a plus - always supporting the home team!

My problem is I am stuck in my ways. With the best will in the world, I sometimes find it hard to actually learn new software these days.

Heather


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On Jul 13, 2012, at 11:35 AM, Heather Kavanagh wrote:

On 13 Jul 2012, at 16:17, Todd wrote:

There’s a lot buried in what appears to be a very minimalistic UI. I’m not say it is Freehand but take a closer look. I’ve been using it for awhile and still find little nuggets I didn’t know about.

I like the look, and I’ve downloaded the trial to have a play. Software company based in the UK is also a plus - always supporting the home team!

My problem is I am stuck in my ways. With the best will in the world, I sometimes find it hard to actually learn new software these days.

I know that feeling. But my guess here is that you could go a very long way toward smoothing this out by spending some time in the Keyboard Shortcuts preference pane, setting up a mapping between Freehand shortcuts and Sketch’s more Cocoa-standard ones. (The zoom is “straight outa Cupertino”, for example.)

Walter

Heather


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Heather Kavanagh wrote:

My problem is I am stuck in my ways. With the best will in the world, I sometimes find it hard to actually learn new software these days.
I can appreciate that feeling. Fortunately Sketch 2 doesn’t come with a
steep learning curve.

If you can balance what Sketch 2 can’t do compared to Freehand and
evaluate it on its own merit you might find it to be a suitable, albeit
not-as-full-featured (yet), replacement.

Todd


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On 13 Jul 2012, at 16:56, Todd wrote:

If you can balance what Sketch 2 can’t do compared to Freehand and evaluate it on its own merit you might find it to be a suitable, albeit not-as-full-featured (yet), replacement.

In five minutes I have accomplished more than I have with Artboard in an hour or more. I like the latter, and it has a pedigree, but it hasn’t made me smile.

If an app makes me smile in the first few minutes, it’s usually a winner for me.

I’ll give it a good road test for the next few days, and then most likely stump up my readies.

Thanks for pointing it out to us, Todd.

Cheers

Heather


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Heather Kavanagh wrote:

In five minutes I have accomplished more than I have with Artboard in an hour or more. I like the latter, and it has a pedigree, but it hasn’t made me smile.

Heather, I had exactly the same experience as you the first time I tried
it! Not only was I able to do a lot in a very short time but it was
f-u-n. And yes, it made me smile and that’s not something that happens
often with me and software.

Todd


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Heather Kavanagh wrote:

My problem is I am stuck in my ways. With the best will in the world, I sometimes find it hard to actually learn new software these days.

That’a very good point, one I heartily agree with. Given that there are so many new things to learn every day in this arena, one is very loath to throw out something you know your way around and which works so well…for something which only ‘might’.

Hugh


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On 13 Jul 2012, at 17:08, hugh wrote:

one is very loath to throw out something you know your way around and which works so well…for something which only ‘might’.

I just discovered this:

http://www.goexpressive.com/

I’ve been a member of a forum called FreeFreeHand for some time. They took Adobe to court in the US with a view to encourage them to either release FreeHand’s source code or make Frustrator more like FreeHand.

The most recent news is that Adobe have offered us discounts on the current suite of applications as long as we run along and stop bothering them. Most of us essentially told them where to stick it, preferring to struggle on with an all-but-dead illustration package than pay Adobe more money for no improvements.

It appears, though, there is some hope. Expressive looks very promising, aiming to become a modern FreeHand with all the old features and lots of new ones.

I shall be keeping an eye on things there, and quite possibly make a pledge towards the project.

Heather


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I haven’t found Lion to be that bad, to be honest. Okay, it’s killed some of the programs that were never updated to support Intel (which included my Canon scanner, which drivers were not updated ever in the time I owned it), but it runs adequately on my creaking five-year-old MacBook Pro.

Heather

Heather, Have you tried VueScan? I saw that drivers for my old Canon LiDE 30 weren’t coming for Lion (maybe they finally did) so I dropped the coin for VueScan and been happy since.

Todd, thanks for the tip about Sketch 2. Do they ever do sales like Pixelmator? It used to be PIxelmator was a bit more at times, and then they had sales, though they might have permanently reduced the price now. I ask because Sketch 2 is more of a want than a need for me right now.


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On 14 Jul 2012, at 13:51, Joe Muscara wrote:

Heather, Have you tried VueScan?

I have VueScan. It supports my scanner if the drivers are present - and as they’re PPC only, it won’t drive the scanner on my current OS.

It’s not really a problem as I have a bigger scanner running on another Mac that replaces the Canon one.

Cheers

Heather


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