iconfactory.com— Adobe Illustrator is one of the most widely used vector art programs, but even Adobe messes up occasionally. Here are five areas in Illustrator CS that some regular users feel should be improved.
Aug 23, 2006View in Crawl 4
As a veteran Freehand user and evangelist, I feel your pain.I have spent the last year getting to know Illustrator better. Every one of your points (with the exception of printing) have been giant hurtles for me to leap. After a year, I still do all my Freelance work in FH. It just makes me more money.5. Flexible Radial FillsIn the "Gradient Palette" you can add colors to gradient bar below it (much like FH). To change the origin of radial fill, go to the "Gradient Tool" in the main tool palette (9th down on the right) and simply click anywhere in the selected object to put the origination point where you clicked.4. PrintingThe hardest thing for me was understand the way the Print dialog box, the Page Setup dialog, and the Page Tiling view (found under View which can toggle to Show/Hide Page Tiling) worked together. I guess the main point here is; they do.3. Clipping MasksAI's clipping masks bite as far as I'm concerned. Why do I ever need to see all the stuff outside the clipping mask? As to the attributes disappearing, I haven;t found a way to get around it.2. Lazy Multiple Window SupportThis isn't something I use, but i know you can setup Freehand to default to your last view. In Illustrator (like FH, I believe), you can create a "New View" at the bottom of the "View" dropdown. Of course this will require going to the view menu and selecting the view you want. Again, adding more steps FH seemed to do with out.1. Selecting StuffArgh! There is nothing worse, or more fundamentally wrong than the way AI forces us to select stuff. I want one arrow that does it all, just like FH. So here's what i do: Whenever I'm ready to grab the pen tool, I first select the direct arrow first. Whenever you toggle with you command key from the pen to the arrow, it will pick the last arrow you've used. I am so often hitting "A" for the open arrow tool and then "P" for pen. I use all the tool shortcuts in AI to help out with the selection curve.The other biggie for selecting stuff is clicking down through objects. I'm aware no tool, no shortcut to accomplish this, What I do is to select the topmost object hit Command+2 to lock it then select the object below it. Then I hit Command + Option + 2 to unlock everything. How many steps is that?I have other gripes, but there isn't enough ASCII left in the world to express it.Let me know how it goes.I also have blog piece I did comparing the virtues of FH and AI. I'll send it to you if you'd like.
Here's what I (attempted) to post on www.beadesigngroup.com:I consider myself the biggest Freehand evangelist on the planet. I have used the application from version who-knows-what to the ultra-buggy v.11. I have witnessed it go from Altsys to Aldus to Adobe, back to Altsys to Macromedia, back to Adobe and now in a trunk being driven to a bridge for its final death-dunking.However...I use Illustrator at a firm every moment of the day. I have also taught it for several years to starry-eyed college kids. I know it backwards and forwards. It does some things better than Freehand, like: PDFs (editing and generating), on-screen rendering, transparency and other Photoshop-like layer effects. But it's most significant flaw, and a flaw that non-Freehand folks will never grasp, is the fundamental way in which designers have to use Illustrator to get what they want.AI's bells and whistles outstrip Freehand easily. But where Illustrator falls short is on basic drawing, selecting, snapping, and project development features.AI Lacks:• Easy path and node editing and manipulation.Why must I click back on a node with my Pen tool to continue drawing from the node? Why not simply continue drawing from an activated node? And when I do click on that node with my Pen tool, why make me redraw the bezier?• Easy point addition and deletion.Why does there have to be special tools for this? Yep. I know you can do it all with the Pen tool, sort of, but not always, and not well.• Why two Arrow tools?Hey! I'm a Mac guy, give all the power to a single arrow, don't segregate functionality unnecessarily like a Windows mouse. (I know the multi-button mouse can be handy)• Masking.This is huge. Illustrator is the only app I've ever used that allows selection of items outside of the masked area. Not a cool feature. And it's the only app on the planet that actually displays all the stuff outside the mask, creating impossible situations for editing things lying on top. Yep, there are work-arounds for these scenarios, but why should there be? And yes, I get that I can go and edit all that stuff without removing the clipping mask, but that's far more rare than creating items that live around the masked item. And how about all the steps involved in creating the masked item in the first place?• Multiple pages and page size.Let's not kid ourselves here. Adobe has withheld this feature in order to get designers to purchase InDesign [and Pagemaker before the ID days]. ID is super for multiple page publications, but is a bit over the top, and ill-suited to layout all the pieces for a stationary package. In FH, you create pages at the exact size, with a designated bleed all in one file. Not only do you save yourself the hassle of managing multiple files, but you get to see, in one space, how all the components work together.• Layering Lunacy.Illustrator's over-complicated layering scheme is, on the one hand, designed to feel like Photoshop, helping the apps family together, and on the other hand, a visual way to grab an object below other items, organize your file's hierarchy, turn stuff on and off, etc. But it's a vector program! Unlike Photoshop, objects lying above other objects don't delete anything they're resting on. Why must I lock an item to select what's below it? How about Command+clicking like InDesign to nav down stacked objects? If you're trying to family with Photoshop, why not InDesign as well?I could go on and on, like auto tracing (why only now in CS2?), graphic find and replace (again, why did it take so long?), one-step transforming (plotting the transforming point is such a drag), guides on any layer (good and bad, there has to be a better way), compared to FreeHand, inaccurate snap-to features. And how about joining non-touching line segments? Argh.What would be better? Adobe adding these features to illustrator.Over the years I have submitted these requests to Adobe, I have spoken to Engineers at Macworld in SF, and I've posted to blogs like this. The changes haven't been made...I'm beginning to wonder if it's me.I have been quite long-winded, but, like other FH coverts, not only have we lost the only rival to illustrator, we have also lost a little of ourselves along the way.
predicta: I totally and completely agree with you. I am on CS1 and I almost hate Illustrator. I would rather work with vector shapes in Photoshop and scale the resolution because it's actually easier to deal with objects and shapes than it is with Illustrator. Granted, all my problems are with CS1, and some or many may have been resolved in CS2. Here are my top 10 over and above all the ones already covered:10. Too many palettes. I know there is a contextual palette for Illustrator CS2 now but in CS1 and below this is the #1 most annoying thing ever. Pathfinder and alignment for the black arrow should be contextual and all types styles should be too. I don't need to see the type palette when I'm messing with shapes, and I don't need to remember the function key to show it or hunt through the massive selection of menu items.9. No workspaces! I want to save my workspace so I can use it on other PCs, share it with other Illustrator users, and back it up. Yet another example that the photoshop and illustrator teams must just refuse to work together, trying to compete when they should be helping eachother. (I understand this is fixed in CS2 but WTF, it took long enough)8. Selecting with the direct select tool. Something that has never made sense to me: when you mouse over a shape, shouldn't there be an easier way to know when you're over a point besides the tiny one-pixel white or black box next to the white arrow? Like maybe having the whole shape be outlined in blue with the point lighting up? Or maybe snapping to points within 3 pixels? selecting points requires perfect mouse accuracy and is difficult, especially multiple points. and why, if you select an object with the direct select tool, can't you use the same tool to click on a point and select just that point? That is the intuitive thing and it doesn't happen.7. Stroke options - why does a stroke always scale? Why does it always center on the border of an object instead of having inner and outer options? 6. Align is broken. Sometimes align works like you might think: you select one item, select the next, and the second item centers on the first when you hit center. Other times they pick a point between the two objects and align to that. There seems to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to which one Illustrator decides to do. And no, I'm not talking about "align to artboard."5. Layer annoyances. I want to see masks in the layer palette like in Photoshop. It would work so much better than having a separate palette, because it would only take up space if there is actually a mask, and you wouldn't have to hunt around for the palette. But the most annoying thing about the layer palette is that when you open a document, by default the layers are completely collapsed! Illustrator's difficulty in selecting objects requires that I use the layer palette, yet it hides this from me and makes me expand it every time. You might think it's no big deal but this annoys me to no end. That's like having the tools palette being collapsed by default. Even if I had them open when I closed the document it doesn't remember that.4. Rotating. With free transform (E) I don't get the target like in Photoshop to easily rotate based on a different axis than the center of the object. Why not?? Why do I have to go through extra steps and use the rotate tool? Also in free transform if I drag the left edge past the right edge, shouldn't it snap when it's the exact same size? This would make it easy to reflect something based on an edge as a center point. And if you duplicate an object or copy paste it with the rotate tool selected, the center point reverts back to the center! Aargh!3. Transparency. Why do I have to take a step back with Illustrator? If they're going to use the layer palette, they should put transparency at the top and let you change transparency with the num pad. I hate having to grab the transparency palette and double-click and type a new number or drop down or drag the slider when I'm used to just selecting an object with the pointer in photoshop and just hitting "5." (much faster and easier) Same problem with blending modes, I can't change them with keyboard shortcuts because everything is on it's own little island in Illustrator while it all works together in Photoshop. Aaaargh!!2. "Could not complete requested operation." I get a small error box every time I start Illustrator, yes the most recent available version of CS1, that says this ridiculous error and just has an OK button which closes the program. It opens fine the second time. I know at least one other design studio that has complained independently of exactly the same problem. (this is on windows) Why is there no patch to fix this? I don't have any fancy plugins for Illustrator or anything. Believe it or not this is not the most annoying thing in Illustrator.1. Gradient color selecting. This is an absolute PAIN IN THE ASS every time I have to select a gradient. You have this gradient panel that is always on first of all, which I never understood. Why don't they just do it like photoshop: allow you to edit a gradient and have a window pop up with gradient options? Also on one hand, you can easily switch the foreground or background color easily by double-clicking and selecting a color, right? Why can't you do that with gradient color chips?? I never understood this. When you double-click a gradient color chip, it just changes it in the color palette. If you double-click that in the color palette, it just changes back to the gradient! All you can do is drag a swatch chip over or use the eyedropper and shift-click on another color in the document. I usually end up making a new shape, selecting a solid color, eyedropping that color into the gradient, and on and on.
schmeldingAug 23, 2006
Amen.
predictaAug 23, 2006
As a veteran Freehand user and evangelist, I feel your pain.I have spent the last year getting to know Illustrator better. Every one of your points (with the exception of printing) have been giant hurtles for me to leap. After a year, I still do all my Freelance work in FH. It just makes me more money.5. Flexible Radial FillsIn the "Gradient Palette" you can add colors to gradient bar below it (much like FH). To change the origin of radial fill, go to the "Gradient Tool" in the main tool palette (9th down on the right) and simply click anywhere in the selected object to put the origination point where you clicked.4. PrintingThe hardest thing for me was understand the way the Print dialog box, the Page Setup dialog, and the Page Tiling view (found under View which can toggle to Show/Hide Page Tiling) worked together. I guess the main point here is; they do.3. Clipping MasksAI's clipping masks bite as far as I'm concerned. Why do I ever need to see all the stuff outside the clipping mask? As to the attributes disappearing, I haven;t found a way to get around it.2. Lazy Multiple Window SupportThis isn't something I use, but i know you can setup Freehand to default to your last view. In Illustrator (like FH, I believe), you can create a "New View" at the bottom of the "View" dropdown. Of course this will require going to the view menu and selecting the view you want. Again, adding more steps FH seemed to do with out.1. Selecting StuffArgh! There is nothing worse, or more fundamentally wrong than the way AI forces us to select stuff. I want one arrow that does it all, just like FH. So here's what i do: Whenever I'm ready to grab the pen tool, I first select the direct arrow first. Whenever you toggle with you command key from the pen to the arrow, it will pick the last arrow you've used. I am so often hitting "A" for the open arrow tool and then "P" for pen. I use all the tool shortcuts in AI to help out with the selection curve.The other biggie for selecting stuff is clicking down through objects. I'm aware no tool, no shortcut to accomplish this, What I do is to select the topmost object hit Command+2 to lock it then select the object below it. Then I hit Command + Option + 2 to unlock everything. How many steps is that?I have other gripes, but there isn't enough ASCII left in the world to express it.Let me know how it goes.I also have blog piece I did comparing the virtues of FH and AI. I'll send it to you if you'd like.
mojaamAug 23, 2006
Can Illustrator work on Linux(Ubuntu) or through WINE?
predictaAug 23, 2006
Here's what I (attempted) to post on www.beadesigngroup.com:I consider myself the biggest Freehand evangelist on the planet. I have used the application from version who-knows-what to the ultra-buggy v.11. I have witnessed it go from Altsys to Aldus to Adobe, back to Altsys to Macromedia, back to Adobe and now in a trunk being driven to a bridge for its final death-dunking.However...I use Illustrator at a firm every moment of the day. I have also taught it for several years to starry-eyed college kids. I know it backwards and forwards. It does some things better than Freehand, like: PDFs (editing and generating), on-screen rendering, transparency and other Photoshop-like layer effects. But it's most significant flaw, and a flaw that non-Freehand folks will never grasp, is the fundamental way in which designers have to use Illustrator to get what they want.AI's bells and whistles outstrip Freehand easily. But where Illustrator falls short is on basic drawing, selecting, snapping, and project development features.AI Lacks:• Easy path and node editing and manipulation.Why must I click back on a node with my Pen tool to continue drawing from the node? Why not simply continue drawing from an activated node? And when I do click on that node with my Pen tool, why make me redraw the bezier?• Easy point addition and deletion.Why does there have to be special tools for this? Yep. I know you can do it all with the Pen tool, sort of, but not always, and not well.• Why two Arrow tools?Hey! I'm a Mac guy, give all the power to a single arrow, don't segregate functionality unnecessarily like a Windows mouse. (I know the multi-button mouse can be handy)• Masking.This is huge. Illustrator is the only app I've ever used that allows selection of items outside of the masked area. Not a cool feature. And it's the only app on the planet that actually displays all the stuff outside the mask, creating impossible situations for editing things lying on top. Yep, there are work-arounds for these scenarios, but why should there be? And yes, I get that I can go and edit all that stuff without removing the clipping mask, but that's far more rare than creating items that live around the masked item. And how about all the steps involved in creating the masked item in the first place?• Multiple pages and page size.Let's not kid ourselves here. Adobe has withheld this feature in order to get designers to purchase InDesign [and Pagemaker before the ID days]. ID is super for multiple page publications, but is a bit over the top, and ill-suited to layout all the pieces for a stationary package. In FH, you create pages at the exact size, with a designated bleed all in one file. Not only do you save yourself the hassle of managing multiple files, but you get to see, in one space, how all the components work together.• Layering Lunacy.Illustrator's over-complicated layering scheme is, on the one hand, designed to feel like Photoshop, helping the apps family together, and on the other hand, a visual way to grab an object below other items, organize your file's hierarchy, turn stuff on and off, etc. But it's a vector program! Unlike Photoshop, objects lying above other objects don't delete anything they're resting on. Why must I lock an item to select what's below it? How about Command+clicking like InDesign to nav down stacked objects? If you're trying to family with Photoshop, why not InDesign as well?I could go on and on, like auto tracing (why only now in CS2?), graphic find and replace (again, why did it take so long?), one-step transforming (plotting the transforming point is such a drag), guides on any layer (good and bad, there has to be a better way), compared to FreeHand, inaccurate snap-to features. And how about joining non-touching line segments? Argh.What would be better? Adobe adding these features to illustrator.Over the years I have submitted these requests to Adobe, I have spoken to Engineers at Macworld in SF, and I've posted to blogs like this. The changes haven't been made...I'm beginning to wonder if it's me.I have been quite long-winded, but, like other FH coverts, not only have we lost the only rival to illustrator, we have also lost a little of ourselves along the way.
flernkAug 25, 2006
The entire Adobe Suite is due for a complete overhaul. Make that overdue.
predictaAug 25, 2006
While we're on the topic of FreeHand, I have upgraded to Studio 8, and with it comes new icons for my dock. But alas, FreeHand (somehow) didn't make the Studio 8 cut. But you can upgrade to FreeHand Studio 8 (kind of) by clicking the following URL:<a class="user" href="http://www.williamscollins.com/bcollins/icons/freehand_icon.zip">http://www.williamscollins.com/bcollins/icons/freehand_icon.zip</a>It's your very own Studio 8 FreeHand icon. We may not have a new version of FreeHand, but at least we'll feel we're up with all things new and cool.
foomojiveOct 4, 2006
predicta: I totally and completely agree with you. I am on CS1 and I almost hate Illustrator. I would rather work with vector shapes in Photoshop and scale the resolution because it's actually easier to deal with objects and shapes than it is with Illustrator. Granted, all my problems are with CS1, and some or many may have been resolved in CS2. Here are my top 10 over and above all the ones already covered:10. Too many palettes. I know there is a contextual palette for Illustrator CS2 now but in CS1 and below this is the #1 most annoying thing ever. Pathfinder and alignment for the black arrow should be contextual and all types styles should be too. I don't need to see the type palette when I'm messing with shapes, and I don't need to remember the function key to show it or hunt through the massive selection of menu items.9. No workspaces! I want to save my workspace so I can use it on other PCs, share it with other Illustrator users, and back it up. Yet another example that the photoshop and illustrator teams must just refuse to work together, trying to compete when they should be helping eachother. (I understand this is fixed in CS2 but WTF, it took long enough)8. Selecting with the direct select tool. Something that has never made sense to me: when you mouse over a shape, shouldn't there be an easier way to know when you're over a point besides the tiny one-pixel white or black box next to the white arrow? Like maybe having the whole shape be outlined in blue with the point lighting up? Or maybe snapping to points within 3 pixels? selecting points requires perfect mouse accuracy and is difficult, especially multiple points. and why, if you select an object with the direct select tool, can't you use the same tool to click on a point and select just that point? That is the intuitive thing and it doesn't happen.7. Stroke options - why does a stroke always scale? Why does it always center on the border of an object instead of having inner and outer options? 6. Align is broken. Sometimes align works like you might think: you select one item, select the next, and the second item centers on the first when you hit center. Other times they pick a point between the two objects and align to that. There seems to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to which one Illustrator decides to do. And no, I'm not talking about "align to artboard."5. Layer annoyances. I want to see masks in the layer palette like in Photoshop. It would work so much better than having a separate palette, because it would only take up space if there is actually a mask, and you wouldn't have to hunt around for the palette. But the most annoying thing about the layer palette is that when you open a document, by default the layers are completely collapsed! Illustrator's difficulty in selecting objects requires that I use the layer palette, yet it hides this from me and makes me expand it every time. You might think it's no big deal but this annoys me to no end. That's like having the tools palette being collapsed by default. Even if I had them open when I closed the document it doesn't remember that.4. Rotating. With free transform (E) I don't get the target like in Photoshop to easily rotate based on a different axis than the center of the object. Why not?? Why do I have to go through extra steps and use the rotate tool? Also in free transform if I drag the left edge past the right edge, shouldn't it snap when it's the exact same size? This would make it easy to reflect something based on an edge as a center point. And if you duplicate an object or copy paste it with the rotate tool selected, the center point reverts back to the center! Aargh!3. Transparency. Why do I have to take a step back with Illustrator? If they're going to use the layer palette, they should put transparency at the top and let you change transparency with the num pad. I hate having to grab the transparency palette and double-click and type a new number or drop down or drag the slider when I'm used to just selecting an object with the pointer in photoshop and just hitting "5." (much faster and easier) Same problem with blending modes, I can't change them with keyboard shortcuts because everything is on it's own little island in Illustrator while it all works together in Photoshop. Aaaargh!!2. "Could not complete requested operation." I get a small error box every time I start Illustrator, yes the most recent available version of CS1, that says this ridiculous error and just has an OK button which closes the program. It opens fine the second time. I know at least one other design studio that has complained independently of exactly the same problem. (this is on windows) Why is there no patch to fix this? I don't have any fancy plugins for Illustrator or anything. Believe it or not this is not the most annoying thing in Illustrator.1. Gradient color selecting. This is an absolute PAIN IN THE ASS every time I have to select a gradient. You have this gradient panel that is always on first of all, which I never understood. Why don't they just do it like photoshop: allow you to edit a gradient and have a window pop up with gradient options? Also on one hand, you can easily switch the foreground or background color easily by double-clicking and selecting a color, right? Why can't you do that with gradient color chips?? I never understood this. When you double-click a gradient color chip, it just changes it in the color palette. If you double-click that in the color palette, it just changes back to the gradient! All you can do is drag a swatch chip over or use the eyedropper and shift-click on another color in the document. I usually end up making a new shape, selecting a solid color, eyedropping that color into the gradient, and on and on.
godnewsJan 21, 2008
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mercedesyJan 29, 2008
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