Vector apps with Flash

[Scott Hamlin]

Can't keep quit any longer. Everyone keeps saying Freehand or Illustrator.

CorelDRAW is at least as good if not supererior to both of those programs.

CorelDRAW may not be as professional looking as Freehand or Illustrator,

but it's a substantially better vector drawing tool. Mainly CorelDRAW has

superior alignment and point editing tools. For example, center alignments

are not averages, they are absolute. Only Freehand 8 solves the problem of

average center alignment with the ability Lock object and then center align

to the locked object. But that solution isn't nearly as elegant as

CorelDRAW's alignment solution which has been in place since version 1. 


Now I should be quick to say that I use all three--CorelDRAW, Illustrator,

and Freehand (as well as Xara and Expressions). Started with Freehand, went

to Illustrator and finally found that CorelDRAW contained the level of

control I wanted for vector illustration. While I'm not crazy about the

whole tooting my own horn thing, lest ye think I don't know what I'm

talking about, the following links contain Flash animations all illustrated

with CorelDRAW--they ain't Disney, but they ain't animated text, clipart,

and bitmaps either:


http://www.toylab.com

http://www.eyeland.com/thestuff/animgal/xarafl1.html


I'm not trying to do the old "my tool is better than your's thing." I'm

piping up because So many have accepted the Freehand/Illustrator standard,

which is below CorelDRAW's. As long as the popular tools are substandard,

we aren't going to get better tools because the pressure will be off. Flash

3's illustration tools have not been improved. Freehand 8 and Illustrator 7

did little in the way of improving hard core vector illustration

requirements. Special effects and web stuff stuff is all well and good, but

don't we spend most of our time tweaking bezier curves and point/nodes, and

such? This is the area that CorelDRAW dominates. You may not want to use

CorelDRAW because of all the nonesense Corel throw into it and because its

interface has some truly lame aspects to it, but it has got it where it

counts. As long as the myth exists that "Freehand and Illustrator are

better vector illustration tools" exists, the pressure will be off of Adobe

and Macromedia to improve the hard core illustration capabilities of their

respective apps. With Freehand, we can never expect Macromedia to actually

make Flash's internal illustration tools worthwhile, but I for one, would

*******LOVE******* to not have to turn to CorelDRAW (hey, I use it but I

don't gotta like it) for high level manipulations of the vector.


Exiting soap box......


------------------------------------------------------------------------

To UNSUBSCRIBE send: unsubscribe flasher in the body of an

email to

list-managershocker [dot] com

.  Problems to:

ownershocker [dot] com

N.B. Email address must be the same as the one you used to subscribe.

For info on digest mode send: info flasher to

list-managershocker [dot] com