Reasons Adobe should write a migration manual from FH to AI

Question

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.

Answer 1

I think what Morty said needs to be reminded here:
quote:
quote:
Should we read anything into Adobe putting out the Freehand
to
Illustrator migration guide you posted about?
No, that's something that Adobe has planned for quite some
time. I hinted to its release several months back when we were all
discussing how Adobe should produce such a document. This "rumor"
that I refer to is something that surprised me as well. I have yet
to confirm it though...
Mordy
Since Adobe was planning this for some time, let's not jump
to conclusions. Mordy did confirm to us that there is indeed a
Product Manager for FreeHand. Also, it's interesting to note that
Adobe has a different situation on their hands than they did with
Pagemaker. What we have is two competing (?) programs, FH and Illy,
they are both truly loved by their devoted users. Adobe probably
realizes that they gave to keep both because the users of either
program have been devoted for years. Neither Illy or FH users would
be happy about migrating. Adobe I'm sure will keep both programs
(at least I'm hoping they are smart enough to). When Adobe migrated
Pagemaker users to InDesign, InDesign was a new tool. Illy is old
like FH...you ca't force a migration to a tool that is just as old
as the one your migrating from.