[D_Dog]

Why would Adobe keep those page layout functions in a drawing app when they have Indesign?

[bonesb]

But, first, I'm still ticked off that Macromedia bought FutureWave (for FW Animator, which evolved from SmartSketch). I REALLY liked SmartSketch. That written, MS recently followed a similar path with its acquisition of Creature House - for the LivingCels application; MS now owns the Creature House assets, including Expression (which is tucked away in MS's back room but can still be downloaded as a beta...). Adobe missed their opportunity to purchase FutureWave and Animator about a decade ago for something like $500k (sorry, Mr. Warnock!), now they've got it for a few more bucks. One comment that I haven't seen by the Mac users - I'm wondering what's going to come of Authorware? So it disappeared after v. 4 for the Mac, but it's still pretty big in the Wind-blows world...; with the recent demise of Discovery Systems, I'd love to see an icon-based metaphor authoring multimedia application with that much power come back to the Mac. Oh, yeah - MS Freehand, anyone?

[Fritzioni]

What if I could buy one cross-platform suite of rich design products, with a consistent toolset and consistent color across them all, that could handle design, proofing and deployment to print, the web, cell phones and other portable devices, all in a collaberative environment, allowing multiple creatives to contribute without concern of over-writing each others' work.
Maybe Creative Suite 4 or 5?
Say all the bad things you want about the buyout, if Adobe can integrate Flash and html design into it's suite (sans GoLive), professional designers will rejoice.

[JeffM]

"it's a weird work around but Freehand's a lot more efficient."
Nothing "weird" about it, it's part of how the program is meant to function. I wasn't addressing feature parity, just citing how the given example could be easily handled in Illustrator, that's all.
"What if you need to add 15 more pages? and have each a different size? (example: a stationery kit that holds a no.9. no.10, business card, and a letter head.)
The problem about that illustrator work around is that every page has the same crop and cannot be custom sized for each object."
Well, first of all, I don't use Illustration packages for layout, I use layout packages for layout. But to answer your question, if for some reason I had to do these tasks...
Add more pages? Just change the page size in the document set-up dialog box.
Odd size pieces? Set them up on the letter size canvas and use Illustrator's "Make Crop Marks" function.
Freehand's ability to generate different page sizes within a given document is a nice feature to have, but scarcely to the point of putting Freehand all that far ahead of Illustrator.
JeffM

[chuckmoser]

In reply to:

---

Multi-page layouts? What are you drawing in FreeHand, it is an illustration program you know, that requires multi-page layouts? Unless someone can tell me, I don't know what it would be. I've been using Illustrator since 3.2 and have never thought to myself, I sure do wish Illustrator had the capability do have multiple pages. That's fourteen years without the thought ever crossing my mind.

---

Uh, gee, maybe a dozen infographics for a powerpoint slide? One or two pages with logo ideas and the stationary in the same document? An invitation- the envelope, folding card and insert... each page being a different size... AND ALL IN THE SAME document.
There's tons of things that make FreeHand much more efficient than Illustrator for everyday work. The ability to cut and paste attributes (no eye-dropper needed), FreeHand's pen tool, selecting objects behind objects, cut and paste-inside, shortcuts to enlarge/decrease stroke widths (no palette needed), Graphic Find & Replace... oh God, this one makes FreeHand mandatory, the knife tool works like it should, superior color management with spots and process... and on and on and on.
Most of the illustrators in my circle produce things in FreeHand because of it's speed, and then swap it over to Illustrator for final delivery. FreeHand stays out of your way. Illustrator types that I've showed it to sit there slack-jawed, not believing what they're seeing. How EASY certain things can be in FreeHand that are unbelievably difficult in Illustrator.
Illustator does some things better than FH- but FH just has a slicker, more straight-forward interface.
I hope Adobe implements some of the great features in FreeHand... I'd like to see some of it's legacy live on.
-Chuck
chuckmoser.com

[Nobody]

A virtual graphic design application monopoly AND CS2 software Activation!
Hoowee! We're really going to love this.

[sk8rdog]

Actually there are ALLOT less DEVELOPERS out there for GOLIVE. There are companies like InterAkt and WebAssist that have built businesses around Dreamweaver as a product, these companies write extensions for Dreamweaver that allow it to do things you could only Imagine in Adobe GoLive.
My guess it Adobe drops GoLive all together, since the last decent version was version 6 anyways and focuses on Adobe integration with Dreamweaver.
I have never used Smart Objects in Adobe GoLive, and don't see anyone actually mocking up and pre-visualizing their sites before building them ever needing it, because all the graphic elements should already be thought-out before you ever open your web editor. Let's face it Smart Objects is NOT that important, Database-integration, Flash-video, ColdFusion, PHP support, THAT's what web developers want.
Leave the design to Photoshop people, or FireWorks! (Got forbid they get rid of FireWorks, I love it and ImageReady is a Joke in Comparison.)
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[sk8rdog]

Adobe will HAVE to sell Freehand to someone else by the way. Freehand's original developer had a written agreement that it could never be sold to Adobe, that's why when Adobe bought the company that made it, they had to sell it off to Macromedia. I would bet Corel or another PC Software company takes it. I would speculate Microsoft might buy it, or Apple, but neither one seem to be interested in the graphic design market segment.
-Eric

[keid]

Hi all,
I have been looking at this situation for a while and in order to figure out whether or not the FTC would block the deal. I think, we would just need to check the market share for the products which are in overlap, like Freehand - Illustrator, Dreamweaver - GoLive and Fireworks - Photoshop.
I am wondering here if anybody has the market share for these products...
Thanks a lot