Building an alternative app?

[FFH Thü]

This is a copy from a discussion that took place on facebook:


Thü FreeFreehand Hürlimann 12:22pm Nov 12
We had contacted some of the promising app makers last year like Intaglio, Draw Well, Eazy Draw and others. Consens was that all that little vector apps depend on Cocoa, mostly they were made because of Cocoa offering an easy way to create an app upon its vector capabilities. But its RGB only. You see that when looking into the color mixer of such an app, you always find Apples standard color chooser. Now, rewriting the whole basis of a vector app is the main big work and it would need to be done if full CMYK functionality is needed. Thats why even Inkscape does still not have real CMYK work process. It can only export a CMYK version of an RGB drawing. For graphic design, thats not good enough. Sure, we can always take a new attempt and talk with developers again. If you want, Tim, you can do that on our behalf, we are always thankful to get some help. Let us in the loop and contact us by email info at freefreehand dot org.

Tim Gummer 11:50am Nov 12
will somebody please tell me why this isn't happening?

Tim Gummer 11:50am Nov 12
..block of what- 6000 professionals who will happily pay up to 10x what these programs charge for something that is a real replacement for FH. it seems like there are half a dozen 'nice' new light vector apps competing with each other for the same low value consumer market, when what will be most advantageous is ONE that meets our needs, and makes the smart developer a lot of money.

Tim Gummer 11:47am Nov 12
for the life of me I don't know why we're ONLY waiting for some kind of settlement with Adobe (which will take forever to get a decision and then the same to see a practical result from) and not negotiating as a block with one or more of these developers. Many of them have a good vector editing foundation, built on modern frameworks that FH isn't, but they don't have the multipage capabilities - and typographical power, and productivity advantages of FH. We are a

Annika Kappenstein 3:55pm Oct 21
Thü: I don’t know, I’m just looking at potential. If we can insert us into an open source development, we can suggest/request features like CMYK workflow and color management. For me personally, first priority is precise and intuitive vector drawing, something that no other app besides FH currently delivers (except FontLab). I usually paste or import my vectors in other apps for further processing.
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Original Post

Dragan S Stefanovich 7:05am Oct 4
Text is from AppStorm website

http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/graphi ... sign-apps/

Some vector design Applications which could be interesting to look for make them better and applied some of freeHand features.
I purchase and try them all!

All of them is long way from Freehand simplicity but its possible to make them much better and even good.
Some strange mixture will probably work!

VectorDesigner
Another paid app is VectorDesigner, which in my opinion stacks up with Sketch (which I found easier to use). VectorDesigner offers the use of filters and Quartz compositions to shapes and images, and it also brings a Flickr browser to the canvas to make the search for images, colors and shapes easier.
Verdict: Whether or not you’ll like VectorDesigner will depend a lot on your personal preference. The inspector windows are much like the ones found in iWork, so if you like that kind of GUI, check VectorDesigner out at $69.95

Sketch
A new player – and one that has quickly garnered the attention of professionals – is Sketch. It offers an infinite canvas, slice export options, multiple pages to a document, a wealth of shapes to reuse and a library function to store reusable objects. Additionally, you can easily group and rearrange objects and perform boolean operations on them.
Sketch is very easy to use. Everything is stored away neatly to let you focus on your work, but you can access all palettes quickly and not get lost in a ton of options you don’t need.
Verdict: If you do not need the full capabilities of Illustrator but would rather have a less expensive yet powerful dedicated vector app, take Sketch for a test drive. At $40 it is very reasonably priced and the development continues, adding more and more functions and implementing user requests.

Draw It
The developer of Sketch also brings DrawIt to our hard drives. The two apps are comparable to a point, but the biggest advantage of DrawIt over Sketch is that it allows for bitmap-like image filters to be applied to objects.
You can still create vector objects, group, and layer them, but you can also stack effects to give your drawing that little extra to make it stand out. You don’t have an infinite canvas as with Sketch and in DrawIt, if you zoom in, you can actually see pixels whereas in Sketch you will always have smooth lines.
Verdict: Depending on your needs, the effects and stacking capabilities of DrawIt might just what you need. At $37 it’s reasonably priced and should fit into a designers or amateur’s budget.

Eazydraw
Eazydraw claims to be simple enough for a beginner, yet powerful enough for the professional. If offers layer support, user libraries, and it plays nicely with a large number of file formats.
Verdict: At $95 for a full license, EazyDraw is on the expensive side of the vector apps. It has an interesting pricing model though: you can purchase a 9 month license at $20, giving you more than the customary 30-day trial period to really get to know the app.
Inkscape
The first free app in this rundown, Inkscape is an open source vector editor that can hold itself up when compared to Adobe Illustrator. Something that makes Inkscape stand out is the use of the open SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphics) format which is a W3C standard.
Verdict: While development might not proceed with the same speed as with paid apps, the Inkscape project is alive and offers a respectable number of features for free.

Lineform
Another affordable vector app is Lineform with freeflow text support (type text within shapes), morphing arrow functionality, powerful bezier editing and even boolean operations. Moreover, you can preview your images in CMYK color mode, preventing unpleasant surprises after you get your files back from a print shop.
Verdict: Lineform offers rich functionality for a very reasonable price of $79.95 and it should at least warrant a try when you check out vector apps.

Acorn
Surprised to see Acorn in here? Yeah, the little app actually offers vector support. It is not a dedicated vector drawing application, but you can add basic shapes and lines to your images and change their properties later on as well. If that’s all you need and you already own a copy of Acorn, rejoice.
Verdict: Since it is not a dedicated vector app, Acorn can only serve for very basic needs, but if those are all you have, why invest the time to learn a complex vector app? At $49.95 Acorn has lots of other functionality that you might come to appreciate when working with images, so you’ll have one editor for many purposes.

[Pixero]

Here is my personal opinions of a possible Freehand "clone".

I have looked at several different ways to get a future proof vector drawing application with our favorite application in mind.

First I looked for a way of getting something quickly and examined the possibilities to enhance Illustrator to get some of the most wanted features from Freehand.
That resulted in a Illustrator jscript that mimicked paste inside. Worked quite well actually.
However Illustrator has some serious limits to what can be done with scripts.
Making tools isn't possible with Illustrator scripts so that led me to the Illustrator SDK which is more powerful but very old fashioned and archaic.
I also contacted some plugin developers to see if they where intereted in writing tools that had the Freehand look and feel but no one was very willing to do this for different reasons.
There also is a scripting environment called scriptographer that showed some promise. More about this later.

I also studied the Freehand XDK to see if it could be used but the main problems aren't accessible through the SDK.

I then studied the other vector applications out there like Inkscape and Xara and Corel.
None felt close enough to Freehand to easily be "transformed" to something most of us would except.
Inkscape is open source and could possibly be built upon but my feeling was that the development of the "ordinary" Inkscape was slow and not very appealing to hook into.

Now I had come so far as to consider something written from the ground up.
What should be the criterias for such a software?
With limited budget I'd say, simplified programming and a "code once deploy everywhere" approach would be good.
(For me, beeing a Windows user, it's crucial that a clone would have to work on both Mac's and PC's.)
Futureproof, built on open source and for multiple operating systems.
All current trends in programming is pointing to the web. C++ programming is complicated and good programmers are not easily found.
Major software companies like Adobe and Microsoft has recently announced that they will discontinue development on their own propriety web solutions like Flash and Silverlight and instead focus on the open standard of HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript.
There are also solutions to "compile" such programs to a real application. There are at least two software, the open source Titanium and Adobe's Air. Infact, Adobes latest web applications are built with Air.

As I wrote earlier I found out about Scriptographer.
The same people, Jürg Lehni & Jonathan Puckey, have recently released Paper.js. http://paperjs.org/
To quote them: "Paper.js is an open source vector graphics scripting framework that runs on top of the HTML5 Canvas.
It offers a clean Scene Graph / Document Object Model and a lot of powerful functionality to create and work with vector graphics and bezier curves, all neatly wrapped up in a well designed, consistent and clean programming interface.
Paper.js is based on and largely compatible with Scriptographer, a scripting environment for Adobe Illustrator with an active community of scripters and more than 10 years of development.
Why is it not based on SVG?
We have decided to use the Canvas object as the main backend for now because it is faster than SVG and allows us to implement and optimize our own Scene Graph / Document Object Model. We will be offering SVG (and hopefully PDF) importing and exporting in the future."

In short it is a foundation for a HTML 5, CSS3 and Javascript vector drawing application.
It's not yet fully developed but they state that if someone have good ideas and ways of sponsoring, these features might be pushed to the front of development.
I don't think they would be willing to write our entire clone, but I believe we could build it with paper.js as a foundation.
A good thing with this approach is that HTML5, CSS3 and javascript is at the frontline of development and programmers willing to work with it would probably be a lot easier to find.
You might be thinking "Can a drawing application really be made with web programming?" Well, even Adobe thinks so and will be releasing their Creative Suite for the web.
I've found some good examples to show what can be done, and even managed to write a simple proof of concept Pen Tool with the Freehand look and feel.
Very basic but just to prove it can be done. http://www.pixero.com/paperjs/PenTool.html
This new technique also gives new possibilities, like realtime effects. Here is a example with metaballs: http://paperjs.org/examples/meta-balls/
And here is an example of realtime path simplification: http://paperjs.org/examples/path-simplification/

"Ok, but I'm not a programmer, what can I do to help?"
Besides fundings, I think we all can do much just by helping to define what exactly happens when using a tool/command in Freehand.
This could help programmers getting it right.
Here is an example I started to write for the Pointer tool to give you an idea:

Code: Select all

A detailed description of the Freehand Pointer Tool. [i](Not complete.)[/i]

Select:

Click drag creates a dashed line "marquee" rectangle to the current pointer position.
When LeftMouseButton (LMB) is released it selects all objects that are entirely inside the selection rectangle.
If a path is partially inside the rectangle only the points that are inside the selection rectangle gets selected.
For example, a full bezierpath/object and one point from another path (that is partially inside the rectangle) can be selected.
Clicking directly on a point selects that point.
Clicking anywhere on a curve with width selects the object. Not just on the actual bezier path.
When LMB is pressed down you can click and drag directly to move.
Holding down SHIFT lets you add objects to the selection.
Alt?

Move:

Holding down the LMB changes the pointer icon to a move icon (a arrow cross) after approx one second.
Holding down SHIFT constrains move to the constraint angle. Default horisontal, vertical and 45 degrees.

Scale:

Clicking on a grouped object and dragging a corner point scales the object.
With SHIFT it gets proportionally scaled.


The pointer tool basically does 2 functions, it moves objects and resizes. 
If you click the object and then if it has a fill, or you can click the line, 
you can move the object, you can resize it by grabbing a handle, and you can resize 
proportionally by grabbing a handle while holding down the Shift key. 
Now you can also move objects as a group; by holding the Shift key down you can 
select multiple objects, then move them as a group. You can also do this by drawing 
a marquee or what we call marching ants around the box and then move the entire group. 
But you need to be able to cover the entire object. 
In this case I was only able to cover the small circle, that's what I am allowed to move. 
If you hold the alt key down, you temporarily switch to the subselect tool, which we'll 
get to in the next lesson. 
I can just hold the alt key down, switches to the select tool. 

Click anywhere on a line's "thickness" to select.

I think this could be a way of starting a "clone" as I'm sure most developers havent used Freehand and would have a hard time just finding out just what we want.
So lets start!

[frederick]

for now lets just build an application that does the same job and has the same features and capabilities freehand mx does now but will run on current and future os.

doesn't matter other than to a programmer who's "shoulders it stands on."
hopefully it will evolve to include features that not even illustrator offers.
i'm sure many of us have ideas, i know i do. but for now keep it simple.

and i seriously doubt any of us will mind if whoever puts this together
makes some decent money doing it.

all of us are willing to contribute...just say where, when and how much.

[FFH Mark]

Here is my personal opinions of a possible Freehand "clone".

I have looked at several different ways to get a future proof vector drawing application with our favorite application in mind.

—"—
I think this could be a way of starting a "clone" as I'm sure most developers havent used Freehand and would have a hard time just finding out just what we want.
So lets start!

This is a very good post, Jan. The breakdown of options toward creating a clone had me reading through your comments several times and considering the possibilities. Of course, the main goal at the moment is succeeding legally to get FreeHand back and into development again. Now that we’ve presented our case to the judge, she will determine if Adobe’s motion-to-dismiss is valid or not. If their motion is thrown out then the challenge begins to convince the court that FreeHand must be returned to the marketplace. And that could take months.

But the same could be said of building a FreeHand clone that satisfies the needs and expectations of us all. There are a lot of features to recreate but, for me, it is both the UI and its intuitive approach that I like about FreeHand, otherwise I may as well end up using Illustrator. Having spent a considerable time with Ai these past months, I am reminded how it does much of what FreeHand does but very, very poorly in its approach and clumsy UI. For a FreeHand user, it is amazingly unintuitive in comparison and demands a fair-sized learning curve to achieve proficiency. If this intuitive approach isn’t considered carefully in a FH clone, we will have an unpopular product. Basically, the FreeHand experience must be first and foremost with any clone development. Like you said Jan, defining what exactly happens when using a tool/command is critical.

I also looked into other existing applications as Thü mentioned and found some features promising but at the pro level for serious production work, these were severely lacking. For example, FreeHand’s multi-page feature isn’t simply what Illustrator and the smaller “hobby” apps have; it is a true page layout environment with tools that are present in QuarkXPress and InDesign. Therefore, a FH clone would need to be two applications in one: Illustrator AND InDesign. Also, the CMYK and Pantone calibrations would need to be spot-on for my work. By the way, digital publishing is moving fast these days and is another feature I’d like to see added to a FreeHand clone, if not FreeHand itself.

It seems a huge task creating a clone from scratch but I am not a programmer and this may indeed be possible to have it built and/or take an existing program and fund development to achieve parity with FreeHand MX and Illustrator. God knows, competition needs to return to the pro-vector marketplace—especially for Mac users like me. I would be very interested to know about developing this clone as more is discovered with programming, matching FreeHand features, and the timing it takes to bring it to users. Until we are sure of a positive outcome in the courts for FreeHand, your option seems a good alternative.

—Mark

[bishopdante]

Freehand is, almost definitely, made out of oldschool C++ code.

Macromedia were a terrible company, I doubt they did much in the way of updating.

So, the only people who want to keep freehand are people after the features from a user's perspective. This is a good thing, but it shouldn't in my opinion be leveraged to simply preserve the old.

To be perfectly honest, it would be a great opportunity to start over, create something Freehand-ish but new, with a new name, and new capabilities, 100% open source. A proper, non-Adobe vector editor.

You should involve some design universities in the project.

I've personally always been annoyed that font editors aren't the same tool as vector editors. Same with page-layout and illustration. They're not technically different tasks, they're only different in the mind of the user. It would be great to have a proper open-source general purpose application.

Especially if it was built on object-oriented principals, where each tool is effectively a micro-application, so people can customise their toolset as they please, or if they're skilled at programming, script a new tool.

Also, since this is the 201X years, it should be built to work around the internet, and support multi-user editing/collaboration, and the creation of web content formats.

Building from scratch with a proper architecture would enable the following critical features:

#1: OpenGL rendering onscreen.
#2: platform portability
#3: multi-user networked collaboration & running in the browser

Ultimately, you should be building a content creation & management system, rather than a desktop vector-editing application.

The goal, really, should be to produce the best vector editing package for 201X and 202X, rather than to directly emulate 90s Aldus software. Freehand should be cherry picked for behaviours and features, as well as other editing models.