Your expectations

[gudrunanna]

HI FFH THU
Thank you for your effort trying to free freehand from Adobe.
Sadly it did not work out so we must go on with plan B. I like the idea about Expressive. My expectations and hopes are that this application will be able to open Freehand files. Also that in future you can do works in Expressive with similar tools like in Freehand. Paste inside is important. How color swatches work, punch tool and expand stroke. Also it is important to me that it will be easy to convert or paste Expressive files to Illustrator or InDesign. Because often designers need to deliver there artwork in those applications. I have already donated some money to Quasado. Hope that many people will do so also.
Let make this happen.

[enzobort]

Ciao a tutti
Sapete se è possibile avere una versione demo di Exspressive?
Utilizzo FreeHand da 20 anni e potrei verificare cosa non fa Expressive e cosa dovrebbe fare. grazie

[FH Addict]

I do copy and paste from FreeHand to Indesign to finalize some illustrations using the Indesign FX . As i copy and paste from Illustrator to FreeHand to work faster.
We have to keep a "cross softwares interoperability" (I don't know if it is the correct name), it is always a real strength to be able to jump from one application to another, you feel smarter and you impress a lot

[FFH Thü]

Ciao a tutti
Sapete se è possibile avere una versione demo di Exspressive?
Utilizzo FreeHand da 20 anni e potrei verificare cosa non fa Expressive e cosa dovrebbe fare. grazie

Nel mese di agosto, quasado fornirà download di Stagestack (in precedenza denominata Expressive) per donatori.

[mf3]

Its been a while since i posted but... Can I just start by saying a huge thank you to mark, bez and thu for all the hard efforts on all of our behaves in the fight for our cause against the monster. THANKYOU! And even though the outcome wasn't as we might have hoped for, it might be a blessing in disguise .
Let's look to the future. This new hope that is stagestack is something fresh, new and positive we can all create together for the future we all want!
I have made my donation! And at least now I can look forward to a piece of software being developed and created that I will actually enjoy using. Here's to our future!

[aaffonso]

I'd like StageStack become an illustration tool rather than an effects gallery like Adobe Illustrator.

If Quasado can make an app with this 3 little features they already got me:

- Intuitive bezier pen tool.
- Easy text handling. It's hell to deal with text in Illustrator.
- Color palette / color creating to be smarter than in AI (an old Mac software called Tangerine is a great way to organize colors: http://www.tangerine.net.au/ )

But I'm now working with AI for a whole year and I see some few cool features that could be present in a future vector software:

- Actions
- Blop Brush
- Live Paint Bucket

I suggest Quasado team have a look at Astute Graphics Illustrator Plugins. They are doing a great job trying to make Illustrator usable: astutegraphics.com

[DBXL Donald]

I am quite sure I will be able to master any new application. As long as I can open old FH files, and as long as Stagestack will 'feel' like working with FH, I will be fine using it. Good luck Quasado!

[AppleFarmer]

A few feature requests from FreeHand:

• better "collect for output" then the one in FreeHand MX. It would be nice if the app would update the links (from the new location, as in InDesign). In FreeHand collect for output only copies the links, but does not update them.

• editing links in external editors (for example PhotoShop, as in FreeHand)

• automatic size change when editing external links (let's say I have a TIFF file in my document @ 30 % and change the size in PhotoShop. I want the size to automatically change to 100 % and update.

• support for Unicode fonts. If I import cyrillic texts to FreeHand, they have to be converted and only some fonts work

• drop shadows that WORK in print

• support for transparent PSD-files (or transparent TIFF) that WORK in print

Good luck to you guys!

Kim Mäkynen
Vaasa, Finland

[matt]

I'm passenger on a long road trip and I've been spending my time reading large portions of the manuals for both Freehand MX and Xara Designer Pro X.

Xara (originally released in 1991, a few years after Aldus Freehand, as ArtWorks on the Acorn Archimedes computer) is the app I switched to when it was no longer feasible for me to use Freehand. It's a Windows app, abd whilst I'd love a native Mac OS X version, it works well in VMware Fusion.

Reading both manuals has proved a point I have long suspected. Freehand isn't the best at everything. In a lot of use cases Xara trumps it, but of course not all. Freehand still has better colour swatch handling, arguably better text handling and more.

This realisation has changed my expectations of what I'd like to see in any serious new contender:
- Native Mac OS X support (not a cross platform port)
- Xara style object drawing, selection and handling support
- Freehand style colour swatch support, text handling
- Open Freehand, Xara, EPS file formats

I recommend anybody who is interested read the Drawing, Selecting and Handling sections of the Xara manual. http://downloads.xara.com/support/version7/dp7/dp7.pdf

The manuals for Freehand and Xara could be considered Technical Specification documents for these apps. I'd be interested to read the Technical Specs for Expressive/StageStack to see how what the developers are building shapes up to Freehand and Xara. Will this document be made public?

[gormur]

I'll apologize in advance if this is largely a duplication. I posted here earlier and it appears that the forum ate my post. Damnit. But I'll try to recreate what I wrote earlier - eleven suggestions for Expressive development.

I want to thank Brad for his post, there is not much for me to add to it except the importance of being able to open FH9 - 10 and 11 files and keep the original typefaces.
We use Freehand mostly for typesetting rubber stamps, laser engraving and laser cutting. We need to be able to see lines of 0 pt. Witch is not possible in AI