Hi Darrel and FH users all over the world,
I do this because I think I owe it the software that gave me my livelihood for
so many years. That least I could do is to fight for the name of FreeHand. I
want Adobe to know they have made a BIG mistake by freezing out a wonderful
software. I want the share holders to know that they have made a BIG mistake by
allowing this decision to take place. So if you are a true FH user and truely
love the software. Do this for FreeHand. What are you waiting for, step forward
and be counted!!

Yeah, I'd put money for an upgrade on Freehand. I am hesitating on getting
Illustrator until absolutely necessary.

However, understand that the Adobe Board of Directors must make the company
money or the shareholders kick them out. Why would they want two similar
programs competing against each other? It's not a conspiracy. Just some times
it seems like it! ;-)

> I want the share holders to know that they have made a BIG mistake by
> allowing this decision to take place.

But they haven't made a big mistake. In terms of maximizing profits,
Freehand was pure dead weight. The code base was antiquated, the dev team
was threadbare, and Adobe already owned the market leading competing
product.

Alas, Adobe did make the right decision in terms of the shareholders.

Which is a bummer for us and Freehand, of course.

I hate to be a downer, but reality sunk in quite a while ago for me
regarding this. ;o)

-Darrel

[q]Originally posted by: Newsgroup User
Freehand was pure dead weight. The code base was antiquated, the dev team
was threadbare

-Darrel


[/q]

On my Mac OS Tiger and Leopard, FreeHand is faster when opening, working and
quiting. Its weight is only 35 Mo. Is there something wrong with Illustrator :
slow, heavy, and it takes an undefined time when quiting ;-) and its weight is
300 Mo
Do I miss something?

I recently went on an 2 day Illustrator training course, paid for by my work as
the reality of "no more FreeHand" has set in, and while the chap taking course
knew his stuff and explained everything really well, I found the actual
software falling well short. I asked some pretty awkward questions too, usually
to be met with a reply of "yes you can do that in Illustrator" followed by at
least 5 clicks, a few menu scrolls and an arcane set of names to achieve a 2
clicks solution in FH. I'm still using Freehand for 60% of my work with Quark
XPress taking up 30% and Photoshop accounting for the remainder. Even the
mighty InDesign can't do some things Quark can, this all conquering Adobe
stranglehold is not a good thing.

Thank you guys for sharing your experience. I would like to point out one small
but important thing. Draw a text block in illustrator, type some text, then try
moving the text block with your pointer tool. It will move if you point to the
text baseline or the perimeter of the text block but if you point anywhere
inside the text block, it will not move. You can say, this is small matter but
this is how human behave and react. If it is a text block, why shouldn't the
inside of the block not be treated as a whole object. Illustrator users who has
never use FreeHand will never know what they are missing. This is only one of
many many small things FreeHand users have enjoyed for a good many many
years... and still enjoying.

Yeah, my main stumbling block with Illustraitor is those 3 damn pointers
and selecting anything be it text or object, also it was funny seeing the Adobe
approved trainer on the course trying to diss FreeHand's multiple page option
by saying "well what is it, is it a page layout package or is it a drawing
package"? Eh, it's both you bozo!
:grin;

yes i will pay for upgrade, I have been using Freehand 8 for 10 years, starting with version 3. it's my livelihood, it what puts food on the table and pays my rent

If they just made FH Intel compatible I'd be happy enough... oh and ironed out some of the bugs... and allowed you to colour groups like it used to... and... that's about it

> If they just made FH Intel compatible

But it has been since version 3. ;-)

Jukka