make FH opensource to solve instability

[Onnozel webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Dear FH users,

Don't we all agree FH is still way to unstable? There are days my FH crashes more then 15 times! This costs a lot of time, money and irritation. I have the feeling that development of Macromedia is having a lot of trouble solving this unstability problem. Meanwhile many many professionals who are working with FH are having trouble day in day out and this can ofcourse not continue forever. FH will not survive the market beceause AI simply never crashes!

My opinion is that Macromedia would be wise to make the sourcecode public so that the open source communite is able to help solving the big stability problems. This gives FH a better chance of surviving the market. Besides that, FH could become the first serious professional vector drawing program for the OS of the future Linux! How about that, FH market leader in vector drawing..... buy buy Adobe.... ( I don't hate Adobe, they make the best stuff)

I am convinced Macromedia would not make less money if the source code would become open source.

Think about it!

Onno Rijpstra
designer O'Neill Europe

[darrel]

> My opinion is that Macromedia would be wise to make the sourcecode public
so that the open source communite is able to help solving the big stability
problems.

And what benefit would that give Macromedia?

> FH could become the first serious professional vector drawing program for

the OS of the future Linux!

Check out Karbon: [url]http://www.koffice.org/karbon/[/url]

-Darrel

[Simon Watson]

I agree. MXa is crash happy and full of bugs. I have used Freehand since
version 2 and I have to say that I am so sick of the crashes etc I would switch
to Illustrator tomorrow if it supported multiple pages in one document

Come on Macromedia - sort it out

Regard

Simo

[maxman23]

Considering the degree of integration between ID and Illustrator, you could get
around that single-page doc limitation rather easily by using the Adobe Suite

What keeps me from chucking FH and its ugly font handling is not so
much the multipage capability (although yes, that rocks) as it is their slick
implementation of find-and-replace... makes it so effortless for colour
switching, fonts, and font styles... fantastic editing features, really. If
Illustrator did these things as smoothly and as cleanly as FH, I'd be gone,
baby, gone.

As it is, here I am, awaiting a miracle announcement for FHMX 11.5... a free
update for registered users, natch. (;->)

[davecc]

Hey Max

I am quite sure we will get our update soon, but not for free. How's the
weather in Toronto

It's nice and sunny here in the Caribbean and next week Monday and Tuesday is
our Carnival. While you work, I will be drinking Beer in the hot sun and not
worrying too much about the future of Freehand

Regard
Davi

[Pappy]

Onnozel

I dont agree that FH is unstable. I work on lots and lots of big
illustrations in Freehand and I rarely (if ever) have stability issues with
FHMXa and OS10.3.2 (pathther-a unix OS that you seem to be asking for). In
fact, I work in a department of FH users and the ones on FHMXa never seem to
have stability issues like those on FHMX.

If you are having serious stability issues with FHMXa then perhaps it is your
machine, or your OS, or perhaps its....well, lets not go there. : )

Papp

[darrel]

> I am quite sure we will get our update soon, but not for free.

Hmm...I doubt it will be soon...but I agree, it won't be free, either (more
than likely, the update will be called 'Freehand 12')

At that point, I'll be done with Freehand and most likely switching to the
Adobe Suite for most work.

-Darrel

[darrel]

> If you are having serious stability issues with FHMXa then perhaps it is
your

> machine, or your OS, or perhaps its....well, lets not go there. : )

I can crash both Freehand and FW with regularity on my PC here at work. This
was for FH 10 and FH11. It's easy to blame windows, but these two apps are
the only ones that I can pretty much guarantee will completely lock up my
system on me.

-Darrel

[Pappy]

darrel

I'm just saying that my OSX version of FHMXa is as stable as the day is long,
and that anyone in my department running FHMXa on OSX has a stable application?
I suppose it could be the PC version of FHMX...have you contacted anyone at MM
or looked into the technotes to see if there is a fix

BTW...As far as your prediction about an update...I think you are wrong there
as well. After the FH10 debacle, I have seen a new energized and more eager to
please MM. Give them a little time

Furthermore, if you move to Adobe Illustrator I predict that you will have
just as many problems, just as many complaints, and half as many useful
features. Go take a look at their forum and you will see more complaints than
you can shake a stick at

Good luck
Papp

[maxman23]

David: you asked about Toronto, then tell me about the sunny Caribbean. Good
thing I have a sense of humour, sir
(;->)

It's grey but it's warming up ever so slowly, bit by bit. The long winter
draws to a close. That's a good thing. My sweetie and I might bop down to the
Caribbean sometime this summer to get hitched, although Italy looks nicer to us
at this point. So you see, there's hope for us all. (:->)) And sorry to burst
your bubble, but I'm not working. I go back to work in a week or two. Meantime
I'm surfing, hanging out at all my favourite forums, working on the endless
struggle that is the house

For what it's worth, I use FH MX all the time on two Macs, an old G4 dualie
and a 1.8 G5. No stability issues here and I use this app a lot. I make
sure the machines have plenty of RAM and I'm on the latest flavour of Panther.
So I guess I'm a bit like Pappy - I really can't complain that FreeHand is
ruining my day, and I even share his cautious enthusiasm that Macromedia is not
abandoning the app at all. But having said that, if they don't fix the font
issues I just might go berserk. Not really. Well, [i]maybe.[/i
(;->)
Regards

[davecc]

Max

It will be great if you visit the Caribbean. There are many islands to choose
and my personal choices are Tobago (which is the sister Island of Trinidad) and
Barbados. My daughter is in your City and all she does is complain about the
weather.

I have my issues with MXa, but I have learned to live with it. MM, I hope will
introduce font family grouping and do something about the constant quitting
issue I get with large files

Regard
Davi

PS: So you are getting hitched? Congrat

[Judy Arndt]

You might be interested in Cenon:
[url]http://www.cenon.info/[/url]

Price is right. It's free.

I haven't tried it but it has some DXF and Gerber file converters that might
be of interest to some users on this forum.

Business charts are so boring. Cenon has an astrology charting module!

Judy Arndt



Onnozel wrote:

> My opinion is that Macromedia would be wise to make the sourcecode public so
> that the open source communite is able to help solving the big stability
> problems. This gives FH a better chance of surviving the market. Besides that,
> FH could become the first serious professional vector drawing program for the
> OS of the future Linux!

[darrel]

> I suppose it could be the PC version of FHMX...have you contacted anyone
at MM

> or looked into the technotes to see if there is a fix

A number of times. They just stop responding after a while. I've lost all
faith in MM as a company that cares about their products.

As for the Mac, you are right, it is more stable, but just as, if not more
buggy.

> BTW...As far as your prediction about an update...I think you are wrong

there

> as well. After the FH10 debacle, I have seen a new energized and more

eager to

> please MM. Give them a little time

You have? Examples? A *little* time? I'm still waiting for my FH10 bug fix.

> Furthermore, if you move to Adobe Illustrator I predict that you will

have

> just as many problems, just as many complaints, and half as many useful
> features. Go take a look at their forum and you will see more complaints

than

> you can shake a stick at

I don't think I'll be moving to Illustrator, either, though I'll get it with
the CS suite. I'm going to take a serious look at Stone Design's products.

Of course, this is all talk right now. I don't do a lot of freelance work
right now, so it'll be a while before I make the major upgrade myself.

-Darrel