JimGoshorn

Congratulations for such a polished application (especially considering that it's the first version).

The best icon of the bunch is Photo as it graphically relates to photography. Designer sort of relates to geometric design. Publisher just doesn't relate by looking similar to Designer. Take the names of the apps away and let people look at the icons on their own and how many would have an idea of what the app does? The old icons could better stand on their own by at least giving a person an idea of the app's functionality.

Oops, misread the original message so I deleted my comment

By options are you thinking of how Illustrator does the transforms horizontally or vertically and you have the option to create a copy of the object you are transforming?

I have other observations about compatibility with Illustrator (no criticism intended): 1. I have seen banding in gradients from Illustrator opened in Designer (presume this is due to PDF issues) 2. The organization was changed (some objects opened as groups, again probably PDF related) 3. Tried copy, paste between Illustrator and Designer (both ways) figuring it would be cleaner but that really didn't work so well either I was hoping I could use the apps together to use the best of each (as you probably can with Photo and Photoshop) but it doesn't look like that is very feasible because of propriety formats.

I didn't see any kind of view manager for the purpose of renaming or deleting views. All I see in the Views submenu is Untitled: #. How do you rename them into soothing meaningful?

I would like to have the ability to save any created views with the document.

I wonder if they could color the handle ends. Don't know which though since they have used blue for selected anchors and red and green for snapping.

Compared to many here, I am still a newbie since I have been working with Illustrator for only about a year. Photoshop on the other hand has been my tool of choice for about 12 years since version 6.

What would be really great would be if Serif and Astute Graphics could get together and come up with plug-ins for Designer. I have to admit that I'm still on the fence though between Illustrator and Designer...

I have Astute Graphics plug-ins as well and they make Illustrator much easier to work with. One of the impressive things about Designer is that they have included some of the VectorScribe features natively.

@MEB Doesn't do it here: 1. I created a rectangle 2. Clicked on the mask button in the layers panel 3. Went into Pixel Persona and painted a diagonal stroke across the rectangle which was masked as expected 4. Option clicked on the mask but all I got was a bounding box with no contents which I thought would be a black diagonal brush stroke (it showed in the thumbnail in the layers panel). I tried it in both Vector and Pixel with the same result. I could rotate/resize/move the bounding box and the stroke's masking appearance on the rectangle changed as expected 3 additional questions: Is there a way to hide the bounding box? Are there plans for a width tool? I usually adjust line widths after the art is done rather than dealing with pressure sensitivity or width profiles. Are trial periods reset for each version? I think I only have a day to two left... Thanks for your assistance!

What they need to do is take a page from Adobe's book and allow the user to see the mask directly and edit it as well as setting it's opacity and feather.

Thanks for the explanations! It would appear that the gradient setting isn't sticky so when you go back from solid to linear, it goes to the standard default setting.

Interesting. While I have looked at patterns a couple of times in Illustrator, I still can't quite get my head wrapped around designing them :huh: Jim

Sorry for my typo of what instead of why. I don't understand why a gradient would have a solid mode or a bitmap mode. Instead of solid just use a standard fill and for bitmap just place an image. Feels like I am missing something important given the thought that has been put into the app. Jim

I was just trying the different settings for gradients in the demo and wonder what there is a Solid setting and a Bitmap setting?

Thanks for the reply and answers, Hokusai. I have downloaded the demo and am experimenting now and have posted some feature requests. Designer is pretty impressive especially considering it is in it's infancy and the price. To be fair, some of the things that Designer offers can be had in Illustrator if you are willing to purchase additional plug-ins (some of which cost as much as Designer though). I opened an Illustrator file and some things like varying width paths appear to be expanded so unless you are dealing with basic paths, it doesn't look like files can effectively be exchanged and worked on between Illustrator and Designer :(

I agree that destructive is normally the default, so how about a checkbox in the toolbar to reverse it for those who want it to default to non-destructive?

Just trying out the demo and here are some things I'd like to see added: 1. Width Tool - I see that Calligraphic line styles is on the list but there needs to be a way to change the width of an existing path making it thicker or thinner. 2. Ability to edit a mask - Once it is dropped into an Object or Layer, the only way to edit it seems to be to drag it out, edit and drag it back. How about something like Illustrator's isolation mode where we could double click the mask and it would be editable as the only object on the screen? 3. You have live shapes in Designer already. How about adding fields in the context tool bar for all the shapes to specify sizes, angles, positions etc? Also the ability to click on the art board where we want them created. 4. For the Mesh Fill, how about the ability to draw the mesh ourselves? In Illustrator you click where you want a mesh line to be placed but Illustrator places the line itself in a shape it determines which doesn't always match well to what you want. 5. The ability to mirror a path in order to make symmetrical shapes.

Hi, I'm coming from Illustrator so I'd like to post some questions to understand how Designer would compare to Illustrator: 1. In Designer are there compound paths and compound shapes like Illustrator’s or just compound shapes (as demonstrated in your cheese example)? 2. For RGB, LAB and Grayscale Designer offers 16 bit but in CYMK, Designer offers 8 bit. Why the difference? 3. How interoperable is Designer with Illustrator? Let’s say I want to create an object with a gradient mesh in Illustrator and then place it in Design. How does that work? 4. Are you planning on offering some kind of Attributes panel like Illustrator has where fills, effects etc can be stacked on an object and edited? 5. Do you use objects to create clipping masks or is it done only by brushes? 6. Is there a simplify function to remove unnecessary anchor points? 7. How do you reflect, rotate and flip objects? 8. Compared to Illustrator, are color swatches in Designer process or global? In other words, if I specify a color for an object from the swatch panel and then change the swatch, will the object's color change? 9. Will swatch panel be able to hold more than just colors (like gradients and patterns)? 10. Your description says that Designer is written to take advantage of OSX technologies. Will you apps take advantage multiple cores and the second GPU in the newer Mac Pro computers? Thanks for any replies Jim