I think that 25+ years of experience with DTP apps like PageMaker, FrameMaker, QuarkXPress, InDesign and DOA (Design Oriented Apps) like FreeHand, CorelDRAW, Illustrator, Xara, Photoshop, give me room to say my opinion about Publisher, Designer and Photo. And this is:
Publisher should be free of DOA features. All these years I never ever used these kind of features in DTP apps. I always like everthing clean: DTP for finalizing/merging text with design and DOA for design. If you develop separate DOA you don’t need it’s tools in DTP app and vice versa. Quark needs it, but Publisher does not.
Publisher file format should not be open in Designer or Photo. Could you open ID files in AI or PS? No? Why? Because it is not supposed to work that way. But opposite is quite OK. It must, which is normal.
DTP features must be removed from DOA. Artboards are OK. But pages, text chain, character and paragraph styles... No. Local character and paragraph formating and text effects (warp text effects like in Photoshop?!) is OK. Text effects in PS instead in AI? Video editing in PS? Character and paragraph formating in AI and PS? Adobe totally lost it’s compass.
Publisher and Designer. Only 2 apps instead of 3. Designer and Photo must be merged into one app because they share the same purpose, a lot of code and recently -- same bug fixes. It will be also a war against bloatware. As separate apps their instalation size is 500+ Mb and if they are merged I suppose it will be cca 300 Mb or less. Not to mention how much space they take on HD when installed.
If you need ideas for another apps then you can make your own Math equation and Chemistry formulae editor(s) and a Music score app.
