Work space design

[peter]

Hi everyone.

 

As a longterm and avid fan of DrawPlus versions 2/4/8/12/14: I have come to feel confident and have found the layout very easy to use (despite any drawing skills or training), whereas Adobe Illustrator CS4 has a very steep learning curve, I prefer DP's layout to AI and AD because:

• White workspaces are easier for dragging objects on and off the page. I am not a black screen fan, too difficult to visualise where they are; when objects are off the page.
• Coloured tool bar icons at all times, nice! AI's tools are all monochrome until selected, then colour. Coloured icons are so much easier to locate.
• "Page orientation", "Object align" etc are all easier to see in the tool bar in DP,  rather than being buried in Adobe's menu.
• I prefer DP's single click approach i.e. page orientation. Better than "Portrait check box"
• Cost!
• Quickshape draw nodes on the outside of the bounding box, very easy to see and adjust.

So whose experience opinion and layout will shape the first post beta release? Will it be the DrawPlus users or the Illustrator users? (I do understand that both camps have come from two separate directions and think that their product route is better!) What would be the ideal setup, is an individual radio button in the toolbar like Affinity Designer or a toolbar based drop-down menu Like Adobe's "Like Photoshop/Like Freehand/Like Illustrator".

 

I have been on the Mac since 2013 and feel torn between DP14 WIn XP/7 setup and the new kid on the block. If it wasn't for Serif:

• I would have ditched Windows ages ago...mid 90's.
• My creative side wouldn't have come out on A4.
• My step kids' homework wouldn't have been as good.
• The world of fonts and graphic design would've passed me by!

Long live Serif, on the Mac only 20 or so years late - but better late than never.

DrawPlus, friend for life!  :)

 

What do you think?