[thelist] Macromedia vs. Adobe

[John Dowdell]

At 9:58 AM 10/6/0, Erika Meyer wrote:
> And out of curiosity... which company is more evil, Macromedia
> or Adobe?

Well, there goes *my* self-esteem for the weekend...!  ;-)



> Now assuming I want to use FLASH down the road... and I want to
> work with both vector and bitmap graphics...
> Do I need FREEHAND and FIREWORKS and FLASH and ILLUSTRATOR and
> PHOTOSHOP and IMAGEREADY?

Well, the Macromedia Flash Player is tuned for streaming vector
interactivity... while it can use bitmaps, the small Flash Player is
definitely not a catch-all media container like the larger Shockwave Player
is.

(Background: Over the last year, as Flash's popularity has exploded, I've
seen more and more newbies try to force-fit their previous experience with
photo-processing software into delivery as web vectors. It *can* work, but
an over-familiarity with Photoshop actually seems to hurt many people,
until they get over that hump and see that there's more than one way to
approach graphics.)

A vector layout tool can help, in creating vector styles different from
Flash's own painterly style... FreeHand has more options like perspective,
envelopes, mirroring and such, but either can help for that type of
PostScript-style illustration. (Please *do* go through the Flash drawing
tutorials, though... people with equal experience of both tend to go with
Flash's own drawing, which is surprisingly quick and powerful.)

Fireworks specializes in creation of GIF and JPG, along with the HTML/JS
for various HTML editors... it can convert art to SWF, as either vectors or
pixels. For the occasional pixel-based art, though, pretty much any tool
can do.



At 12:57 PM 10/6/0, Mike Migurski wrote:
> Adobe has mastered the user interface and workflow of
> its applications.

I'd absolutely disagree, Mike... their workflow is remarkably
poorly-thought-out and derivative, and the "user interface" is also modeled
on prior Macromedia models and not as sensible as their advertising
describes.

I realize in my position I can't convince anyone... I'm just not letting
that pass without registering a dissent, thanks.



btw, for the latest on the lawsuits between the two companies, see:
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000927/n27375142.html

jd





John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US
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