Forums | MacLife

mikedemo wrote:

Is this good for Mac users? Thats my concern. What apps are going to the wayside?

Well, considering Macromedia abysmal Mac development... ya, this is good. We've been plagued with crappy Indian ports of MM products for years now.

I'm eagerly anticipating a cocoa Flash plugin, and MM apps that don't "Unexpectedly Quit"

resedit wrote:

I personally don't like this.

What drives applications to improve is competition.
Who will compete with Macradobe?

Prepare to watch your apps stagnate.

Well, Microsoft is aiming to move into this market with major force. A lot of folks in the industry view this as a preemptive battle tactic on behalf of Adobe and MM.

And I doubt our apps are going to stagnate. Remember, professional designers are VERY reluctant to upgrade. If you're going to make money in that business, you need to offer compelling new features that will encourage future sales.

Scott wrote:

What really sucks is that the MM interfaces on the Win versions of their products are far superior to the Mac versions.  If you don't like the DW/FW interface, try the Win verision, you will probably like it better. 
At least Adobe keeps their bloated interfaces consistant.

Agreed. MM's Mac apps are definitely second class citizens... to say the least.

However, Flash's UI is especially bad on both platforms.  It is, quite literally, a "what not to do" reference frequently used by professors in the fields of interactive design and HCI.

Pallets that should be windows, tool bars in odd places, crummy selection tools, timelines that are easy to mix up, etc. I've been teaching MM flash to a number of students this semester, and it's the most painful thing in the world. That thing should be drug out into the street and shot

If only it functioned like Director. Director has a great UI.

resedit wrote:

Aqua OS X wrote:

Remember, professional designers are VERY reluctant to upgrade. If you're going to make money in that business, you need to offer compelling new features that will encourage future sales.

The upgrade is forced by the OS - the old apps aren't designed to work well in the new OS, so if you use the new OS, you need to upgrade the apps.

The New OS is demanded because yesterdays OS no longer receives updates (in the case of Windows) and flat out will not run on new hardware (Apple)

Ya, but OS X compatibility was a fairly compelling feature worth an upgrade.

If you don't give this crowd a major reason to upgrade.. they won't upgrade. Hell, I know designers that still work in OS 9.

The New Guy wrote:

HackerJax wrote:

Ah man that sucks.

Now we'll get the bloated slowness of adobe products across the whole macromedia line too.

Macromedia wasn't bloated slowness?

The newest releases from Macromedia and yes I hate to admit but they are bloated too.

Guess we can't win.

EricP wrote:

volk wrote:

I haven't felt comfortable with Photoshop's interface "enhancements" over the year's...all they have done is provided 7+ new ways to do commonly bad design techniques for noobs.  I still use version 3.0.5 for the vast majority of my work, venturing into newer versions only occassionally.

You seem like one of the guys I work with -- scared to venture into something new. Either that or you don't do any real work in Photoshop. Adjustment layers. Layer styles. Have fun in PS 3.

Completely untrue.  I got on the OS X train w/the beta, and often experiment with new applications.  If you re-read my post, I simply stated that I still use 3.0.5 because I prefer its speed and simplified interface...I also picked up the first OS X version of Photoshop (I can't afford, nor do I desire to upgrade with every single new release), which I also use regularly.  Not every project requires more functionality than my old Photoshop version, and the newer version lays tools and options out in a very annoying fashion IMO.  In these cases, the extra functionality just gets in my way.  When I need to use the latest version, I do, but there are a lot of times it simply isn't necessary.  Get a clue.

All these new apps have way too much screen clutter. I remember (with some nostalgia) the simplicity of Photoshop 3, & Quark XPress3, and FreeHand 5. Back then, of course, graphics apps weren't expected to be multipurpose tools. Drawing programs did vector, photo/paint programs did raster, word processing programs did text, and page layout programs put it all together. And Web programs did HTML.

Now everyone's going for the kitchen sink approach, and there are 5 gazillion toolbars and palettes and mystifying icons all over the place... and the need for HUGE displays to keep it all straight.

Makes me want to go back to my old MacPlus and System 6.0.8.

Well, maybe it's not all that bad...

judomeerkat wrote:

DH wrote:

judomeerkat wrote:

I can't wait to see something like Flash and After Effects becoming the same thing.  OMG that would be awesome.  Fireworks, however, can go away for all I care...that program smurfing sucks.

Well, since Flash is a vector animation program, and After Effects is a raster special effects program, I can't see how that would be useful.  And, in the same vein, if you don't like Fireworks, you probably tried to use it like Photoshop, which is not the intended use.

I guess what I was trying to say is get the usability of After Effects into something like Flash while also improving compatibility with Photoshop and Illustrator and that would make an amazing product. 

As far as why I don't like Fireworks: I didn't try to use it like Photoshop.  I saw it as a tool for organizing media (photos, illustrations, whatever) for web stuff and I tried to use it for that, but I really did not like the experience.  I may not have been using it correctly, but I do see it as the weakest of the Macromedia apps. 

-judomeerkat

Your AE/Flash comment makes more sense now.

As for Fireworks, I use it primarily as a web graphic creation program, where I'm usually generating the majority of the graphical content inside Fireworks itself.  There are a lot of great tools in Fireworks that are simply not there in Photoshop (or not refined to the same degree).  I like to use it like a raster Freehand, which is essentially what it is.

babastus wrote:

I write my code by hand, not because I find it a good way of making web sites, but because both Dreamweaver and GoLive suck.

Couldn't. Have. Said. It. Better. Myself.

Speaking of saying it better, once again John Gruber tells it like it is.

I used to love CHP. Too bad they stopped updating it.

Aqua OS X wrote:

mikedemo wrote:

Is this good for Mac users? Thats my concern. What apps are going to the wayside?

Well, considering Macromedia abysmal Mac development... ya, this is good. We've been plagued with crappy Indian ports of MM products for years now.

I'm eagerly anticipating a cocoa Flash plugin, and MM apps that don't "Unexpectedly Quit"

Actually, the next version of the Flash player should be significantly faster. Last October Kevin Lynch, Macromedia's chief software architect, demonstrated the next generation version of the flash player at the macromedia flash conference in tokyo, japan. Assuming the demo wasn't "smoke and mirrors", expect some big improvements as far as performance goes.

You can view the video here:
http://www.moock.org/blog/archives/000146.html

Twisted Guy wrote:

Too little, too late.

Did you watch the video? The next version of Flash will have some cool features, never mind the performance boost. Plus, it's not like there's an alternative player available for OSX right now. The performance gap between the Windows Flash Player and Mac Flash Player is embarrassing.