playing with the upgrade

[egypturnash]

CS4 tryout.

Illustrator:
Aggh, how do I get it out of this stupid Windowsy one giant grey window? I fucking hate when programs try to do that. I can multitask. And why does it want to put every goddamn new document in a tab? Tabs work in web browsers but they suck in other tools.

Why were all the sample files made with no color profiling? Way to set a good example, Adobe.

Also, this is running really slow on my machine.

New tools: Oh, joy, now we have Flash's shitty paintbrush to go with Flash's shitty eraser. Huzzah!

All the docs seem to be viewed with the web browser. Which is a definite improvement from the horrible 'help viewer' apps Adobe kept trying to write. But on the other hand half of it lives out on the web which is going to be reeeeeally helpful when you've got the net turned off to eliminate distractions, or when it's down!

What the fuck is going on with resizing document windows? It seems to do it entirely itself instead of using a normal system window - which then results in it drawing the window widgets off the bottom of my screen when I let go, because I'm just getting a preview rectangle of the document area instead of the whole window. GOOD JOB GUYS, IT'S ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA TO ROLL YOUR OWN FUNCTIONALITY FOR CORE OS-PROVIDED FEATURES.

Also, still slow. I'm getting shitty, shitty response just scrawling with the pencil tool with music playing in the background.

Going down the new/improved features... Okay, having the transform handles based on a clipping mask rather than all the paths in it is nice. These little 'hyperlinks' in the appearance palette, however, are weird. Yay, now we have to maintain TWO copies of every control. I don't see this presenting any problems for the future, not at all.

Transparency in gradients, finally. The new control is really badly laid out in the gradient panel. I'm not sure about the new gradient handle tool; I can see it being useful but I also feel like it's In The Way when trying to edit one. The apple key seems to hide it but...

I'm still getting crappy response on the pencil tool. All jiggly and badly-smoothed. Ultimately this is going to be unusable no matter what; performance on my G4 is crap.

When I do have to switch to CS4 due to hardware upgrade, I'm going to reeeally detest the way the Pathfinder palette has swapped the meaning of holding 'alt' when pressing a button. I like it when the paths I'm doing boolean ops to remain editable, but I guess everyone else wants to bake it permanently by default. Feh. I can't find a prefs switch for this, either.

Aha, but there is an 'open documents in tabs' box to uncheck. Yay.

Okay, yeah, I'm sticking with AICS2. Yes, 2. G4 performance has just been abysmal ever since the version with a 'Doesn't Crash On Intel Machines!' bullet point on the box. There's no "must have" features here and a bunch of little curses for me. And drawing response as erratically ugly as Flash.

Other CS4 apps? Whatever. I don't really use Photoshop for more than a scanner driver anyway. It still insists on installing Bridge along with the suite, which I've never had a desire for - does anyone actually use that?

*uninstall all*

Comments

[tracerj.livejournal.com]

See, I like the tab idea, so that wouldn't bug me. The gradient transparency and the new transform handle location, those are awesome. The rest of this, though... *sigh* Something that's always bothered me is when any program decides to totally override a window manager's way of things. If the option is there, that's one thing, but I'm always annoyed as hell at any app which tells me that my OS sucks by providing its own interface.

If I'm running Windows (I am, but you already know I harbour zero resentment toward anyone else's system of choice, even if plenty toward my own, *grin*) give me a large box with document windows and make the window resizeable on all sides and corners and don't fucking try to 'skin' it. I picked my colour scheme for a reason, motherfuckers. If I'm running some other OS, match that system's way of things. Porting software isn't about forcing everyone else to conform, it's about giving them options, and that's doubly important when the software costs more than it would to buy a computer with that other system.

Thing is, I always come back to the same lament. I'd ditch Adobe's software in a second if any of the other options felt up to snuff.

[jonaswins.livejournal.com]

Tabs? What the hell? X) I'm assuming that's part of the 'multiple artboards' feature I read about, which doesn't really seem necessary to me.

But transparency in gradients = total yay. :D I was surprised they hadn't implemented it earlier.

[jeliza]

Bridge is, sadly, essential to my personal and dayjob workflow (photography studio; lots and lots of files). (sigh) They also haven't bothered to debug it since its introduction, so now that camera resolutions have gone up it is crashy crashy crashy. I think they're not fixing it so we'll buy Lightroom.

Photoshop I still love, but in general, Adobe's QA and support suck so hard I'll jump ship in a minute if I find a decent alternative

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

I use the Bridge all the time. I really like having it open so I don't have to remember what my files look like, which version I was thinking about, etc. Also it allows me to more easily move things off the desktop to the right folders. I suppose there might be some other programs out there that do the same sort of thing, but I really like it.

As for CS4, sounds like something I'll be avoiding as well. Thanks for the report. Your words mean a lot in this case.

[magpie-dragon.livejournal.com]

I just had a photo teacher completely swear by bridge for everything...atleast in CS3 you could rate things in folders and it was just nifty. I fail to see the nifty in any of that vaugeness (she also failed to point out anything else about it other than that it was cool just try it). I have never known anyone else who even used it.

[doctorpinkerton.livejournal.com]

Well, this isn't QUITE the same as stubbornly using 12 year old software, but still, welcome to my world!