New cross-platform Vector app [looking for your support]

[tomos]

This looks pretty serious

http://www.stagestack.com/ (http://www.goexpressive.com/)

[attachimg=#]


First a small bit of history:

Apparently, for professionals that had to deal with pre-press, the choice was always between Illustrator & FreeHand.
FreeHand was developed originally by Aldus, and then Macromedia. Macromedia was taken over by Adobe a few years back. They were happy to let Illustrator's main competitor die a slow death. At the time nothing was done about this anti-competitive behaviour. The Free Freehand group recently had a go at taking them to court, but in spite of a lot of support from individuals, it was always a David vs. Goliath thing.
After concluding the attempt to make Adobe change their ways (or at the very least improve Illustrator to the standards they were used to), they have decided to support the development of Quasado's Stagestack/Expressive.

As you can see from the above screenshot, Stagestack/Expressive have raised over 37,000 euros (almost $50,000).
They've been on the go for 2.5 years.
First nightly builds will be available to donaters of 25 euros or more as of mid-August. A 25 euro donation will get you 15% off the price of a license.

I'll probably give it a go myself, having used FreeHand since the year 2000. I tried Illustrator once or twice, but it was so slow I always went back to FreeHand (this may have improved with recent hardware improvements). I have to have (another) go at installing CS5 in the next while (support for opening/importing FreeHand documents has been removed from the latest Illustrator, CS6). Like me, there are lots of people out there with years worth of FreeHand files. Hopefully Expressive will make an app with a good workflow, as well as being able to open FreeHand files.

edit 2013-01-09
Quasado are looking for support for this project. Simply following or liking will be of benefit - impress the investors :-)
Donations are also welcome though ;-)

Follow on twitter http://twitter.com/quasado
Like on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/quasado
or donate http://www.stagestack.com/

other links
FreeHand forum / Expressive board
FreeHand Forum / Vector app alternatives

[Renegade]

It's good to see competition for Illustrator. I remember trying Freehand years ago, and it really was much nicer to use.

[eleman]

uh... Inkscape?

[tomos]

uh... Inkscape?

For just web work, inkscape could be fine. But for pre-press work, CMYK ability is a necessity.

Add to that an interface that allows a smooth and speedy workflow. To be honest I've no idea how Inkscape or other apps fare at that level. Illustrator was too slow for me - I'd sometimes have to open and work on dozens of files per day. With illustrator you'd be talking at least double the time consumed as with using FreeHand.

There are many vector apps on the market already (on the Mac side they all are cocoa/quartz based) who can not support CMYK color mode. Some promising projects mainly on Linux have the same problem. Inkscape and Skencil are still RGB based, sK1 is a fork of Skencil which will make it prepress ready including CMYK but all are far from the user experience you know from FreeHand.

We have asked some developers of existing apps if they would make it more FreeHand'ish, and nevertheless they are interested in such input, they can only go small steps into our direction.

Expressive is the only project which has specifically a FreeHand experience as goal and aims for this from the very beginning.

link

As you can see there is a FreeHand bias here - but there's a reason for that ;-)
For me personally, what I care about is: ease of use, speed, and that it works. I dont care if it's inspired by FreeHand or not.


Edit/ this post responds more positively to using Inkscape. It seems what's actually missing is the abilty to export CMYK. But for professional use, the interface gets a bit of a slating in terms of usability in the same thread.

[tomos]

Bit of a jumpy start - they decided to rename it (I think Expressive was considered too close to some other names out there) - but they renamed it to Stagestack ...

After getting a well deserved negative outburst, they are now looking for a new name -
Help rename Stagestack/Expressive

if you feel inspired, post here. or there.

[Edvard]

As a long time Inkscape user, I can say the workflow is not a problem, but then again I haven't used Illustrator or other vector apps beyond opening a file to export a plotter file (long story).

Edit/ this post responds more positively to using Inkscape.

I was gonna say...

But for professional use, the interface gets a bit of a slating in terms of usability in the same thread.

Ok, I understand that freehand was/is very easy to use and intuitive, but to pan the Inkscape GUI as "Linux-like" and "ugly" strikes me as a bit churlish, though I do agree that most Linux GUI's in the early days didn't offer anything better than Microsoft's best circa 1995.  We've come a long way since then.  I had no problems figuring out what the different functions did just by playing with it for a while, and the "hidden" items are a simple web search away.

While it is true that it doesn't produce CMYK output directly, RGB color profiles can be embedded in the SVG via the <color-profile> tag and printed with something like Gimp or Scribus that uses direct CMYK conversion and output via the LittleCMS library

Now, if only Inkscape could break free of it's Sodipodi legacy Cartesian coordinate system, so we can get down to business with good 'ol fashioned Top-left referencing, I'd be ever so happy.


Either way, Expressive/Stagestack/whatever looks to be a promising project.  I'll keep an eye on it.   

[tomos]

to pan the Inkscape GUI as "Linux-like" and "ugly" strikes me as a bit churlish

I agree,
I think it's a form of designers' snobbery. I guess their whole career is about making things look good, so many would struggle with an interface that doesnt have that as a priority.

Re the interface functionality. There's got to be a certain amount of the people trying inkscape out, who struggle with the interface because they dont take the time to learn it. I dont know how long it takes to adjust to new software, probably it depends how many years you've been using your old software ;-)

I use graphics software in a very limited way myself, but I do use it professionally. If you're doing something again and again, day after day, the interface and workflow become very important. I mean that's why there's so much interest here in text editors, and in software in general. I'd personally be slow to move to something open source where development is slow. The other side of the coin is a huge company like Adobe that really dont care that much, and do whatever they do, like it or lump it.

[Edvard]

I think it's a form of designers' snobbery. I guess their whole career is about making things look good, so many would struggle with an interface that doesnt have that as a priority.

Agreed as well.  I can find much delight in a well-designed (read: easy to navigate, not necessarily pretty) interface myself.  I totally appreciate that the guy had trouble adjusting to a new interface, we all do, and it's especially frustrating when the successful navigation of said software interface affects the success of one's livelihood, as would be the case with a professional designer/architect/artist/musician/etc.  

I dont know how long it takes to adjust to new software, probably it depends how many years you've been using your old software ;-)

That certainly depends on how much effort has been put into the usability of the software.  Even if everything is totally backwards from what you're used to, if the functions are easily discovered or intuitive, the change should be rather painless.  Recently, I tried and failed again to seriously work with gEDA; never again, even if the EvilMadScientist.com guys are all over it.  I can get to a certain point in the workflow, and suddenly I have no idea what to do to move to the next step, and myriads of Google searches and Reading The Free Manual haven't yielded a sufficient answer.  Bad form, gentlemen.
Compared with the ease of working with Eagle (despite it's quirks), it's akin to catching mice by holding a rattlesnake; gets the job done, but you're just as likely to be bitten as the mouse.
On the other hand, I've tried my hand at AutoCAD more than a few times when I had access to it, and despite it being industry standard, I found a much easier time with DoubleCAD or even the open-source 'community' edition of QCAD.

Hopefully, with so many former and current freehand users contributing to the success of Expressive, it'll be a viable alternative to both the commercial and open-source current vector editing offerings.
Now, if only I had 25 euros...

[tomos]

Added to original post:

Quasado are looking for support for this project. Simply following or liking will be of benefit - impress the investors :-)
Donations are also welcome though ;-)

Follow on twitter http://twitter.com/
Like on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/quasado
or donate http://www.stagestack.com/
for more info on current status see here (stagestack.com blog)

[40hz]

As you can see there is a FreeHand bias here

Nothing to explain or apologize for IMHO. I'll categorically state that Freehand was the single finest vector drawing package ever created. Nothing I ever used before, during, or since has even come close.

It was a sad day when Adobe put in on the shelf and deliberately let it die.

[tomos]

^ that's why I'm doing my little bit to promote this one - in the hopes that it will follow in Freehand's footsteps...

Quasado are looking for support for this project. Simply following or liking will be of benefit - impress the investors :-)
Donations are also welcome though ;-)

Follow on twitter http://twitter.com/
Like on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/quasado
or donate http://www.stagestack.com/

[Carol Haynes]

What about Xara Designer Pro as a competitor to Illustrator?

Blindingly fast and easy to use with lots of native import options (including Freehand 3).

[40hz]

^Xara is a fine product (it's what I currently use by default) but it's not as intuitive and fluid-feeling as Freehand was.

With Xara I often have to stop and think or consult a help file. With Freehand everything (for me) "just worked" the way I expected it to. The bezier tools were especially well done as were the fit text to curve functions. Although in fairness Xara has web design features that Freehand couldn't have dreamed of since it was gone well before the web really took off.

For $299 USD Xara Pro is a good choice for those of us that just can't get comfortable with Adobe Illustrator. If you don't need the workflow features Adobe CS provides (which is where CS really shines and makes sense in a production environment) , Xara is well worth checking out. Older versions of the Photo/Designer version are often available for free download when Xara is running a promotion. They also offer decent discounts and upgrade deals.

[tomos]

What about Xara Designer Pro as a competitor to Illustrator?

Blindingly fast and easy to use with lots of native import options (including Freehand 3).

From what I've heard (about two years ago now though...), older versions only offered CMYK colour when exporting a file, i.e. one couldnt work with CMYK colours and see it in progress. I dont know if this is still the case(?) Otherwise it has a very good reputation, but pros seem to mainly avoid it so far (which doesnt mean anything much btw).
One thing that makes me wary is the fact it does so much! But obviously that wouldnt stop me trying it I'm not looking to buy anything at the moment, but I would certainly try Xara before moving to Illustrator (which I have but almost never use).

[40hz]

one couldnt work with CMYK colours and see it in progress.

It now has CMYK onscreen preview and does seps.

One thing that makes me wary is the fact it does so much!

Agree there. Illustrator is a cleaner and "purer" app. It's also an industry standard so agencies and commercial print shops are used to working with it.

[40hz]

but pros seem to mainly avoid it so far

They work with what they know best. Once you've mastered Photoshop and Illustrator, why bother to hassle with something else? CS does it all.

And CS is also what everybody else uses  - which is important to remember.

When switching jobs, having a transferable set of skills is crucial to one's career prospects. Knowing CS gives you that.

[Carol Haynes]

Xara can export Illustrator and EPS file formats (never used it so I don't know what the fidelity is like).

I agree that Xara is a little schizophrenic these days but the basis of the package is, and always has been, vectors - right back to its origins as ArtWprks on the Acorn RiscOS platform (yes I had a copy).

The schizophrenia comes from adding in photoshop type functions (including support for PS plugins!) and web design. You can however simply ignore those and just concentrate on vectors.

[tomos]

The comments on their progress link are very interesting

This one is harsh but thought-provoking:

Doc Pixel 10.01.13 @ 01:32 pm Random first thoughts after reading the comments here: Henry Ford on innovation: "“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Sorry to be so blunt, but re-creating Freehand as it "was"... is a dead end. As someone above this post mentioned, iDraw is an example of what future vector software will look like and be built upon. It is also software initiatives like this that pull in investors by the boat-load. Making business and software decisions by listening to people still declaring their hatred for social platforms: very short-sighted and they should be ignored. People declaring their hate and refusal to even try illustrator, leads me to believe that if StageStack deviates in the slightest way from Freehand... which these people know and have an undying love for... they will be the biggest complainers. In that regard, it's a good thing they are not socially connected... because no one will even hear their complaints. Other than probably their customers who will have to endure another round of whining and complaining why they can't get their projects done on budget and punctually. Design-software at this point NEEDS the tech-savvy social connected crowd. New innovative and inspiring tools for young ideas and people designing for themselves and their generation and shaping the world "today and tomorrow". Note: I just turned 50 a couple of days ago. I had these same discussions 25 years ago explaining why we don't need a GUI to $150k typesetting machines; we need NEW software that takes advantage of the new Macintosh and PC platforms of the future. People like Bob Sander-Cederlof delivered that way back then... can Quasada do that today? A 3rd Party plugin from Quasado to open old Freehand files will never ever see the light of day. Patents and copyrights held by Adobe, and the original API platform no longer being supported to get at the binary code makes it a "dead end project". The Rosetta PowerPC emulator code will never be reverse engineered so that Mac users will ever be able to install Freehand in current or future OS versions, similar to the resons above. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit. There is no need for a new Freehand unless it is built with future considerations like touch and pen input for the future, and RGB is the base design color model. Period. Because CMYK is also a dying (dead) technology. INFO: Last year ebooks broke the 50% mark of all books sold on Amazon. Newsprint and magazines have been on a downward spiral for the last 5 years, and it will continue at a pace never seen before. Within a short period of time, whatever is still "printed" like packaging, will surely be 100% "digitally" printed, where the RIP will be doing RGB conversions according to the inks in the system. This could very well be from 4-16 at a time and encompass a spectrum far exceeding that of any 4-16 color traditional printing press. Ask Heidelberg. I have. The statistics and trend in the traditional printing markets are scary bad. Add to the digital printing the fact that paper has become a very expensive commodity, to the point where traditional printing/publishing is becoming far too expensive to consider for old-school advertising, marketing and daily/monthly publishing. Ads in newspapers or magazines were mentioned above in a comment: I hope it was just being sarcastic(!) Should Quasada also deliver demos on diskettes and CD's? Besides the financial benefits of going digital, the added benefit is that it's FAR more ecological. A topic that the younger generation is becoming fully aware of in school. The consequences if they ignore conservation are more than evident. As far as I'm concerned, death to dead-tree publishing can't come soon enough. My Summary: 1) stop wasting your development money building a "better mousetrap" clone from yesterday. 2) reconsider your strategy and think where you want your software to take young designers and publishing in 1 year, 2 years, 5. 3) How can you leverage the young designer's energy and desire for "new" tools, learn them, and new ways of being productive; shining a light on THEIR world, not those of their parents, me or any other old folks commenting here. Social communication, interest and "tuned-in" investors are all but guaranteed when you find the right combination of must-have tools for the "Future Designer's Toolbox". Build that!

(I formatted the text)

[40hz]

[attach]

[tomos]

^ Ah well ...

[tomos]

(see attachment in previous post)
It's history folks! Stagestack is no more.

[..]
Full article here.

turns out we read the article too quickly (but it still sounds like it's not alive as a big project)

... Quasado might start an open source project. Interestingly enough, this is exactly what the Quasado team is now considering.
[...]
For now Quasado is looking for your input on the possible future of the project.

there was an interesting blog post on Jan 11 responding to the input given (the Libre article was Jan.10):

What are our next steps

• Try to improve communication ASAP without wasting to much time better spent in programming. As a first step, at least weekly status reports as well as a monthly newsletter might be a good step.
• Focus on innovation, leaving other aspects of Freehand (expect it's better usability) a side for later revisions
• Focus on getting somewhere even if worse then others at this point but keep improving
• Try to stick on timelines
• Work on this project as much as we (I?) can without funding right now

What are we currently doing?

As a first step of better communication, I want to tell you what I've been working on lately and just finished today.
My idea was to rework the current, underlying model of handling graphic documents. The current model has several weaknesses including not being able to load/save, no proper undo/redo, no propery linking between nodes (i.e. for styles etc.), not prepared for multi-threading and so on. To save time for the future, I've decided myself about three months ago to write a separate project that included a completely new model as well as rendering engine. Now, today I've finished with the new model and overall, I'm pretty much satisfied with it. It supports all the features mentioned before and ought to be a good ground base for a better Stagestack Core. And as a goody, here's the first usable output of loading/saving, as you can see, we're trying to stick with standardized xml:

http://www.stagestack.com/blog/blog-post/2013/01/11/lessons-learned/

[tomos]

UPDATE:

Whats going on regarding Stagestack? [...] Quasado is not ready to give up. They have decided to build a pure web-based (JS/HTML5) edition of the product first, which will help to better fit into present investor strategies (web and mobile apps) as well to allow it to run on mobile, web and for getting a prototype out much sooner. Furthermore, thanks to the donations received--and Quasado's own financial fund--this first prototype can be developed completely on its own. Quasado is planning on publishing a limited-function prototype for people to play around on the web by early to mid-April 2013. [...] We asked about details on their programming process and Quasado tells us they will be using the same web-code for building up a desktop edition by replacing performance-critical parts with native code. They believe this is quite an interesting experiment and will still allow users to work with exactly the same feature-set on the web as well as the native application. They are also building an infrastructure / SAAS Solution around the web edition that will allow designers to better manage and handle their designs as well as interact with their customers. It will support interactive components; meaning users can do UI-Drafts, for example, and other such functions.

http://www.freehandforum.org/news.html


edit/
their blog might be of interest to coders:
http://quasado.wordpress.com/
e.g. Fighting against the language - about whether to use 'pure' javascript or not

[40hz]

I think their approach of developing it for the web and then porting it to the desktop is ill-advised at best. (Call it a hunch and take it with a grain of salt.)

Nevertheless, I wish them well. 

[tomos]

I think their approach of developing it for the web and then porting it to the desktop is ill-advised at best. (Call it a hunch and take it with a grain of salt.)

it's interesting that (it sounds like) they can only get funding for an web version.
As to porting, I wouldn't have a clue :-)

[40hz]

^I keep thinking that developing an app such as that would be challenging enough without also attempting to pull it off via an experimental approach to coding it...

But who knows? Maybe it is possible to pull off two minor miracles simultaneously.

And yeah, cloud/web/SaaS/'subscription model' is all the rage in tech investment circles. And probably will remain so until the day some super-popular online/cloud product does a major crash and burn on its users. But until that happens, web is where it's at.

And I'm sure you're correct. "Web-based" probably was the only thing they could say that would entice an angel to roost on their rooftop.