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Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

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Re: Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

#61

Post by eddieh »

ralusek wrote: post #49
eddieh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there's so many great Mac/Apple only applications that beat the pants off of any cross-platform apps, especially stuff built with Electron. I use some great apps on a daily basis that are Mac or Apple ecosystem only. Acorn - Image editor OmniGraffle - Diagramming OmniFocus - Todo list for GTD Sketch - UI prototyping Plus Apple's productivity software, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. I honestly don't know how people…

The irony of Figma being better than all of those applications, while having been built with Electron, will not be lost on those who have used it.

I doubt that claim so much. Every Electron application I've ever used is seriously deficient in many ways. First every app has its own set of UI controls, so right there you loose one of the best things about native Mac apps, consistency. Next I've yet to find a single Electron app that doesn't break some core Mac feature such as copy/paste, system wide spellcheck, system wide dictionary, the emoji picker, system wide settings, scrollable area bounce, zoom, tabs, windows, menus, keyboard shortcuts, drag & drop, screenshots, and so on. Third every electron app consumes way to many system resources and almost all are painfully slow. But, hey I'll give Figma a try and report back.

Re: Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

#62

Post by Rexxar »

simongr3dal wrote: post #50

OT, but does anyone know of a vector drawing program that allows me draw in a similar that Fusion360 or SolidWorks does with their 2D CAD sketches? It also needs to export to some standard format to be used for print, so using SolidWorks of Fusion360 isn't really an option, I can't export the vector 1-to-1 onto a pdf and do proper colors with those. I cannot for the life of me figure out bezier curves to create arc s…

It's not exactly what you want but I have made a little software that is a sort of mix between Inkscape and Geogebra in which you can define a lots of shapes geometrically (https://www.ludigraphix.org, recent show HN : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19942367)

Re: Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

#63

Post by auxym »

drmeister wrote: post #56
jordache wrote: post #53

Can it draw curves with arrow heads? If so, I'm ditching Affinity Designer...

Oh yes, please someone answer this. I have used adobe illustrator for 15 years - then affinity designer for a few more years. I just want vector graphics with arrows without enormous subscription fees - damnit!

Pretty sure inkscape can do this?

Re: Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

#64

Post by ken »

I bought iDraw (back before AutoCAD bought Indeeo). I bought Affinity Designer. I tried demos for everything else I could get my hands on. I even tried Inkscape.

They all have flashy demos and claim to be great Mac apps (well, except Inkscape). A couple weeks later, I end up regretting my purchase. They just aren't terribly Mac-like, and they have all sorts of little bugs that never seem to get fixed. Being a small company in a huge market, their support suffers. There's 10 little obvious things it's missing that you assume will get added real soon, but it turns out there's actually 1000 things it's missing, and they keep picking other little things. Hell, Affinity Designer is 5 years old and arrowheads are still on their to-do list.

After 20 years of futzing around with Mac graphics apps, Illustrator is still the best vector graphics app I've ever used, and the newcomers aren't even more Mac-like (which seems like it'd be a low bar). Adobe had a 30 year head start. No matter how swanky the new CoreImage APIs are, you're not going to catch Illustrator in a year or two. Their manual is an inch thick (or, it was 20 years ago) and extremely well-written. If you haven't read it, you don't know half of the little usability tricks that they've packed in there. I love to hate on Adobe as much as anyone, and it's definitely not a very Mac-like user experience, but when it comes to making graphics, Illustrator is an absolute beast.

The price of Amadine is a turnoff: $20 is simply nowhere near enough to support the depth of features that a vector graphics app needs. I can tell this is going to be severely underpowered.

I've read about "Javascript fatigue". I have "Mac vector graphics app fatigue". Never again.

Re: Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

#65

Post by ukyrgf »

ralusek wrote: post #49
eddieh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there's so many great Mac/Apple only applications that beat the pants off of any cross-platform apps, especially stuff built with Electron. I use some great apps on a daily basis that are Mac or Apple ecosystem only. Acorn - Image editor OmniGraffle - Diagramming OmniFocus - Todo list for GTD Sketch - UI prototyping Plus Apple's productivity software, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. I honestly don't know how people…

The irony of Figma being better than all of those applications, while having been built with Electron, will not be lost on those who have used it.

Figma is still very much geared towards Mac designers, though. Sure, it works on Windows, but it's very frustrating to use it with a scroll-wheel mouse and a full-size keyboard. Most dropdowns have no scroll bar, if there is a scrollbar it's only 4px wide. They expect you to have a touchpad with inertia scrolling to do anything. The numpad also does nothing, since Macbooks no longer have them (so CTRL-NUM0 CTRL-NUM1 - extremely shortcuts to reset zoom/fit to page - do nothing; you have to use the number keys above the characters).

Re: Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

#66

Post by eddieh »

eddieh wrote: post #61
ralusek wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of Figma being better than all of those applications, while having been built with Electron, will not be lost on those who have used it.

I doubt that claim so much. Every Electron application I've ever used is seriously deficient in many ways. First every app has its own set of UI controls, so right there you loose one of the best things about native Mac apps, consistency. Next I've yet to find a single Electron app that doesn't break some core Mac feature such as copy/paste, system wide spellcheck, system wide dictionary, the emoji picker, system wid…

- Empty window stoplight controls (breaks HIG).

- I been waiting over two minutes for it to open a blank document created in the web version...three minutes still blank.

- Had to close and re-open. Still takes a few seconds to load a blank document.

- System wide spellchecker doesn't work.

- System wide dictionary doesn't work.

- Uses CPU time when it should be idle.

- One object on screen and it is already using more memory that any other process on my machines (and that includes Discord).

- It spawned 8 processes!

- Copying an object and pasting into another application doesn't work.

- Doesn't respect copy/paste with style and "Paste and Match Style."

- Doesn't support standard macOS accessibility.

I can probably go on, but honestly I'm not impressed and I'm bored.

Re: Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

#67

Post by danellis »

daotoad wrote: post #31
oceanghost wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the poor state of Apples PC hardware, I would be weary of investing in the platform as a developer or user.

When pedants attack: Weary = Extremely tired, exhausted. Wary = Fearful or nervous about, having trepidation. Example: I am weary from investing so much time and effort in Apple's platform. Being so deeply invested, I am wary of further investments until I can diversify. This is confusing as hell because "wear" sounds the same as "ware" and weary is a real word and will not upset your spellchecker. Of course "weary"…

> Wary = Fearful or nervous about, having trepidation.

'Leery' also means that, which is where I think the confusion comes from.

Re: Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

#68

Post by pvg »

dman wrote: post #58
kazinator wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and we can abstract away a mother's touch with some special "cross-person" gloves that anyone can wear to pat the baby. The little end user can hardly tell the difference!

I respectfully disagree. A contrary viewpoint which I happen to share is the following - As a software developer you build productivity multipliers for your users. Users spend non trivial amounts of time, money and energy building skills to master a tool you build. Users use these skills to earn a livelihood and sometimes due to a change in employer / life situation find themselves in a position where they do not hav…

I think a 'user-centric' angle is one of the good ways to think about this but presenting one possible set of user priorities as some sort of high-minded moral imperative and a different one as 'questionable ideology' does not do your argument any favours.

There's a long-running subculture in MacOS (and once Nextstep and now iOS) software development that I'll call 'app craftsmanship'. At its best it produces high-quality, slick apps that usefully leverage the platform's strengths and build dedicated (and typically paying) user bases. So when someone puts out a new Mac or iOS and makes a fuss about how it's fully native and supports the Face Bar™, they're signaling to potential users 'Hey! I'm about to do some App Craftsmanship here, people' and hoping deciated users will flock to them, credit cards in hand. They're not selling to the people who are going to be irritated the app doesn't run on Ubuntu Maimed Mastodon. And that's not a moral failing, it's just market targeting.

Re: Amadine – Vector graphics software for Mac

#69

Post by blondin »

jen20 wrote: post #2

Although I don’t have much use for vector graphics software, it is _great_ to see people building new native mac apps which take advantage of the unique features of the platform instead of targeting a cross-platform lowest common denominator!

indeed! been a mac user for years but never used the tools provided by apple until i discovered a swift tutorial in the form of a playground recently. so now i am exploring and learning the frameworks and sdks i already have right here on the mac (well of course you have to download gigabytes of xcode).

native mac development has such a potential but i don't see people using or promoting it. i can easily blame apple for that.

my little experience is that it is very hard to find tutorials that are not geared towards iOS. just try and see for yourself... even books. it is tiring and time consuming to find the right article or tutorial for the macos right now.

funny how people go through hoops to get their ipads connected and stream it on youtube, or to get their simulators working while developing on a mac. some of the frameworks they cover could be done natively on the mac!

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