🚀 go-pugleaf

      Then how would one enter isolation mode?




As for that, I turn that infernal behavior off in prefs. I find it too easy to enter the seldom-used isolation mode by accident. When I want to use isolation mode, I use the rightClick cursor menu, which I consider an appropriate place for it. I also find accidently leaving isolation mode too easy, but there's nothing to be done about that. (Since its appearance, I've always considered AI's group isolation mode a band-aid on its generally poor selection interface.)

(In FreeHand, I also turn off the similar pref for doubleClicking to get transform handles.)

Those programs which give access to anchorPoints manipulation by doubleClick can be thought of as putting the path in "isolation mode". (They typically call it "path edit mode".) I don't care for it.

FreeHand's selection treatment is better, though; the best I've used in mainstream drawing programs. Subselection is not a matter of doubleClicking; its a matter of simply clicking after a path is selected.

FreeHand's selection scheme doesn't drill down to the smallest subselection when you first click an object, as does Illustrator's white pointer. A click on an unselected object selects the object as an object. What could be more intuitive than that?

An object that is selected, of course, is the object of interest. It is selected, and you could think of that as its being "in isolation mode" if you want. A click on an anchorpoint of a selected path subselects the point. An AltClick can select a segment or a point without first selecting the path. A CtrlAltDrag can bend a segment, be it curved or straight. An AltDrag can pull a single handle out of an anchorPoint (curve, corner, or connector). (I'm referencing FH 8 here; some changes in shortcuts have occured since.)

      The Direct Selection Tool does it all.




AI's white pointer does what it does better, now that the Ctrl key momentarily invokes the black pointer. But you can't extract handles with it. You can't bend straight segments with it.

You still have a separate Convert anchorPoint tool (unnecessary in FH), and that's still a hard tool change (not a momentary invoke) from either of the pointers. (It can be momentarily invoked from the Pen.) The pointer can be momentarily invoked once you have made the hard tool change to the Convert tool, but it invokes the most recently used of the two selection pointer, further unnecessarily confusing the complicated routines.

So the change in CS2 (as I recall) in the momentary keys was an improvement (although AI users griped about it).

More important was the change in CS3, which at long last lets you select an anchorPoint of a path that already has all of its points selected. It was not until that change that AI's white pointer began to approach the one-selection-tool functionality of FH.

But it's still plagued by Illustrator's underlying selection scheme. It's still a far cry from the more ituitive, more efficient, more powerful, and just generally cleaner selection interface of FreeHand.

What is intuitive about having to use a modifier key just to select and move a whole object? (Thus, the black pointer still exists.) Illustrator's upside-downness in this most fundamental behavior is why using the white pointer in AI feels to FH users (and vector newcomers) like trying to eat spagetti with a chopstick. AI devotees are accustomed to it, but it is inherenly unintuitive.

That "from-the-bottom-up" selection scheme affects (afflicts) other selection operations, like the unyielding contact-sensitivity of marquee selections.

FreeHand's selection pointer benefits from the fact that FreeHand differentiates between a path being selected as a whole object, as opposed to meerly having all its points subselected. That enables you to do more with a subselection of points in FH than you can in AI. For example, you can align the selected points in path A to the top of path B, without creating the kind of ambiguitiy that occurs in AI.

FreeHand's pointer benefits from a better overall selection interface, involving everything from instant select-through clicking, to the way text objects are selected.

FreeHand does all this and has done all this for over 15 years with one very intuitive selection pointer. It does all this in a simpler selection interface, with fewer keyboard shortcuts to remember, and without sacrificing speed. It's just a better, more carefully designed selection interface from the beginning. Illustrator's, by comparision, is a hodge-podge of conflicting ambiguity (and even sloppiness; ex: text tool focus). Its best improvements have only just very recently been added, and they still don't measure up to the overall elegance of FreeHand's scheme, because those improvements are tagged-onto AI's fundamentally poorer selection principles.

Lest anyone think I consider FreeHand's treatment "perfect," let me assure you, I don't. FreeHand suffers from a few of the same poor behaviors as Illustrator. (Snap sensitivity of drawing tools at the first click comes to mind,although FreeHand's snaps are also generally better than AI's.)

There's always room for improvement. And I really couldn't care less what name is on the box. A selection scheme more elegant than FH's is probably possible. But we'll never see it as long as AI devotees so doggedly resist changes for the better. That's the frustration for me: Adobe now owns, free-and-clear of any patent issues, a far better set of vector interfaces. Yet in those piecemeal instances where we are seeing AI improved, the result is not an improvement on the best of FH and AI, but so far continues to fall short of what FH has provided for decades.

Instead of surpassing FH, AI is still trying to catch up to where FH was 15 years ago in the most basic areas, and is still falling short in the attempt.

That's not what I call advancement of vector drawing in the 21st century. Look around. Do you sense the same general diminishing of interest in 2D vector drawing that I do? Do you not think that largely because of the unintuitive mass of confusion that newcomers to vector drawing immediately encounter in the category's top seller?

Longtime AI users are too resistant to even well-reasoned change. Look how long it has taken for AI to finally become able to align subselected points, and yet that new functionality is still significantly weaker than FH's. Recall how many AI devotees in this very forum rent their garments and gnashed their teeth and spewed venom at any mere suggestion of the need for multiple pages in AI.

Vector drawing needs to be seriously reinvigorated. AI still caries too many trappings dating back to the 80s--problems that other drawing programs left behind 15 years ago. Whether due to its core programming structure, or to the resistance of its habituated users (I suspect both), I have no confidence in AI ever taking vector drawing "to the next level." It's time for something new here.

JET