Acrylic Beta (Expression)

**gwpriester** · 11 September 2005, 02:56 PM

I just wrote a review of Expression Graphic Designer (Acrylic) for Communication Arts Magazine. The review will appear in a few months.

I asked my media contact if they were targeting this product to professional designers and art directors and she said yes.

If this is the case, then I think Microsoft has its work cut out for it.

About 87-90% of design professionals work on the Macintosh platform. They use Illustrator because that is the tool they learned in school and is probably going to be the tool they stick with no matter how much they like or dislike it. It is a tool that they use to create with. No more no less.

Professional designers and art directors working in Windows use primarily CorelDRAW and Illustrator, and those with any sense, Xara X :-)

As a program designed to be used by professional artists and not software junkies such as we, there is precious little here to attract a DRAW or Illustrator or Xara X user to use Acrylic as a design tool.

Unlike many of us software junkies who really get into software, read the manuals, buy the how to books, and of course, love to download and play with beta versions and provide feedback to the maker of the product, professional designers could care less about software. Most love their Macs and would die before they would use a Windows computer, never mind how great a Windows software proudct is. For the most part, they don't read the manuals, they do not buy the how to books, they do not subscribe to computer or software specific magazines (AdWeek, Communication Arts, Print, Graphis yes) and they are not part of on-line software conferences. The have a job to do, and the software they use is no more or less the tool they use to do their job. For these people to switch products, it has to offer features that relate to their job and are just clearly a quantum leap forward. A good example of this is Adobe InDesign vs QuarkXPress. And even though Quark is finally seeing and responding to the errosion of their user base by InDesign, the majority of publishing designers are still using Quark. They learned how to work in Quark and do not want to take time they do not have to learn another product, even if it is superior.

Acrylic's text handling capabalities, one of the major considerations for any designer or art director is a joke. I might be wrong, but I could not find a way to close the line spacing, short of individually moving a line at a time. Most of the text editing tools that I needs as a designer are missing.

Standard Windows keyboard editing shortcuts, such as Ctrl + right arrow key for skipping a word at a time, or Ctrl Shift + right arrow key for highlighting a word of text at a stroke just puts the text into a kind of floating state. This is just so wrong.

For a designer, the ability to use text is not a feature, it is a fundamental requirement. Acrylic's text capabilities just does not cut it.

I did like the warping grid and the bevel used with the Lighting Tool. And even though it is a feature that Illustrator has had for some time, the Eye Dropper tool for copying attributes is something I hope Xara will someday adapt.

Those who have used the photo stitching feature have been very impressed with it. I did not have time or space to address this.

If I were going to design a tool to woo users away from their current product, I would make the user interface as close as I could to the product I was trying to attract users from. White there are some functions of the UI that are familiar to software users, there are some that are downright nighmarish. In an attempt to unclutter the main menu, many functions have been hidden inside inappropriate tools where I would never think of looking for them. In my opinion, the UI needs to be totally redesigned.

In short, as a tool for people who like to learn new software and who might enjoy some of the features and tools, Acrylic is OK. But if Miscosoft is trying to dislodge Illustrator and CorelDRAW from their domination of the design and publishing software roles, they have another think coming.

On the other hand, I never thought Internet Explorer would replace Netscape. What do I know?

Gary

**Sweedie** · 11 September 2005, 07:00 PM

I have quit using Xara since Acrylic was first released as a beta. In all regards Acrylic meets my needs. It is both a vector and bitmap editor, a painting and a drawing software at the same time. It is very efficient in both aspects and I can do a lot more in Acrylic than I ever could do in Xara.

I have used Garys "The Xara Tutorials 1996-2001 & The WebXealot & On-Line Xara X Manual" -CD as a reference for a long time. A great piece of tutorials and tipses & trixes. I don't need it anymore and no Xara tuts anymore. I use Acrylic from now on.

Acrylic moves ahead of Illustrator, Freehand, Corel Draw, Xara and the rest. Acrylic is like combining Expressions3 and Painter IX. Acrylic feels like Future while the rest feels like the Past.

The picture was made with Microsoft codename Acrylic (beta).

**min** · 11 September 2005, 08:00 PM

Sweedie - lovely image

Thank you for showing what Acrylic can do. I use Acrylic/Expression for most of my vector artwork. I use Xara for web graphics but it can't match Acrylic/Expression, IMHO, for ease of use in creating painterly images.

I'm currently doing an educational project that is based in Flash - I do most of the artwork in Expression and then import in Flash. Unfortunately, the Flash export facility is not available in Acrylic - a big disappointment for me.

Amanda

**gidgit** · 11 September 2005, 11:33 PM

Very nice pillows

ah, I don't really the "one app for all" bit fits anywhere anymore... we get stuck in what we utilize the most, for sure, but when the need arises it is always good to have other tool sets at one's disposal... including 3D tools as well, and for that matter, if it is web related then some code experience will save some bandwidth for table design as well

So, depending on the application of the graphic, the style of graphic required etc, sort of determines the toolset to use... well, this and workflow of course

**Sweedie** · 12 September 2005, 02:25 PM

A lot of designers use only Photoshop and/or Illustrator. I always read the british Comnputer Arts mag. It's almost always on Adobes products. Never on Xara or Corel Draw. Why? It's because Adobe is "Industry Standard" in the photo and printing industry. Now, when they own Macromedia, Adobe will become the one and only monopoly graphic software GIANT.

There certainly are a lot of very good softwares that are made by other companys. Xara is one. Acrylic is another. I fell in love with Acrylic the very first time I used it three months ago. Her is a link to some of my Acrylic images: http://www.bildsajten.com/acrylic/A1.htm

I am teaching Art as a profession and is freelancing as gfx designer, mostly interactive Flash, using Macromedia Flash and Xara and sometimes Illustrator for printed works. It's a pity Acrylic does not have the Flash export like Xara's got. But Acrylic is still beta. There will some surprises in the final release in october, I've heard.

As a true "flat" designer (only 2D) I need to use just Acrylic for print or for the web. No more switching between two or three applications. Acrylic makes a great workflow!

Of course the Industry Standard softwares will remain Industry Standard softwares for a long time. But Microsoft can make a breakthrough with this application since it got such a lot of promises for the future...

If you are interested, pleas follow this link:
http://searchvb.techtarget.com/origi...116635,00.html

**gwpriester** · 12 September 2005, 09:30 PM

Sweedie and others

My review was based on using Expression Graphic Designer as a design tool. Obviously there are tools here that might make this product desirable for artists (as you have illustrated so well) and some of the photo tools are great as well.

But my evaluation of this product was in relation to the tools a graphic designer uses in the day to day world.

Exporting to PDF/X is critical these days for preparing a document for commercial printing. XGD did not produce a very good PDF file. This of course may be resolved before the final release.

As I mentioned, the text tool was lacking in almost every control that a designer would need, including the most basic control, line spacing. DRAW, Illustrator and Xara X all have much better text tools with perhaps CorelDRAW having the most sophisticated. And CorelDRAW 12 and Illustrator 10+ can produce an excellent PDF file. This is critical.

Considering that Microsoft has teamed with Adobe to produce Open Type, I would expect support for Open Type Glyphs. There was none.

My review was also based on Miscosoft targeting XGD to existing design professionals who are using DRAW and Illustrator. And in this context, I could not see any reason for these users to switch.

Another important capability of a mature application is Input and Output options. EGD was very limited in both categories. CorelDRAW is probably has the best set of Import and Export options but they could really use some help in figuring out how to organize the filters. Listing the filters alphabetically would be helpful. I'm not sure what their method is.

What it really comes down to is what you feel most comfortable using, and obviously, Microsoft can count on you as one of its first customers when the final product is released.

For me, while there are some useful tools which I might use for time to time, there was nothing here that would make me give up Xara X as a design tool for. I have used Xara X for about 10 years now as my primary design and illustration tool. But I also use Illustrator and CorelDRAW when the project I am working on calls for more specific tools. I also use Photoshop and Adobe InDesign as well as Acrobat 7. Each of these tools has features that when needed I use.

Gary

**georgetroy** · 14 September 2005, 03:35 AM

I'm just a user not a designer and use the application almost daily. Vector drawings and bitmaps strokes are edible. The curve tool is so smooth and easy. I do a lot of cartoons with it. I read in the Expression(Acrylic news discussion group) that there has been over 200,000 downloads, not bad. My humble site with 9 pages of cartoons. Starts here

http://www.artbygeotroy.com/html/cartoons.html

**Sweedie** · 14 September 2005, 09:16 PM

http://www.microsoft.com/products/ex...n/default.aspx

This link explains a lot about Acrylic (Expression) and what it was not so much intended to be "a tool a graphic designer uses in the day to day world" (for printing).

Gary, sorry for the misunderstanding of your evaluation of Microsoft codename Acrylic (beta). Maybe your evaluation should consider the intentions of the appplication? It would be more fair, and maybe Microsoft will set a new standard in developing gfx for the Internet and software applications using the XAML.

By the way; Acrylic got those tools for text handling:

1 Font
2 Font style
3 Baseline shift
4 Leading/Auto Leading (line spacing)
5 Horizontal paragraph alignment
6 Size
7 Tracking
8 Horizontal scaling
9 Normal/Superscript/Subscript

Not that bad after all - but I agree, in this beta it works a bit unstable. It will improve hopefully.

**jclements** · 15 September 2005, 03:58 PM

FROM THE MICROSOFT WEBPAGE:

"Your Creative Power Unleashed.

Microsoft Expression™ takes the many sides of your creative personality to all new levels."

Are they marketing to schizophrenics?

**gwpriester** · 15 September 2005, 06:08 PM

Sweedie

OK I see the line spacing portion of the text menu. My fault. It is kind of hidden away.

There is a button for justified left and right text but I do not see a control for creating a paragraph of text to a specific width. Is it there or is it missing?

And I see you can highlight text to the end of the line using Ctrl End. But what is missing is the ability to high light a word at a time, using Miscosoft's normal key strokes.

John-Very funny :-)

Gary