I really want to like this program. It has great functionality, but it's just plain awkward. Keyboard commands are ludicrous. For example, two of the most-used commands are Group and Rotate, for which the keystrokes are command-shift-open parenthesis and command-shift-f. What's wrong with command-g and command-r, like everyone else uses? All through, nothing is intuitive; everything is unduly complicated. Selecting objects is also awkward. The boundaries of objects extend beyond them in invisible ways so selection is a frustrating guessing game. You redo a lot of action.
These are just a few examples. You can use it OK, but you'll never get your feet under you and always feel like you're fighting it.
Really can't tell. Just paid to use the full version for a month. But I am still stuck with the Basic Level.
And I can't seem to get my money back. So Eazydraw and/or the apple store wasted my money and time. Will have to look for an alternative now.
Downloaded, paid for upgrade to fully functional version. "Convert to vector graphic" and all other convert menus still disabled. Tried to restore purchases. App said, "EazyDraw is damaged, please redownload. All other functionality seemed fine.
This is one of the best and most thought out pieces of software that I have ever purchased. It has extensive help system and documentation is very good. It is the only one that can do scale and dimensions properly and is a real joy to use.
I've been using EazyDraw for many years for technical drawings. I'm not an artist and don't even attempt illustrations of any kind. But for what I do I find EazyDraw the best program out of the lot. I've tried all of them, mostly out of curiosity, but always come back to EazyDraw for my actual work. This consists of block diagrams and rack layouts for audio systems. The main thing I find is that although it took a little effort to master the drawing tools, they work reliably and the overall application is very solid. I've never suffered loss of data and I can’t even remember if it's ever actually crashed while I was working in it - and that's over many years of use. So I would recommend this highly to anyone who does technical type of drawing. I cannot comment though on how it would be for other types of use. I should also mention that the developer is extremely responsive and helpful. That's a huge plus in my book!
Users who dismiss Eazydraw without even learning how it works are missing out on a really fascinating program. Compared to all the other vector apps out there, Eazydraw is easily the most technically sophisticated of the lot.
When my MacBook Pro recently bit the dust I lost the use of FreeHand, after Adobe bought it & dumped it off the market (since it drew rings around Illustrator), forcing FreeHand artists to buy Illustrator to be able to use their own graphics files. Consequently, many of us dumped Adobe.
Freehand's demise left a big hole in the Mac vector design & layout market. Currently there is no single app that excels at both. I've tried them all; Sketch, Intaglio, Artboard, iVinci, Zeusdraw, Idraw, NeoDraw & Eazydraw. While they all do basic draw functions, most fall way short of FreeHand's many features & technical elegance (and, to be fair, its price). A few feature a standard set of Core Image filters & blending modes, but lack more essential vector drawing & page layout functions.
The two that come closest are filling this gap are Eazydraw & NeoDraw (the drawing app included in the free open-source NeoOffice suite that rivals MS Office). Surprisingly full-featured & ultra-customizable, NeoDraw has loads of tools & options, like font-enhancements, freeform-distort, image-fill, simple 3D, bitmap filters, autotrace, autosave, presentation & layout tools & lots more. At the requested $10 donation, NeoDraw is a steal.
Eazydraw takes a unique approach. Primarily a technical drawing app rather than a graphic design app, it lacks filters & blending modes in favor of more essential drawing functions. While managing to be simple enough for basic drawing, it is also extremely technically proficient, with a long list of vector functions, tools, menu options & vector shapes.
Eazydraw's precision & its decent text-handling abilities also make it well-suited for page layout. Features like multiple pages, an adjustable canvas area (critical for layout work), & its ability to flow text around or inside objects & between separate text boxes, make it not only a good vector drawing program, but also the best page layout app of the bunch.
Eazydraw's minor flaws, like its use of the Apple Font Panel instead of font menu preview, plus a few rather confusing, non-standard drawing functions, only slightly detract from its overall usefulness. And it wouldn't take much, like the addition of font menu preview & a few more professional graphics functions, to make Eazydraw a fairly reasonable Freehand substitute for vector design & page layout work.
I've been using EazyDraw for more than two years now.
EazyDraw does the job OK. It's pretty good at technical drawings, very useful for teachers who need some physics/geometric drawings for their class or people who want to draw some plans. From the bunch of mac vector apps out there it's the best choice for technical drawings, (so to say) "baby-"CAD; I mean CAD with an "easy" MacDraw-like interface. EazyDraw is quite easy to use – things like the spiral tool and the many shapes in the object libraries are great. However, for the artsy stuff, designing, etc. I felt EazyDraw not so well suited, because the cluttered interface holds back your creativity, in a way.
Well to be honest, the interface is a mess. It is fine if you are a complete beginner or you have learned drawing apps in the '80 and '90, however, since the app is quite feature rich, when used for advanced things you end up with so many pallets and menus… well, clutter, that costs you time. The UI just doesn't feel up to date and could be much more efficient.
Also, there are "rough edges" from the technical side – there are always a few bugs around, but these are usually addressed quickly in the frequent updates and upgrades.
However this brings me to another point: it is very easy to lose oversight about the various versions of this app. At the moment there are three versions of EazyDraw at the MacAppStore: ED3 (called only "EazyDraw", but with "3" in the icon), ED4 and ED5, for 15$, 30$ resp. 95$. I don't really know what's the difference between those, because description and screenshots in the MacAppStore are the same at least for version 3 and 4. Buying directly from the developer you can get another version of version 5 (as far as I have understood it), and also there is EazyDrawRetro, which opens the legacy formats (MacDraw, AppleWorks), however for this you need a "version 4 free market license". It is nice that the developer maintains a version 5 for older OSs, like 10.4. Still, the whole MAS thing has made things quite confusing with EazyDraw. One year ago there was even more confusion, with different versions having the same number (see comments below). Definitely one developer who didn't "get" the MAS right. I purchased version 3 in summer 2010 directly from the developer for 95$, one year later I had to update to version 4.1 because version 3.6.1 doesn't work with Lion (yeah right, and now a version 3 is sold at the MAS which works). Version 4.1 works now on my machine in "grace period", I have 78 days left. Probably that means the app won't work after that period. Personally, I haven't experienced a difference in features from version 3 to version 4, except for the Lion full screen mode. Many crashes and corrupted files with version 4.1 on Mountain Lion… Probably I will never upgrade to version 5 but instead will just buy the cheapest 15$ version from the MAS.
However, I haven't found a more capable app for technical drawings with this price tag (15$). If you need an easy to use "CAD"-like app, then EazyDraw is the way to go. For more "artsy" illustration jobs, creating icons, etc., I'd recommend Intaglio and iDraw (which has a great, great, great iPad version). Sketch is also a very nice looking alternative, and Artboard seems to be worth a look too.
Hugely overpriced, rather underwhelmed. Looking for a Mac replacement for CorelDRAW. EazyDraw is just a 'cheezy' wannabe knock-off, with hard-to-take-seriously candyland-looking icons. More importantly it failed some simple, basic, but critical tests for text and object manipulation, and I abandoned EazyDraw within minutes as a result. Developers, look at CorelDRAW if you want a litmus test for how your product should function. There's a reason CD has been a standard in the business for over two decades. So I am sticking with Fusion on my Mac to run must-have Windows apps such as CorelDRAW, WordPerfect, FinePrint, ACDSee and Quicken. Nothing native to Mac even comes close. Yet.
More fun than a Spirograph! I am switching from PC to Mac and have tried numerous programs from MacUpdate and another popular download site to replace my CorelDraw x3. This surpassed all others I tried. I was hoping to avoid getting Adobe Illustrator. I hope this will do the trick for me. A few drawbacks so far are it is sluggish in text mode. I'm not sure if that is a RAM issue for me. Second drawback is I would like the font faces to be visible in list format so I can pick from the list instead of only being able to view them one at a time. I got a free list format font viewer to work around this issue.
I've been using EazyDraw for a few months now, and compared to some of the other vector drawing apps I've tried, it really is Easy. I was initially overwhelmed with all the options available, but luckily the user guide explained everything clearly and thoroughly. So with this and some practice, it took me no more than a few days to get really comfortable using it. Equally important, the developer was very responsive to my questions and quickly fixed the bugs that I reported—definitely worth it.
Now this program continue to puzzle me. Here is a new 4.1 version for the same $95 as the new 4 version at the App store. But at the App store the 3.7.5 is still offered for 1/3 of that price? Aside from non English languages support in version(s) 4, I see no difference between 4 and 3.7.5. I use graphic programs only occasionally, and once I master an application I don't like to waste time (and money) on a second one (I am still using CANVAS 9.0, which is obsolete on Lion). I hesitate to purchase and test Eazydraw because of the unclear and odd pricing policy.
Following the comments below I understand that this is a fair program with reasonable ability to open and handle "old" svg files. The thing that I don't understand is why version 3.6.4 costs $95 here while for a seemingly similar product (same name and icon) tagged version 3.7.3 costs $25 at the App Store ?
Excellent program and a must have for anyone that likes to do quick vector based graphics without the bloat of the higher end programs.
Well worth it's weight in gold!
Keep up the great work!
This is a very powerful program capable of doing a wide variety of drawing tasks. I use it for scale drawings of a technical nature. These drawings must be easily and accurately dimensioned and EazyDraw makes this a breeze. You cant even find another app that will do this kind of drawing, thank you EazyDraw. It this respect it is like a mini cad type application. You can even save drawing environments as a template, which is a real time saver if you work in a couple of different scales or project parameters. On top of all that capacity it also has all the graphic illustration type drawing capabilities. I have also used this program to make small detailed illustrations for print. It has a bunch of cool effects and can make any logo, graphics, icon, tee shirt, tattoo type illustration you could want. This is best in class as far as I have experienced. Thats the good stuff, now there are a few other things about the software. The settings and functions of the tools are a little overwhelming. It does seem like there could be improvements in the preferences area or maybe the help system could be better. There are some other quirks that will hopefully be worked on as well. I have never used macdraw but since this drawing software is a hybrid line/cad/illustration application I would guess that some expanded complexity is normal. This really is not a proper review as I have not used all the other software out there and my needs are narrowed by the dimensioning feature.
AIKOUSHA has offered a concise review, from my perspective as a long time MacDraw (1985) user, in terms of what this application does and doesn't do, for those of us looking for a really good replacement product. Unfortunately, I have nothing better to suggest, I am just another MacDraw fan still looking for a MacDraw replacement, sans bells, whistles and other useless and file bloating "features".
FWIW,
-Rod
Tried this out for a bit while attempting to revive some old forms for new "legalese."
However, it was much harder to use than going to an emulator, using MacDraw, dumping to .ps, and then printing using Preview.
Though I am impressed with the flood of preferences, major portions of the programs' interface seriously need to be brought under mac-like standards, and severely tightened-up. I taught myself MacDraw in minutes, without a manual... I still, after nearly ten years can operate it without thinking... (and without having used it for nearly a decade). EazyDraw does not have that, and many interface layouts specifically make things harder.
As an example, the foating toolbar is huge and ugly, it should resemble the old MacDraw palette, or the current adobe palettes... Rulers and Gridlines should be unobtrusive but are far from it, even when trying to use the prefs to make them that way (complete failure).
Though I suspect there might be some "Claris" copyrights to be wary of, a program that is supposed to be the modern successor of ClarisDraw should really have all the best interface elements already built-in, and moreover, tweaked for the OSX generation. Sadly I didn't see ANY of that.
I definitely want to keep this in mind for printing old documents without any roundabout tricks, but since it failed to recognize a typeface in an old document that's actually present (and replaced it with another), I really don't want to chance editing things that work fine in an emulator, in exchange for a document that is solely reliant on this software.
Keep working on this, it definitely could be a worthy successor, but has far to go, IMHO.
I like the software, it has a lot of features, but i think the interface is really a bit messy and not convenient to use. The one of intaglio is better but the software as less features than EazyDraw.
I have owned this product for a year now and am very satisfied. The program is excellent for small or medium technical drawings when you don't feel like firing up the big cad program. It does layers and visibility toggles in contrast to what was stated in the last review. It does have a few quirks but overall a solid product.
Well, just found this with just an hour and a half to go! Hope that is enough time for me to do an adequate test drive! Lets see, maybe I'll manage it.
Looks like a good program, I have some old MacDraw files that I'd love to get back at, but even at half price it's too much for me to spend for my purposes.
Very interesting program... I'm also wondering if it has support for Viso documents?
Could be worth well more than its normal price tag if it did that!
Looks interesting.
I wonder how 'easy' is it in real use for non-graphic-pro people, and how does it compare to Intaglio, the other non-Adobe drawing app that I know of?
I will try to get some time to look at this one.
This is a great idea for a website. I am looking forward to being introduced to new types of software for my Mac.As a teacher, I am, in fact, trying to find an inexpensive Illustrator replacement simply because the cost doesn't justify my very infrequent use of it. I am going to try this as well as some of the others. Thanks.
after quick evaluation I decided to skip this one, there is a few things missing there and even great discount would not justify this purchase for me... pity
