Lineform1.5

What are the Lineform developers doing? January 7, 2009, I wrote about a bug that will not allow you to undo (in v 1.5). Their response was: "We have fixed this in the new update that will be released shortly, but in the meanwhile you can use the following as a workaround. First, create a new blank document and save, then quit Lineform and reopen by double clicking the new blank document." On April 7, 2009, while expressing my frustration with the "undo" still not being fixed (v 1.5) to the company in a support email, I received the following: "To regain your undo function create a new blank document and save it. Quit Lineform and reopen it by double clicking on the newly created blank document. This will be fixed in the latest update." Now, it is June 6, 2009, we are still using version 1.5, with the same bug, and no update to fix it that was due shortly in January, 2009. Very frustrating, buyer beware......are they still developing the program?

This software is DEAD. Read the forums. No support, no upgrades, no bugfixes. DEAD. DON'T BUY IT !!!

It's great to see they released 2 maintenance updates in such a short time Thanks a bunch

What are the Lineform developers doing? January 7, 2009, I wrote about a bug that will not allow you to undo (in v 1.5). Their response was: "We have fixed this in the new update that will be released shortly, but in the meanwhile you can use the following as a workaround. First, create a new blank document and save, then quit Lineform and reopen by double clicking the new blank document." On April 7, 2009, while expressing my frustration with the "undo" still not being fixed (v 1.5) to the company in a support email, I received the following: "To regain your undo function create a new blank document and save it. Quit Lineform and reopen it by double clicking on the newly created blank document. This will be fixed in the latest update." Now, it is June 6, 2009, we are still using version 1.5, with the same bug, and no update to fix it that was due shortly in January, 2009. Very frustrating, buyer beware......are they still developing the program?

Lineform handles svg importing quite well, but it's useability and intuitiveness are quite poor in my opinion. Particularly working with layers, the symbolisation in the layers window, isolation mode etc are all quite confusing. Selecting a layer doesn't select it in the editor. Also, there is no way to specify a canvas size in pixels. I wish the speed and SVG capability could marry with the useability, layout and intuitiveness of DrawIt...Unfortunately there is no lite vector editor that fulfills all these at the moment...

With Canvas now orphaned on OS X, I have been testing Intaglio and Lineform to use with Pages as a substitute. So far, Intaglio is the clear winner, particularly in its ability to deal with imported pdfs (critical as this is the way I need to get old Canvas data out). Lineform chokes on mine (causing both cores to run to 100% for minutes before I give up), whereas Intaglio brings them in, lets you ungroup and get on your way. I really, really want to like Lineform because the interface is nice but until their parsing pdf routines become more robust, I am going to have to pass. Maybe in the next version.

I don't have parse pdf in french version...

Re: the time limit. Me too. Now that PDF editing has been added, I want to check in again with the Lineform, but cannot.

I second the complaint about the demo version's time limit. I've waivered on buying this app, because when I first installed it - I only used it once then forgot about it. Then when I had a need to try it - the demo period had ended. All subsequence demo's don't reset the clock, and using AppZapper to unistall doesn't either. Another reason I hesitated to purchase it was that the only time I did use it, I wanted to import/convert .emf vector graphics files. Lineform was unable to import my emf files (even though it was stated as a feature). This feature alone might push me over the brink to purchase the app. But I can't test any current or future versions ability to import .emf, because of the time limit. Please rethink your demo strategy.

I think lineform is really excellent. It looks like nothing when you first open it but it supports many of the features you would need for decent vector editing. Like many of Apple's own apps it shines by its simplicity. For anyone on an intel machine it's a must for vector editing. By the time you have launched Illustrator CS2 under Rosetta you would have finished your work in LineForm... I haven't used it during months so my review is about after two hours of use. I might have missed some bugs or on the other hand other great features. So far I am pretty enthusiastic. For designing logos or vector icons it just looks perfect. Ultra-quick to launch, intuitive interface (the one-line help on top is quite precious, I'd like to see in other apps). If you want to import photos - directly from iPhoto, through a very apple-like media browser - and create more complex documents it can handle them pretty well. You can even apply CoreImage filters to your vectors (or imported bitmaps). In order to get decent speed you can chose at which resolution the filters are rendered. Fusion modes (à la photoshop) can be set for each layer. Good stuff. You can easily create the equivalent of Illustrator masks by just using a picture from iPhoto as the fill type for your vector object. It's actually simpler. This also works with text. Just pick up a text object, set the fill mode to text and draw the object around it. The text will flow inside the vector object. You also get all the features you got used to from more expensive packages such as text following a path, aligning, layers, boolean operations and manually entering coordinates in an inspector. You can export from Illustrator or other programs to SVG which this program can save and open correctly. It did at least for the documents I tried (logos) not sure how it fares with complex documents. And if you need to give the file to some printshop it can export to EPS and PDF. I could not try saving SVG documents but I assume that it if can load foreign SVG documents correctly it will save them correctly as well. On the minus side, I think converting text to outline (quite a common task when creating logos) is not very intuitive. If you right-click on a text object and select Convert To Bézier it seems nothing happens? You have to use the menu and use Convert to Outlines. This also took me a while because the french translation uses 'relief' instead of 'tracé' to translate 'outline'. When using lots of effects things can get a bit slow but nothing unbearable. After playing with it for a while my media browser didn't display anything anymore. But relaunching was so fast I quickly forgot about this bug. On the 'very negative' side, I would say the complete blocking of the application after 30 days is not a very smart business decision. It takes time for people to find a pair of hours to evaluate a product they might not be using everyday. Like many people on this thread, I installed it when I saw it mentioned on some website, thinking I would evaluate it some day later. For some reason (no vector work to do) I didn't try extensively it until some weeks later and the tryout time was over! So basically I had to buy it to try it. In the end, I had to erase some 'secret' files in order to reset the trial period. It's absolutely stupid that I have to resort to 'cracking' abilities, just to play with the app and see if I liked it. I think freeverse should just disable saving (completely) in the free version, and let people try it as long as they want. I only hurts the author, because after I got the time to play with it the only thing I want to do, is buy it (as soon as I can find out how to pay with paypal). I was very close to giving up. As an additional developer advice, I would price this app more like 49$ or less in order to get more customers first and then increase the price once you get more followers. 79$ seems a bit high given the current user base. It's high not for the feature set, but to get used to the idea of using some unknown program users need an incentive. Wow, that was a lot of text. Short said: great app.

I wish I knew. I too want to try the updated version of the app before I take the plunge and buy it, but there seems to be no really way of resetting the trial. Drat!

I opened the trial version a while ago to give it a peak, but didn't really use it. Now my trial period is up. Is there any way to give the trial another go?

Use Lineform, win $1000! You heard that right! We've just announced a contest for user-submitted art made with Lineform! So what's the short story? Well, between RIGHT NOW and December 14th, submit your best art made with Lineform for your chance to win a cool $1000. You don't even have to buy Lineform (though we think you will after using it for a little while) to enter the contest--we are accepting entries made with the trial version. For details, check out our super-keen contest site: http://www.freeverse.com/lineform/contest/ Good luck!

A bit silly icon, putting the full name of the app in it. The name of the app is displayed twice now (in the icon and the text below). Oh well.

I'm very impressed with Inform. I've used Adobe Illustrator, but every time I use it I have to consult the manual - especially if I'm doing anything complex. However, with Inform I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to create quite complex graphic effects. It really is easy to use. Inform also has the advantage of being Intel native. While it may not have all the effects of Illustrator (I love Illustrator's tracing options), for many tasks Inform is a far better program and far cheaper to boot. The first release was very impressive, and version 1.0.1 has already appeared to tidy up some of the few small bugs that have been found.

Nice start to a drawing program. Low price is good. The layers is a nice feature. Needs an inspector for object location and size. Preferences for highlighting color would be good as the light green does not show up well and is too thick. The margin display is strange in that it only shows the page inside the margins and chops off the rest of the page. The first thing I want to do when I open the program is delete all the margins so I can see an 8.5x11 piece of paper. Ability to draw shapes like a star, polygon and spiral is needed as well as a perspective distort feature.

I'm not often impressed with vector editing software, but **WOW** this is a pretty solid effort. It's feature set holds up pretty well when compared with Illustrator (an app that has been around much, much longer). If you have any experience at all with Illustrator, you'll likely be up and running in no time. There are a few things that are missing however, that I hope the developer will address in the future: 1. No way to determine the order of the stroke and the fill. Currently the stroke always comes on top of the fill. 2. I can't seem to find any way to precisely position elements on screen (that is, to my knowledge there is no way to position a rectangle at precisely 6.125 inches. 3. Can't set the document to be ruled in pixels. All in all, I think that this is a great start to what may (hopefully) become the cocoa based Illustrator killer I've been waiting for. While it's not yet ready to replace Illustrator at work, for most things Inform's feature set is powerful enough, and it's interface is a joy to use.