Illustration/Design Software

[KA4HJH]

My personal experience boils down to this:
Illustrator takes while to learn because all BASIC manipulation of paths
(and zooming) is done with ONE tool by holding down different combinations
of modifier keys (it's sort-of like learning to play a musical instrument).
You can swithch tools but it's not necessary. Not only does this eliminate
most routine tool switching (which is one of the holy grails of object
oreintation--no "modes"), you can have, say, the rotation tool selected and
still manipulate paths just buy holding down a modifier key.

When it comes to things like drawing PC boards about the only time I have
to change tools is to edit text or rotate something. But what's really
significant is that the number of times per hour I change tools is much
lower in Illustrator than in any other application I use (except maybe
FrameMaker, which beats QuarkXpress on this score), and certainly lower
than any other vector drawing program I've used (OK, I've never even SEEN
Corel...). This is why I LOVE Illustrator (and FrameMaker). I HATE changing
tools!

Bottom line: Illustrator will do what you're talking about, but it's NOT a
replacement for real CAD when you need it. The math is only three stinking
decimal places, which means that to keep things perfectly aligned you have
to  snap them to a fixed reference polnt and then move them by fixed
amounts to their destination. For PCB work, I set the cursor key distance
to .05" and bump objects into place--thank god most PCB dimensions work out
to multiples of .005". Anything that doesn't is usually so big there's room
for a little error.

As for Illustrator being Mac-like, I always got the impression it was too
Adobe-like...It's gotten better with time, but I still use version 3.2 from
sometimes because it's so fast, especially on a 180 Mhz 604e (I did a lot
of PC boards on a Mac Plus with it back in '92--it wasn't quite as fast
then).

Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor"