A blog by Cameron and Shannon

(Joey and I were discussing the various merits (and demerits) of Adobe Illustrator. Edited somewhat for readability.)

June 2nd, 2008, 3:20PM
Joey: well, it’s a matter of learning a different program
Joey: it would be cool if it worked like photoshop
Joey: but then everyone who’s been using it for years would have to relearn it
Cameron: yeah, that’s the eternal justification for the legion of inconsistencies between adobe’s products
Cameron: i’m not buying it
Joey: yeah, i mean, it would be nice if they all started moving in a more similar direction
Joey: but you realize that if that happened then you’d have to relearn some of the things you do in photoshop
Cameron: but then it’d work for everything!
Cameron: why is this such a foreign concept?
Cameron: consistency, people!
Cameron: it’s not hard to relearn hotkeys
Cameron: but it IS hard to not smash my monitor when i am using 3 different programs simultaneously that are all made by the same company, all part of the same suite, and have completely different behaviors and hotkeys
Joey: well, the hotkeys thing is easy
Joey: they could allow you to select
Joey: legacy or new
Cameron: i also hate the assortment of dialog boxes with the ‘ok’ button that you hit all the time in photoshop or illustrator
Joey: like what?
Cameron: ‘please enter a value between 0 and 999999.’
Cameron: why not just switch to the max value if the user types something bigger?
Joey: oh yeah, that pisses me off
Cameron: just one example
Cameron: and you have heard my rant about pasting in illustrator, right
Joey: don’t know
Cameron: ok, here is my pasting rant:
Cameron: in photoshop:
Cameron: paste is apple v
Cameron: when you paste something it goes in the exact same place as the selection
Cameron: that is all, one paste command
Cameron: in illustrator:
Cameron: apple v pastes your item in the middle of the window
Cameron: which is the most arbitrary thing ever
Cameron: it means that 100% of the time you have to move something after you paste it.
Cameron: for a program that requires complete precision that is ridiculous behavior
Cameron: however, ‘paste in front’ pastes the item in the same place as the old item
Cameron: … but it’s apple F
Cameron: same for paste in back, which is apple B
Joey: yeah, no problem
Joey: do apple-f
Joey: done
Cameron: right
Cameron: except it renders apple V useless.
Joey: nah, that’s good for pasting not in front
Cameron: what?
Joey: haha
Cameron: there is no ‘paste in place’
Cameron: why is there even a ‘paste in window?’
Cameron: i can move something to an arbitrary middley position a lot more easily than i can move it to exactly the spot i copied it from.
Cameron: but wait, there’s more
Cameron: in Indesign:
Cameron: apple-v does the same middley thing
Cameron: but then apple F is, of course, ‘find’
Cameron: it does have paste in place, which rocks
Cameron: but it is:
Cameron: shift option command F
Cameron: option command F does nothing
Cameron: shift command F does nothing
Cameron: W T F
Joey: yeah, indesign pisses me off way more than illustrator
Joey: also, i do believe you can change the key commands in adobe apps
Cameron: yeah but i am not a windows user. i am not going to go through and reassign all the hotkeys just bc adobe is being dumb
Cameron: btw, in illustrator, apple shift v, apple option v, and shift cmd v are all unassigned
Joey: wait, i’m confused now. i know there’s some reason why it makes sense that illustrator does pasting the way it does
Cameron: hahaha
Cameron: do tell
Cameron: oh, rant #2 is short but perhaps more effective
Cameron: it is regarding tool selection via hotkeys
Cameron: in photoshop each palette item is a hotkey, and then you can toggle through the other ones using shift-hotkey
Cameron: u is rectangle, shift u toggles through ellipse, rounded, etc.
Cameron: nevermind that in illustrator U is gradient mesh
Cameron: shift u does nothing
Cameron: you have to memorize separate letters for all the sub palettes
Cameron: and a whole ton of them don’t have hotkeys
Joey: i would like to point out that i’ve already agreed that you’re right and they should all operate the same as much as possible
Joey: so you can stop arguing the point
Cameron: i am just venting
Joey: haha
Cameron: i never get to do this
Cameron: i would write a flaming blog post on the subject to get it out of my system
Cameron: but i haven’t devoted the time
Cameron: wait … maybe I’ll just paste this conversation