Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with software and design

Quark Problems

aburd — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:58:21 -0800

My mom is a graphic designer and uses Quark. She just switched from a PowerPC based Macbook Pro to an Intel based MacBook Pro. Using the new Macbook Pro, she can't seem to open the Quark files she created using the old MacBook pro. It produces an error saying something about the processor. Is there a nice program for converting such files? I don't know much about Quark or design software but please let me know if I am skipping some obvious detail. I want to get her this software for Christmas so I can't be too obvious but I can probably get some details out of her without being too obvious.

What software should I use to design a Webpage logo?

hellodonna — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:09:42 -0800

I am trying to create a professional looking logo for a Web site. I am using GIMP but finding I am very limited in terms of what I can do with it. Is there a software package that I should be using that will allow me to create a good looking logo/header image? I understand Photoshop is the best however, it's really expensive (700.00). Are there any software alternatives or do I just have to pony up for Photoshop? By the way, I have a PC.

Desktop Publishing Software: Advantages and Disadvantages.

Memo — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:14:46 -0800

What software should be used for creating/designing a leaflet or book? Why? Also, is there an industry standard desktop publishing software? (InDesign, QuarkXPress?) For example, if making a leaflet my first impulse would be to make a template in Photoshop or similar and do everything using that. Is there a disadvantage related to doing this instead of using a desktop publishing software?

Is Corel Draw 8 for Windows still gettable?

n3rt — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:32:22 -0800

Is it still possible to get hold of Corel Draw 8 for Windows? Abandonware? My friend's father has just purchased a new PC, and utterly adores Corel Draw 8. Unfortunately, the vagaries of time have misplaced his original CD8 media and he's not to be tempted by newer versions or alternatives. He knows how it works and likes it. Lots.

Asking Corel has fallen on utterly deaf ears: so is it possible to still get hold of this? Is it abandonware? [Doubtful knowing Corel]. I've found version 5 supposedly as a/ware, but he doesn't like that either. :)

Any help utterly appreciated.

Personal Design Software?

zeek321 — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:00:02 -0800

Computer-aided design using Christopher Alexander's Notes on the Synthesis of Form? So I just finished reading the book, which was published in 1964. I want to use the method described therein, and he even talks about a (now very outdated) way to implement it on a computer. I can't find any software online that seems to do anything vaguely like this. I was hoping there was something dead simple out there, like OmniFocus-esque simple. (I want to design really qualitative things like lifestyle and a business.) I'm doing Google searches for:

computer-aided problem solving
functional decomposition software
computer-aided functional decomposition
notes on the synthesis of form problem solving
notes on the synthesis of form software

Nothing seems to be coming up. I feel like the process could be super automated, as in 1) define the nodes and links, and then 2) it will do the decomposition for you. But I've got nothing.

40+ years later, is this style of problem-solving called something different, and I'm not using the right search keywords? What does the business world call this? There must be a software package.

Do I have to write my own software? I think I could hack something together, including even nice visual graphs, with existing libraries, but it would take hours to weeks. Thanks in advance.

Notes: I don't think a mind-mapper, Flying Logic, Tinderbox, or any sort of relatively static layout tool will work. I want the software to take the graph structure I define and actively transform it. There are software libraries that do these sorts of things, but I can't seem to find anything that puts it all together in a user-friendly package.

Why in modern video games are all the enemies still clones?

straight — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:49:00 -0800

Why, in video games, am I moving through an endless variety of environments but killing the same enemies over and over? I think this may be changing in the current generation of games, but if you go back just a few years to something like Half-Life 2, you have these games with enormous amounts of work put into creating level after level of unique environments, but then you have just a handful of models and skins for enemies and NPCs. You never see the same place twice, but you see the same characters over and over.

Why the disparity? Does it really take more work to make a single enemy than to make an entire level? Is this just an accepted convention carried over from the days when computers and consoles only had a tiny amount of room for character sprites?

I'd think that even if making functionally distinct enemies was too hard, they could at least create some (random?) variation in the size/shape of the models or in the skins to make the characters as unique as the environments.

And then there's games like Oblivion and Assassin's Creed where they do have lots of unique individual people but they keep saying the same handful of dialogue over and over. Wouldn't hiring a writer to make more dialogue cost about 1% of what they paid the artists to make all the different people? AC is particularly weird because you have different actors reading the same dialogue (when you save a woman from the guards, she'll give you one of three speeches, read by one of a dozen actors) so it's not like they were working within limits on disk space for the audio.

Recommendations for making Venn diagrams?

tnygard — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:50:03 -0800

Does anyone have software recommendations for making Venn diagrams? Especially complicated ones? Hi all, I have a set of data that I want to make a Venn diagram for, and I was hoping that you might have software recommendations for doing so.

My data is complicated and has several variables. (It shows how the agricultural sector of the American economy breaks down into grains, fibers, vegetables, etc. as well as where these products end up, such as bread products, pasta, etc.) I am not sure if I will make one big diagram with many circles (perhaps 20) or several smaller diagrams.

Ideally I will need something that can:

* Make the circles different sizes to indicate quantity.
* Control the colors of circles.
* Show different degrees of overlapping circles.
* Include many circles -- not just 3.
* Add labels.
* Produces attractive output that is potentially publishable.

I am happy to pay for a software package. But free software is nice.

Thanks in advance for your tips!

Best drafting/illustration software for OS X?

serial_consign — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:38:05 -0800

My favourite drawing application that I've used is Ashlar's Graphite, but it is extremely overpriced. I'm looking for a tool that is both intuitive and accurate, snaps are very important. My problem is that many architecture/drafting applications are mired in extended functionality that I'm not interested in BUT most illustration software doesn't (seem to) have the precision I'm looking for. Is there a middle ground between architectural drafting software and illustration applications? What are my options on a Mac? A good tool is great, one with a fantastic interface is even better. The only thing I've found thus far is Inkscape. What else is out there?

Best way to learn new software?

FlamingBore — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:06:42 -0800

What are the good resources (online, books or local to the Denver area) for learning Adobe's Creative Suite? I'm encouraging my girlfriend's recent expression of interest in learning things like Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Dreamweaver. Aside from the obvious (get the software and use it), what are the best options for learning the software?

She's open to online resources, classes and tutorials but has also expressed interest in local courses. Seems like some of those options are very spendy and I can't find enough information about them to feel great about spending that money. And places like Ledet say that the people who should attend are designers and those looking to master. She's a noob - is it a good idea?

Thanks for the help.

Spend our money by suggesting software!

furtive — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:34:13 -0800

We're a web dev shop with $700 that needs to be spent on software by the end of fiscal. What should we get? We're a small team of three developers, all running OSX with Windows running on Parallels/VMWare for Outlook purposes. We're running Adobe CS3 with a mix of TextMate and BBEdit for the rest. Back end is .net stuff running on ms sql.

What we are looking for are tools that could make us more productive, communicate with each other better, track work or just have fun. $700 max, can't go over.

Help me replicate my beloved Photoshop 5.5 action!

amtho — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 12:04:23 -0800

In Photoshop 5.5 I was able to create an action to resize a layer/selection to a maximum width (say, 200 px). I could quickly select objects of varying initial sizes, run the action, and voila, everything fit neatly in a column. I've had Photoshop CS4 for over a week and can't figure out how to replicate this; my resizing seems to always be happening as a percent of the original size. When I previously created the action (in, yes, good old 5.5 -- which I must add runs extremely fast on my current computer), I just kind of recorded it and it magically worked. I remember being impressed. I did similar actions several times -- it was very handy.

So far, CS4 is great (although the grouping of layers is my favorite feature, and I'm sure that's been around a while), but I really need this functionality.

Pointers to specific action-oriented resources would be helpful. Googling "Photoshop actions" and "Photoshop help" led me to some web sites with lots of stuff there, but I didn't see how to efficiently find the answer to my specific question. I'm ... reluctant to involve Adobe support unless I absolutely must; it seems like a good way to spend a lot of time waiting for an answer, and anyway it would be nice to know how to figure this kind of stuff out.

I have the O'Reilly "Missing Manual" book, but could only find directions on record/playback for actions, and nothing special about resizing.

Need a Beefy Site-Map Generator

Willie0248 — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:16:46 -0800

Attention Web Folk: I'm looking for a visual site-map generator, preferably cheap or free, that can handle an absolutely labyrinthine site. Details follow! I run a site that has thousands and thousands of pages, some of which are automatically generated. Because of of absent-mindedness or scripting errors, some of these pages have dead or misdirected links on them, or maybe I just forgot about them.

What I would like is a program that would go through and index all the pages in a visual (or at least nested) format; that is, it would show one page and show all the pages it links to, and then all the pages THEY link to, and so on. Basically something that I can skim through and see that, oh, this page has some bad links on it.

I have found a hundred different site map generators, but those all just list all the urls. I need something a little more informative!

Thanks Hive Mind!

How can I use my teaching skills to help people?

TochterAusElysium — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:44:05 -0800

In what ways can I use my recently-found software teaching skills to help people? This past year, I've started teaching evening classes in some of the Adobe suite applications (InDesign, Photoshop) at a local design school. It's been an incredibly different, challenging and enriching experience for me, and I was surprised and happy to find that I get very good feedback as a teacher. Now I'm wondering whether I can expand my role as a software teacher, but maybe in a way that might help underprivileged young adults or the unemployed. I'm kind of vague on what kinds of organizations, if any, might need this kind of help; my thought is that in this economy, people who are looking for a different career might want to learn design or page layout. Is that realistic? Should I instead look for one-on-one tutoring opportunities?

Emperor's new clothing designer

relucent — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:20:37 -0800

PromotionFilter: What's the best way to convince the company that they need to create a new position - and that I'm the person to fill it? I work at a small software company (less than 50 employees) that creates industry-specific database applications - the kind of company that sells its products for hundreds of thousands of dollars and by necessity involves a long RFP process for each sale. Since our software is not sold to the public, we have no standards for design: the software works well and fits the specs of our clients, but the user interface is unintuitive, hard to use, and looks like it's from 1998. Our developers are the sole 'designers', with no one else having any input in what the software looks like (or even caring).

I am employed in a technical capacity, but I have what I feel is a good eye for design. I have complete confidence that, given a bit of time, I can bring the company's software from 1998 to at least around 2005: not cutting-edge or progressive in its design, but at least clean and modern instead of dull and clunky. This would be my dream job in the company: a chance to be creative, and a chance to contribute to the company something that no one else can do. (I like my current position, but I'm not passionate about it.)

The problem is that I have only been here two years, and this is my first job out of college, so I don't have prior work experience in a professional capacity. I am also a full decade younger than the average age of the people who work here, which stacks a few more cards against me. Any way I approach this, it will be hard to avoid coming across as critical or pretentious just because of these factors.

I have a lot of supporting materials to make my case: numerous examples of other related things I've done for the company in order to showcase my attention to quality and detail, as well as a very long list of specific things that I'd change for each application, which I've been compiling for the last few months. I did some estimating, and I figure that I have a little over a year's worth of work mapped out just right now, to say nothing of how plans and priorities change over the course of a year. That is, it would take a year just to bring them up to date, but I anticipate still having plenty to keep me busy after that, so I wouldn't be working myself out of a job.

I do have the benefit of small business on my side: I would have no trouble talking directly to the VP or even the president of the company about these issues, and they both know me personally so it wouldn't be out of place.

So my question is this: What is the best way for a junior employee (both in job position and age) to convince the higher-ups that we need a new position at the company AND that I am the person for the job - all without sounding brash or pretentious?

I'm looking for web based Sign Design software.

Chuck Cheeze — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:04:57 -0800

I'm looking for web based Sign Design software. I have a potential client who wants something just like this, but I haven't been able to find anything. This appears to possibly be proprietary. I thought it was Flash, but it is not. I'd say Flash or non-flash would be fine.

Any ideas?

Software to auto format and print game cards?

DetonatedManiac — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:45:16 -0800

I am trying to prototype my own board/card game. I need a way to design a card format onto 4" x 6" and 3" x 3" spaces. Something like the software CCG maker but different sizes and not Magic specific. I am making a prototype of the game, and I feel it would be more cost/time efficient if I could somehow utilize a digital library/database of the cards. That way I could tweak card text and values and then have it all automatically reformatted onto the card fronts and backs. Writing everything out by hand would be a pain.

I don't need the printing solutions yet, and I am not asking for production level quality, just something simple so that I can get text and rudimentary icons (circles with text in them, maybe a stick figure and other simple icons) onto a consistent layout without typing and physically cut and pasting everything from Word doc printouts onto index cards.

I thought database but I only have Open Office and its report generating function seems lacking in visual layout flexibility.

Thanks.

LaTex Book Templates?

tesseract420 — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:39:06 -0800

Where can I find LaTex book templates? It's relatively easy to find templates for an academic thesis, or a long manuscript. But these are pretty bare-bones. Where can I find a nice template for narrative fiction?

Moving from coder to architect?

xmutex — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 07:17:14 -0800

What tools, approaches, and/or books did you use to get beyond thinking of application design from a coder's perspective? I am trying to move beyond fooling with code to design web applications. I lose more hours prototyping code and going back and changing things, and I'd like to develop more of an abstract, design-based approach to things and - if I prove any good at it - not write much code any longer. How did you make the move from developer to designer to architect?

I'm a mac designer who may have to work on Windows...Help!

Mcable — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 15:37:43 -0800

I'm a Graphic Designer and I'm interviewing for a job that may mean I'll have to work on a Windows PC. What do I need to watch out for? I'm a Graphic Designer and I'm interviewing for a job that may mean I'll have to work on a Windows PC. Like most designers, I'm pretty Mac-centric, but this company uses PCs in its design department, and I've never worked on a PC. I know all the basic stuff with windows, but I'm more interested in design and production based issues that might arise. Can anyone point out any pitfalls I need to watch out for?

If those issues actually helped you sell converting to a Mac to your department head, it's especially useful.

Software for my mum.

divabat — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:32:10 -0800

My mum loves interior design. She also loves puzzles but finds black belt Sudoku too easy. She's inheriting a laptop. What sort of programs and games can I load on this laptop for her? I just got a new laptop, so my mum will "inherit" this one while I bring my new one overseas. I would like to load it with some useful software and games she can use.

She generally uses computers for the most basic tasks, though she has spent long nights playing Minesweeper. She's still getting the hang of things though, so we don't want anything complicated.

She'll mainly be checking email and looking at pretty interior design websites, so I'm keeping Firefox on there. I'm also keeping AVG. Is there any spyware program that doesn't need too much tech knowledge to run? I have Spybot S&D but I'm worried that it'll be too complex for her.

She LOVES puzzle games. As mentioned earlier, she has spent HOURS on past computers playing Tritryst, Minesweeper, Freecell, and Solitaire. She is now a Sudoku aficionado but is finding even "black belt" level puzzles to be too easy for her. What sort of games along the same vein (puzzle, easy to learn the basics, increasing difficulty, logical/mathematical) can I install? I'd prefer it be offline software than anything she has to go online for, but websites are good.

She also has asked for something that lets her design; I already have Photoshop on this laptop so I'm keeping it for her. Is there any good software for interior designers or those that like interior design?

Specs about this laptop:
* Acer TravelMate 290, 3 years old
* Windows XP SP2, has Office 2003 and Photoshop and a few other things
* 30GB altogether split in two partitions: C: has 20gb which is mostly taken up by software, D: has 10gb.
* 512MB RAM but kinda slow
* Internet connection is through a mobile modem (uses mobile SIM card); comparable to broadband but not always on
* Speakers passable, I think there's headsets in the house so she can use Skype
* Currently has trackpad; am considering getting optical mouse

Thanks! :)

Help me make great big plywood models!

dowcrag — Wed, 23 May 2007 02:13:59 -0800

CAD on a budget. I want to design some plywood models that are cut/milled from a sheet of plywood, and then slot together to form a 3D model... Whilst the design work is essentially in 2D (to design the shapes that will be cut from each plywood sheet) it would be helpful for me to be able to visualise the completed model on screen. The full version of AutoCAD is way too expensive and their reseller's suggestion is to get the LT version and then also purchase a 3D visualiser programme, but this will still top out at over £1600. SInce this is just for a hobby, that's too much.

So are there any cheaper options? If the 3D facility is the expensive bit I'm happy to just use 2D software and then print onto card for prototyping.

Never touched CAD software before in my life, so ease of use is helpful. Bonus points for software that can export in a file type that a commercial cnc fabricator can use!

Font Preview Software for Logotypes

lunarboy — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:24:30 -0800

Mac/DesignFilter: I once heard of a Mac program that would allow you to preview different fonts using specific text, to help ease the design of a logotype. This isn't a font manager, but more of a design tool. I want to be able to take a company name (e.g. "YourCompany") and have it typeset in 20 different fonts for me to look at and/or print out.

I know there are similar functions in Suitcase, but I want to be able to create a sheet with only "YourCompany" whereas Suitcase will print a whole type spec sheet.

How do I handle this difficult client situation?

pallen123 — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 12:16:16 -0800

Software product manager: How do I handle this difficult client? Need advice...

I have quite a few years experience working in product management and marketing roles -- working w/products teams in large companies and startups. I was retained as a contractor several months ago to manage development of an ambitious new educational product for a new company. It's sort of a CTO/lead-product-designer position. The new company had some general ideas what it wanted, but no experience or organized process for building a product from A to Z.

My problem is this: The CEO hired to run the company has very little experience using and developing software products. He comes from a consulting background. Right now there are only the two of us working for the startup, and I'm finding his desire to be involved in micro-decisions concerning product development to be extremely frustrating. Specifically, despite my efforts to document conversations, conclusions, consensus, use cases, and product features, and to begin to establish realistic timelines for completions of features that have been discussed and locked-down, the CEO continues to try to insert himself in the product design and development process -- by soliciting input from stakeholders on his own, and then designing new features in his head, and deciding that those features are extremely high priority and trivial to include in the product. In this quasi-product-design role, the CEO rarely applies much discipline or consistency when evaluating new stakeholder requests. Every new urgent 'nice to have' becomes an essential feature or product requiring urgent meetings and explorations. In and of itself this behavior would be maybe tolerable. The bigger problem is that the CEO's design instincts are so consistently poor, and his recollection of previous discussions concerning priorities and features so inconsistent, I spend most of my time explaining, re-explaining, and defending why we're doing what we're doing. It's really frustrating. I also feel like I'm on shifting sands because his notion of priorities is so out-of-step with nuanced market and user realities AND his overall understanding of the product we're building, the state of the art, design, is so immature.

Recently I told him directly that I felt he should focus on more CEO-like responsibilities (of which there are numerous) and let me do my job -- or find someone else to do my job whose judgement he can better trust. He says he does trust my judgement. Maybe the guy just really enjoys being in the mix.

By all accounts I do my job very well. All parties involved in the product development and stakeholders that will be using the product feel I understand their needs and how to translate them into elegant, highly-usable product.

The CEO is an otherwise good guy, and he seems competent to handle the business side of things. I just want him to stay the hell out of the kitchen when it comes to product design, development, and soliciting feature input from product collaborators. There are already a lot of other 'personalities' involved in this project, and I just feel it doesn't have a chance of success if I can't focus the majority of my energies on moving forward -- not taking a step back, then moving forward, then taking a step back...

After we discussed my comment about his focusing on CEO role more, he asked me to give it more thought and send him an email with suggestions, ideas, ways we could work together so it's less frustrating for me.

I've got some obvious ideas, but any suggestions would be *greatly* appreciated.

Good billing/invoicing software for Mac

eustacescrubb — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 08:45:31 -0800

Good billing/invoicing software for Mac that's suited to a graphic designer's needs?

Advice in designing a web application for a self-taught developer.

fishfucker — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 23:20:59 -0800

I'm going to write a web application that, if it is successful, will need to be "enterprise-level" -- that is, robust, secure, and extensible. Given the limitations of my current skills, what can I do to minimize design errors? Lots more inside. Here's the deal: I'm writing a web application with a partner that is essentially a tracking and accounting program. My CS skills are primarily self-taught (I've only had the very basics of a CS education in college before I dropped out of the program), and I realize that this will mean that the design of the application will be less than perfect. The project is no-budget, so hiring experienced programmers and designers is not an option at the moment, however, in the future, I'd like to be able to bring professionals in to extend the code.

Simply, I want to build a functional proof-of-concept that will have as much reusable code as possible.

With that in mind, here are the specific questions I have in mind:

1. Is writing such a project in PHP a foolish undertaking? PHP is currently the language I know best. I don't anticipate us needing much more power than what the language is capable of -- since it's mostly storing form data in a DB and recovering it -- but I'm concerned because I've seen other potentially successful web apps fall victim to their own popularity. I'm mainly thinking of Friendster in this case, and how seemed to fall over under the weight of its own codebase (and it's lengthy rewrite), and I want to avoid this. Is it worth the potential code mistakes I'll make writing this in something that other people consider a more "proper" language but with which I am not familar-- like Python, for example? I'm planning to use MySQL as a backend because that's what I'm most familar with (and I don't think we will need more power).

2. Should I consider using existing libraries? For example, in a lot of the work I've done already, I've avoided using stuff in the PEAR repository because it doesn't meet the specific requirements I have. Is this a bad way of doing things? Should I instead base modules on existing libraries and extending them where they do not meet my needs? In short, is hand-rolling everything a mistake?

3. Can you recommend some good books that will help me avoid stupid design mistakes? I've already read a lot of the Joel on Software stuff (which seems more about software PM), and I don't really think I need to read about process (or do I?). Here's what I'm planning to do: get up a barebones proto as fast as possible and have some of the audience who's going to be working with this software evaluate it and give us advice for future iterations. The spec is going to be developed by the person I'm working with who is familar with the industry, so my knowledge of the "what" that the app needs to do is taken care of, but I'll be highly involved in the "how" -- that is, developing a good and very simple (essential for our product) UI.

4. What do I look to for security best practice? I want to take all precautions possible to make sure that the private data remains private. Backup, etc, I'll consider an IT problem, but I want to make sure that do things that are difficult to change later (like user authentication) right there first time. What's the best way to make sure passwords are encrypted in the DB and that cookies are difficult to spoof? How do I make sure my authentication routines are secure AND not sluggish?

5.Besides good documentation and modular structure, what's the best way to make sure that other people can work on code that I've (possibly badly) developed? I don't know if it'll be possible or smart to throw the codebase away after the prototype is completed -- if you think otherwise, please let me know. Is it ever a good idea to just write something as a prototype (that is destined to be thrown away)?

6. Everything is going to live on one server -- should I plan for an eventual distribution of server duties? Is this something a developer even needs to worry about? I've really never had to deal with this before, so I can't elaborate on this question.

Thanks, I'm sure I'll think of tons of questions later as answers come in. Unfortuntely, I can't really entertain any ideas of just having someone else do it because that would pretty much eliminate my participation in this project (which I don't want to do). It's not realistic either that I'll be able to somehow get enough education to meet the skillset of someone with a B.S. either, so although I appreciate responses advising that I gain some more academic experience before undertaking this project, they aren't useful for my current situation.

Anecdotal experience involving your own web application development (and business ventures!) is welcome.